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Another Noble Friday

Tonight was the second Friday that I spent at Barnes & Noble since I got here. Part of me thinks that makes me some sort of extravagant loser, while the rest of me thinks it was a good time and an excuse to drop 30 bucks on some magazines and a book. I got a 5-dollar copy of Cracking the Genome: Inside the Race to Unlock Human DNA by Kevin Davies. The magazines were on web design, digital photography and, yes, Nintendo Power. I couldn’t resist the Nintendo Power because I used to read it when I was a kid and I figured it was worth five bucks to see what sort of rubbish I used to enjoy. Turns out it’s the boring, short-on-actual-content sort of rubbish that I enjoyed so much when I was younger.

Florida game tomorrow

I think we play Arkansas tomorrow. I think they’re doing pretty poorly this year, so hopefully we’ll be able to grab a road win and build some confidence. I can’t make any sort of predictions because I don’t know much about their team. I think I read somewhere that they have a couple strong wingmen, so that could spell trouble for our perimeter defense, especially if we’re playing a zone again. I guess we’ll see…

Speaking of Basketball

I’m playing tomorrow morning at 9, so I’m gonna’ go ahead and get some sleep now.

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The Gators win two in a row

I only heard the last 15 minutes of the South Carolina vs. Florida game, but the last 5 minutes was all I needed to hear. When I tuned in, the score was something like 32-28, South Carolina. For the next 10 minutes, the differential stayed about the same and the Gators seemed to have trouble getting anything going in their halfcourt offense. Also, we couldn’t get a rebound at either end of the floor. I think Roberson was our only player in double figures with Lee and Walsh knockin’ on the door. Then, with about 4 minutes left in the game, those three completely took over. Lee had some nice plays inside for easy 2-pointers, Walsh made some clutch shots including a contested 3-pointer on an assist from Lee and Roberson continued selecting good shots and even made a difficult runner in the paint. On the other end of the floor, Lee, Walsh and Roberson all pulled down some boards to limit South Carolina to one shot on offense. Roberson finished with about 24 points on something like 6-of-11 shooting from 3-point land. Walsh and Lee both came on late, hitting clutch free-throws (I think both of those guys are Top 10 in the SEC in free-throw percentage) and basically owning Carolina by scoring at will, rebounding effectively, knocking down free-throws and stealing the ball a few times.

Those are the highlights. From what I heard, we played with very little energy for most of the game. I think we finished with only 69 points, which is more than 10 points below our average, but this was a home game, so we should’ve been around 85 points. We didn’t seem to respond too well to Carolina’s pressure defense (they were running a full-court, three-quarter-court and half-court press, if I remember right) and, although we didn’t turn the ball over too many times, we certainly weren’t making anything happen on offense for most of the game. We couldn’t pull down many boards, which is unacceptable with Richard, Moss and Lee as our big guys and I don’t think we were playing with much energy throughout the game. The good news is that all things things can definitely be corrected by the Tourney (SEC or NCAA) as they’re mostly stemming from either inexperience or just a lackluster effort.

One thing that troubles me, as it has all season, is our half-court defense. Our zone is ineffective and we tend to give up points to slashers–guys who attack off the dribble either from the wings or the free-thrown line. I think this is a result of our low intensity in some of our games. The main problem is that our help is slow getting to the right spot and we seem to bail ourselves out with weak fouls that show that we’re allowing them to drive by us and then trying to slow them down by grabbing or hooking. Again, this can be partially corrected with more energy (gained by good coaching and maybe some rest and a little motivation before Tourney season), but I’m afraid the inexperience factor might be pretty severe. We have a lot of young guys and I think some of them just aren’t completely comfortable playing at the college level yet. It seems like there’s quite a bit of miscommunication–especially on the defensive end of the floor–and that’s going to hurt us against well-organized offensive teams. I hope that our older “veteran” players (although we only have one senior) can help the younger guys adapt to the game’s speed and intensity before the season’s over.

I think if we pick it up a little by scrapping for loose balls, playing more aggressive defense and crashing harder on the boards, we will have a reasonable shot at winning the SEC Tourney (I think the past few years have made it obvious that it’s anybody’s Tournament to win) and hopefully making it out of the first weekend for the NCAA Tourney. Only a few more regular-season games left and then the Madness begins.

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All cleaned up

It’s finally happened. I’m finally settled into my apartment. The only odd-ball thing that remains is my old, busted-up computer desk and that’s slowly being dismantled and shipped off to the junkyard. I’ve got everything set up as I want it and my place actually feels like a home.

