Florida Women’s Basketball Learns From Historic Three-Game Stretch
Florida women’s basketball recently completed a stretch no Division I team has ever seen. Seven days. Three top-six opponents.
The gauntlet began Jan. 26 at No. 6 LSU, where Florida fell 89-60 in Baton Rouge. Next, it continued Jan. 29 at home against No. 4 Texas in an 88-68 loss. Last, it ended Feb. 1 at No. 5 Vanderbilt, with an 82-66 defeat in Nashville.
Florida (14–11, 2–8 SEC) will look to build on its response Sunday at noon in the O’Dome against Arkansas (11–13, 0–9).
“We will have played the top of the league, playing three top-six teams in seven days,” coach Kelly Rae Finley said. “It’s a tremendous challenge to help us improve and help this program take the next step forward.”
Each game concluded in a double-digit loss, but the results revealed clear patterns and learning points for the Gators against elite competition.
Florida’s ability to compete early emerged as a pattern. Against LSU, the Gators trailed by just three after the first quarter and seven at halftime. Florida led 27-26 late in the second quarter while holding the nation’s top-scoring offense to 36 first-half points before being outscored 53-31 after the break.
Against Texas, Florida won the first quarter. Me’Arah O’Neal hit a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to give the Gators a 19-16 lead, but Texas flipped the game in the second quarter with a 26-12 run.
The clearest example came at Vanderbilt. Florida led by nine at the end of the first quarter and again at halftime, building a lead as large as 15. The Gators held Mikayla Blakes, the nation’s second-leading scorer at 25.6 points per game, to six points on 3 of 11 shooting and 0 of 7 from three in the first half. Vanderbilt responded with a 32-12 third quarter, and Blakes finished with 30 points.
Florida has consistently shown it can hold its own with the nation’s best. Before second-half struggles set in, the Gators stayed close with No. 3 South Carolina, No. 7 Kentucky and all three top-six teams during the gauntlet. The Gators held a lead at some point in all five of those games against top-10 opponents.
The second trend stemmed from turnover trouble.
Florida committed 17 turnovers against LSU, 21 against Texas and 23 against Vanderbilt. Those mistakes turned into 21 points for LSU, 26 for Texas and 33 for Vanderbilt. Each opponent used Florida’s miscues to fuel game-changing runs.
“Too many turnovers,” Finley said.
The third pattern involved interior play.
Florida lost the points-in-the-paint battle in all three games, getting outscored 36-22 by LSU, a whopping 60-30 by Texas and 32-26 by Vanderbilt. LSU outrebounded the Gators 48-28, as Florida struggled to match the physicality inside and gave up extra possessions on the glass.
Florida responded by reversing all three of those trends Thursday night in its victory over Auburn.
After losing 60-50 to Auburn on the road in January due largely to 19 turnovers, the Gators bounced back to defeat the Tigers 61-53 in Gainesville. First-year coach Larry Vickers leads an Auburn team that ranks second in the SEC in steals, paced by Kaitlyn Duhon, who averages 3.1 steals per game and sits top 15 nationally. Florida trailed after the first quarter and at halftime, but took control after the break, outscoring the Tigers 22-12 in the third quarter and never giving the lead back.
“That’s been a big thing in practice,” Gators guard Laila Reynolds said. “Third quarter, second half defense. We did that.”
Florida also reversed the other two defining trends from the gauntlet. The Gators won the turnover battle 18-16 against an Auburn team that thrives on pressure and chaos, and prevailed on points in the paint and the battle on the glass.
“Putting pressure in the paint has been the thing in practice all week,” Reynolds said. “When we get the ball in the paint, good things happen.”
Amid the stretch, star sophomore Liv McGill made the Nancy Lieberman Award midseason watch list, which honors the nation’s top point guard. She was one of 10 players selected.
“That’s what leadership at the point guard position looks like,” Finley said of McGill.
With lessons learned from the league’s best, the Gators now search for consistency and more wins as the SEC tournament sits less than a month away.
For Finley, the message remains clear: “Once we feel the feeling, we’re not going to look back.”
Category: College Basketball, Gators Women's Basketball, SEC, Women's College Basketball
