A Brief Re-Evaluation of Florida Basketball’s Season-Ending Moments
The plan: foul Iowa, ensuring a win. The execution: bad. Very bad. Oh, and a loss.
Although fans are still in disarray a week after the upset that was Iowa 73, Florida 72, Gators head coach Todd Golden’s plan was, analytically, the right path to shut down the Hawkeyes. It was just the five on the court that failed to execute Golden’s strategy, ending with the loss. Here’s why.
Picking up the game with 8.9 seconds left Florida wing Isaiah Brown made his second free throw after missing the first, putting the Gators up 72-70. Iowa now had the ball, and Golden told his team to foul Iowa to prevent a 3-pointer, which, well, the world ultimately watched happen. This is when Golden made the bold choice to switch to a press defense, something the Gators hadn’t done throughout the season. This choice upset fans, but, logically, how else were the Gators going to get a foul without a little more aggression?
Florida, likely, was told to target Iowa forward Cam Manyawu, who has a 57.5% free throw percentage. Essentially: Manyawu only makes about half his free throws. Golden’s reasoning: All of the possible outcomes from fouling ended in more avenues for the Gators to pull off a win.
In the worst case, Manyawu would make both of his free throws, tying the game 72-72. That would have given Florida possession of the ball and Alvaro Folgueiras’ three-pointer wouldn’t have ever happened. In that case, even if Florida didn’t score and simply kept the ball to run out regulation it would have gone to overtime as a favorite and the outcome could’ve been different.
Best case scenario, Manyawu misses at least one of his free throws, which is what he averaged, anyway, and Florida gets the ball back with the lead. Near-definite survival.
In short: Golden’s plan provided the best chance of escaping to Houston for the Sweet 16. It was the way the Gators’ defense played that knocked them out of the tournament. Florida’s Boogie Fland took a bad angle defensively, allowing Iowa guard Bennett Stirtz to catch the ball while running up the court. That left Fland with no time to catch up and set himself to defend as Stirtz passed to Folgueiras, and Folgueiras made the 3-pointer that gave Iowa the win.
“We just didn’t execute it,” Fland said. “I took a bad angle, but the press had worked.”
Execution, execution, execution. That’s what went wrong for Florida on Sunday night.
Slightly away from that point, but also of note, some even blamed Florida’s star forward, Thomas Haugh, for creeping inward to defend instead of staying on Folgueiras. They fail to consider why Haugh made that choice. Iowa’s Tate Sage cut in, waiting just below the net for a potential pass. Haugh decided to defend Sage, who had the higher chance of scoring. A 3-pointer from Folguerias was less likely than a 2-point field goal from Sage, at that moment.
“We had a good plan for what we could do,” Florida forward Alex Condon said. “But we didn’t execute.”
There’s that word again.
None of this is to say fans don’t have a right to be upset. Florida losing to Iowa is a surprising, big deal in both Gainesville and the college basketball world — cutting the No. 1-seed Gators’ March Madness run short. However, when venting about the frustrations of the game, consider the fact that Golden tactfully made the right choice. It was just the players that failed.
Category: Basketball, Gators Men's Basketball