Back to the grind

I’m not super excited about returning to work tomorrow, but I do feel like I had adequate time to relax and regroup this weekend. I guess some weekends feel too short–usually, this happens when I’m busy all weekend and never have a chance to stop and enjoy it–but this one felt about right. It doesn’t hurt knowing that tomorrow I’ll have a project waiting for me that I’m enjoying. There are still parts of my job that I don’t particularly enjoy, but that’s part of life and I’m very comfortable with taking the bad with the good.

Finally, a win

Christian Drejer has defected and our team has been given the daunting task of finishing the season well enough to secure a spot in the Tourney. As I watched our game at Ole Miss on Saturday, I immediately saw a flash of something special. The score see-sawed throughout the first half, but, as I spoke to a good friend during half time, I knew the second half wouldn’t be a contest. I was confident that we’d keep our turnovers down and end up winning by 10 to 15 points. In fact, the final score was 81-66, Gators. That seems about right.

It’s still evident that we have trouble defending the paint and I’m really not sure what we can do about it except to move faster and play better help defense. It doesn’t seem like we’re playing the wrong defense, or that we’re incapable of playing the right defense, but that we’re simply not executing quickly enough to stop faster teams who attack the basket inside. Hopefully, Billy D. will figure something out over the next few games. I think our guys are doing a great job of hustling for loose balls, creating turnovers and selecting high-percentage shots. Our offense is strong and can out score any team in the country if our defense will just pick it up a bit. I think we just need to move faster to disrupt passing lanes and help the perimeter defenders when they’re beat off the dribble. That means a lot of switching and hustling to the weak spot on the floor. Our guys are capable of it and it looks like they’re starting to realize the importance of consistent, aggressive defense. I just hope they’re ready come March.

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Ah, sweet couch-naps!

That means the furniture’s here and I’ve already had an incredible nap on the couch. I can only hope future naps are as great as today’s.

The Prelude

Of course, a good nap is best when preceded by much busyness. I played ball this morning for only the second time since I moved here. I played much better than the previous time, but I still have a lot of work to do. I haven’t gotten my shooting rhythm back yet, and I need to work on my court vision. Overall, I was pleased with my progress and I’m looking forward to playing again next Saturday.

I also helped a friend move an armoire from his cousin’s house to his apartment. It wasn’t nearly as difficult as we thought it would be and I enjoyed eating lunch and hangin’ out a bit with my buddy and his wife. It’s nice to have friends with whom I can spend the occasional Saturday afternoon. I mean, I like my apartment and all that, but friendship is irreplaceable.

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Real World quote of the week

“You are misinterprettating the situation…” – Brad

Quickly comin’ together

Turns out my computer desk will be here tomorrow, so that means my apartment will essentially be settled and furnished by this weekend. That’s just in time for me to ship out to El Segundo for a week. Ah, sweet irony.

Is there some sort of lame weblog award? I think I could win that. Speaking of winning…

Gators droppin’ the ball

So, we had another basketball game tonight and things seem to be getting worse by the game. I’m pretty sure this is the worst season I’ve seen as a Gator. Tonight’s loss was to Georgia, who already had 10 losses to our 6 or 7. We managed to lose another decent lead by crummy play, careless passing and cruddy defense. It didn’t help that our only senior, Colas, and our best passer/assist leader were out for stupid reasons. Colas is apparently serving a 3-game, University imposed suspension for who knows what, while Christian Drejer is back in Gainesville contemplating playing pro ball in Europe. It looks like there’s an outside chance that we could miss the NCAA Tourney this year, although that’s extremely unlikely. I guess the upside is that we can’t really do much worse and, although we just broke our streak of 98 consecutive weeks in the polls, we have an opportunity to begin a new streak. Of course, the streak I’m interested in starting is a winning streak.

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Another choke

I didn’t see or hear the game, but from what I could glean from Sportscenter, the Gators let another one get away today. Apparently, we had a lead late against LSU, but we choked it away in the last few minutes. I expected us to get beat up a little inside (their frontcourt is solid, while their backcourt could use a lot of work), but I ultimately thought we would pull this one out, especially since we were playing at home. I thought wrong.

I noticed an LSU player doing the “Gator Chomp” just before time expired… I’m not sure what compels players to mock our Gator chomp, but I find it ironic that other teams never mock it before they get a win. Why? Probably because they know we can beat any one, any time if we bring our A game, and who wants to look stupid mocking our chomp and then gettin’ beat? I guess am entertained by how flamboyant other teams come after they squeak out a win against us… where’s all that confidence before the game, fellas?

