Won one on the road

Looks like the Gators pulled out another win today. Although Arkansas was one of the worst teams in the SEC going into today’s game, it was entirely possible that Florida could find a way to lose. They tried to, but managed winning in spite of a late-game meltdown that brought the Hogs within 5 points as the clock expired.

We had trouble with turnovers, just as we’ve had the past few games. I think that’s the one area of the game where losing Drejer has really hurt us. He protected the ball, made smart passes and always finished with several assists. Other guys–Roberson, Walsh–are stepping up and getting assists, but they’re not protecting the ball like they should be. I think we had about 20 turnovers today and that’s just unacceptable. The reason turnovers hurt us so much is that we simply can’t get back and stop the other team from scoring after we turn the ball over; we’re just not fast enough. Our defense is slow anyway, and giving the team multiple opportunities to explicitly exploit our slow transition defense is not a good way to win close games.

I think we’re doing pretty well offensively, but if our perimeter game goes cold for a day, we’ll be struggling to win. That may or may not be a problem with so many great shooters–Roberson, Walsh, Abukar, Humphrey–that can tow the line. I’m looking forward to closing out our SEC schedule against Georgia and Kentucky. If we can with both those games, it’ll give us a huge boost of confidence as we move into the NCAA Tourney, regardless of how we perform in the SEC Tourney.