Through 20 minutes, everything seemed normal for Florida on Monday night. The Gators were up by 26 points at halftime against Dartmouth, and it felt like a formality until the bench would get unloaded one final time ahead of SEC play starting this weekend.
But then in the second half, the Gators seemingly went into cruise control and were actually outscored 45-41 in the second half by the Big Green. That did not make Golden a happy camper after the game.
Florida closes out non-conference play with win over Dartmouth
Golden opened his post-game press conference, making it clear that he wants Florida to play a full 40 minutes, not just 20:
“We played really well to start the game, up 26 and a half at halftime. I thought we had a really, really good first half. Played with great intent. Just obviously dominated them (the) first however many minutes on the glass. And just played with great purpose.
And I was joking… It's difficult when you win by 22, but you're disappointed when the game ends.
And again, that's part of the threshold and the expectation that we have in our program. And actually, credit to Dartmouth as well. I thought they shot the ball really, really well in the second half and took advantage of some defensive breakdowns that we had.
But I don't think we defended with enough tension in the second half. I didn't think we played with enough pace and enough physicality. And that's the kind of next step that we keep talking about. With this group, we got to play a full 40. And if that means winning this game by 50, that's what it means. But we didn't do that tonight. And again, credit to Dartmouth's second half.”
To Golden’s point, Florida had 15 offensive rebounds in the 1st half and 13 second-chance points to Dartmouth’s zero in the 1st half. Florida didn’t shoot the ball well from three, the constant reoccurring theme of this team, but their size was simply too much for Dartmouth to deal with. The Gators also had 26 free throw attempts in the 1st half to Dartmouth’s seven.
But Florida didn’t keep its foot down on the gas in the 2nd half, and a big reason why Dartmouth won the 2nd half was their own three-point shooting. The Big Green were 8-15 from three in the 2nd half, and the Gators just didn’t make life difficult enough for Dartmouth.
It may seem like Golden is just being negative for the sake of being negative, but there are the standards needed to navigate SEC play and beyond. Dartmouth is ranked 251st in KenPom, so it’s not like Florida was playing some scrappy mid-major we could see in March.
And it’s the same standards that enabled Florida to cut down the nets last April.