Switchfoot

They have a new song–Meant to Live, I think–being played on the local alternative station, and I think it’s a fantastic song. Here are the lyrics:

Fumbling his confidence
And wondering why the world has passed him by
Hoping that he’s bid for more than arguments
And failed attempts to fly, fly [Chorus]
We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside
Somewhere we live inside
We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside

Dreaming about Providence
And whether mice or men have second tries
Maybe we’ve been livin with our eyes half open
Maybe we’re bent and broken, broken

[Chorus]

We want more than this world’s got to offer
We want more than this world’s got to offer
We want more than the wars of our fathers
And everything inside screams for second life, yeah

We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
We were meant to live
We were meant to live

I think they’re playing it on the radio because it’s a great piece of music… but I’m glad to hear that Switchfoot is making a breakthrough into the maintsream on the wings of this particular song. The lyrics are powerful and it’s difficult to listen to the song without asking, “Why are we meant to live?”

More Target time

So, I went back to Target tonight to exchange a couple lamps I bought. I ended up spending about $150 and making two trips instead of just one. I had been keeping a list of stuff I needed, so I took this opportunity to cross some things off that list. I mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to write a little about what all went into moving–logistically, financially, etc.–and I’m definitely including this list. The list has things I never would’ve thought about until I lived here for a while. Hopefully it’ll save me some trouble later on, or maybe it’ll help someone else. That’s coming soon.

Snow

I went to go play basketball this morning and I was greeted by several inches of fresh snow. I think this was the first time I’d ever woken up to see fresh snow on the ground (unless I include the Winter of ’89 when it “snowed” a little in J-ville; it was mostly just ice). I took several pictures, but didn’t realize until after it stopped snowing that my camera was set to the lowest resolution (1 Megapixel), so I’m not sure how they’ll turn out. I hope to post them on JoshDoody.com pretty soon.

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Gator Basketball: Vandy vs. Florida I predicted that we’d win by 25–10 gained in the first half and the other 15 gained in the second half. After hearing that we’re only leading by 3 after the first half, I realize that we’re a little behind my prediction, but I still think we’ll win by 25. Obviously, that’s going to require quite a run, but I think we can pull it off. I think it’s possible because the Gator’s have been missing a lot of shots that would normally go in. I think if we keep hustling like we’ve been and our shots start falling, we’ll destroy Vandy. I mean, we should anyway, but it’s tough when the shots just won’t fall. Second Half Well, we won, but only by 10. I think we could’ve beaten them by 25 if our shots had fallen and they hadn’t shot over 50%. We obviously still have weaknesses in our post defense and I think today’s game demonstrated that we have problems with our post offense, too. The good thing is that our guys seemed to be playing a lot scrappier–chasing loose balls, creating turnovers and workin’ hard on the boards–and I think that’s something we’ve needed but lacked all season. If we can continue being productive from the 3-point line and shore up our post position, I think we’ll be a real contender in the Tourney in March.

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Finished Wardrobe

I finished The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe tonight and I’ll be starting The Horse and His Boy tomorrow. I’m not moving through the series as quickly as I’d anticipated, but only because I’ve found other things to occupy my time. I decided I’m headed to Barnes & Noble tomorrow to pick up a copy of The World According to Garp since I began it last semester, but never finished it (the copy I was reading was borrowed). I figure that’ll give me something else to read. I also have a book on poker (The Theory of Poker) to finish up and Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. I’m sure there are others I’ve partially read, but those are the only ones that come to mind.

Basketball: Vandy vs. Florida

We play Vandy at home tomorrow and I think we’re going to trounce them. I’m predicting we’ll win by 25 points or more. I think we’ll be up by 10 at the half and we’ll get the other 15 in the second half.

Time to sleep.

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Kentucky vs. Florida

I’ve been lookin’ forward to this game for a while now.

Thoughts on the first half

Most remarkable moment of the half? Roberson’s 26-foot 3-pointer at the end of the half. Of course, if he’d missed it, I would say it was a horrible shot, but I’m swayed by the scoreboard.

As for the rest of the half, I think we’re doing a good job with our transition defense. In fact, our defense in general is pretty solid except for our problems around the basket. Our help defense is still slow, especially against all the athletes on Kentucky’s squad. We’re doing a decent job of closing out on the perimeter and I think we’ve done a good job defending 3-pointers, although Kentucky seems to be finding a way to knock down well-defended shots. Our offense is sputtering, but I sort of expected that given two things: 1) Our offense seems to sputter at the beginning of every game and 2) Kentucky is known for defense. I think it’s obvious that our offense is stronger when we’re threatening to score transition buckets. We have to run Kentucky into the ground, even if we’re not scoring, so that they are spread out more on defense.

For the second half, I expect the tempo of the game to pick up a bit. I think as the tempo picks up in transition, our inside-out game will pick up and we’ll get more good looks on the perimeter. As that happens, I think the double-team on our big guys will subside and I expect Kentucky will eventually drop into some sort of zone defense. Then, I think our passing game will start to come into play and we’ll get more open looks. Of course, this is all speculation and I could be totally wrong… We’re down by 4 right now and I think we’ll win by 5 because we’re a second-half team and Kentucky has a knack for losing leads in the second half.

Thoughts on the second half

Everything went about as I expected except Kentucky never dropped into a zone defense. Of course then I got to see a classic Gator choke during the last couple minutes of the game. I don’t really have much to say since the second half went exactly as I hoped it would… until we went home a few minutes early. The end of the game was reminiscent of the Florida vs. Creighton game in the first round of the NCAA Tourney in 2002.

I couldn’t be more sick of seeing Gator chokes: 2 years ago against Creighton, the last three home games against Kentucky, this year’s Maryland game. That’s basketball. How ’bout football? I don’t even know where to begin. What about Alabama at home in ’99? First home loss in 30 games; lost by a series of bungled plays at the end of the game and even in overtime. Three seasons ago at Mississippi State, two seasons ago at Ole Miss, this season at Miami, at home against Ole Miss, at home against FSU. And those are just the highlights.

But maybe I’m just looking at the dark spots. What about wins we’ve eeked out at the last second? Well, there’s the home basketball game against Georgia last year where Roberson drained a 3-pointer on Hayes with only seconds left. There’s the football game at Tennessee in 2000 where we won by a controversial touchdown pass by Jabar Gaffney in his breakout game. The infamous Mike Miller coast-to-coast game winner against Butler in the 2000 NCAA Basketball Tourney. And that’s about all I can think of. Of course, I’m probably missing one or two, but I know I’m missing several tough losses, so I’m sure it all evens out… or at least my point is made.

I’m tired of ranting. I hope the Gators can start putting together some fantastic wins because I’m getting tired of seeing fantastic losses.

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Florida Basketball

I’ve been a huge Gator Basketball fan since I enrolled at Florida in ’98. Thanks to my extended stay as an engineer, I got to see 5.5 basketball seasons as a student (I’m finishing the 6th right now).

This basketball season has been up and down and I’m confident it can go up again before the end of the tournament in March. As a whole, our team plays well together and has a lot of talent. When our shooters get hot, I think we’re capable of smoking any other team in Divsion 1-A: one of our Point Gaurds, Anthony Roberson, shot 46% from 3-point land over a 10-game stretch and one of our Centers, David Lee, made 16 straight jumpers over a couple game stretch. We have other shooters–Lee Humphry, Matt Walsh (when he’s on), Christian Drejer–who can light it up, too. Our transition offense is solid and, if our defense is pullin’ its weight, we can run up serious numbers on points scored off turnovers.

Those are the positives. There are a few negatives, but I think all of them are correctable by Tourney time: our transition defense still needs work, our defense down low seems beaten easily, especially off the dribble, and we sometimes depend too much on our 3-point shooting. The good news is that our transition defense has been steadily improving since the beginning of the season (I think that was the one thing that really lost the Maryland game earlier this season) and our dependency on the 3-point shot isn’t all bad since we have Lee, Moss, Richard and Colas inside. Lee is a phenomenal offensive player and Moss and Richard will be, eventually. Colas has bulked up a little and he holds his own, but he needs to work on his strength when gathering in rebounds.

One thing I think we really need to work on is our defense down low. On the surface, the problem might seem related to our centers not holding their own, but that’s not the case. The real problem is that our help defense is slow. In fact, I think our whole defense could be quite a bit more aggressive, both on the perimeter and in the paint. The problem down low is that our guys don’t help quick enough when the other team penetrates from the perimeter off the dribble. I think our centers do a great job fronting on defense, but they don’t seem to help out quick enough when the ball is moving around and they’re defending a spot instead of a person. This allows a lot of baskets by the other teams guards and small forwards who are quick and can get within 10 feet or so for a good look.

I think our problem on the perimeter is that we aren’t aggressive enough with attacking the gaurds. We allow them to bring the ball too far in before we start defending them. I think our defense needs to compensate for lack of speed helping by being more aggressive outside the 3-point line. We need to create turnovers before the other team even gets set up in their half-court offense. Our full-court trap is good, but I’m afraid it causes more trouble than its worth since teams seem to score easily if they get past the press.

I guess this is a lot of rambling, but these are my thoughts. I hope we get past the first weekend in the Tourney this year and I know we’re capable of playing with any other team if we get things rolling. I can’t wait to see what we’re capable of over the next few weeks.