My observations from the Florida game

[EJ]

My observations, for what it is worth...

1. Florida may be the best team we see all year except maybe Texas. If two of their regular starters are hurt and they are that good with two freshmen starting, what happens when the regular starters get healthy? YIKES.

2. Meeking can play with anyone in the country... when he sets his mind to it.

3. I thought all of our backups (freshmen and sophomores mostly) played well the entire second half, especially since Florida had to keep their "starters" out there. We did not much of a drop off in talent from the first string to the second, only a change in experience.

4. Florida shoots free throws about as well as we do. ops:

[OmahaDawg]

i agree, but who is going to shoot from the outside for us? I say play Dean and Woods at the 2 guard

[ARKDAWG02]

Florida will definitely be a force in the SEC this year. I haven't seen Arkansas play yet, but I think we can win that game. Texas will be a load, maybe we'll take care of the ball better against them. Richard knows what he needs to work on now at least.

[PawDawg]

In the words of another Tech Coach, "no doubt about it" Florida is a VERY good team. How 'bout that Walsh guy? Gotta love him! What a player. As good as Florida is, take away about 2/3 of our turnovers (which would still not be acceptable) and we are in the game. Then of course, we have to make the easy shots we missed underneath. Is it just me or do we seem to miss more than normal of the "easy" shots? That's "very frurstating!". One more thing........It doesn't appear that one (un-named) of our players did any hand/eye coordination drills during the off season.

[glm47]

Who will step up from the outside? Not just every now and then, but night after night. I was hoping it would be Wilder, but he looked horrible, maybe just first game jitters. He is a good shooter and just needs to relax and take his shots as they come to him in the regular flow of the game, rather than forcing things. And he has to quit turning the ball over.

[weunice]

I watched the game and was very eager to see if what I saw ended up being clear in the box score ...

Folks, Florida shot 58% for the game. Unless shooting has all of the sudden improved in NCAA mens basketball, they were hot. I thought at the half when they finished it with 61% shooting that they would return to earth but they did not.

Free throws were a non-factor (we shot 73%, they 66%) both hit 16
THEY OUTREBOUNDED US ... part of that was the lack of rebound availablity in the game because Florida just didn't miss. We won on the offensive boards but we had more chances there ... way more.
Turnovers killed us (22) but they had almost as many as we did (18). Clearly points off turnovers were a huge factor as they took advantage of their opportunitites, where we did not.
We shot very poorly (39%) and I do not think our shot selection was always the best.
Speed/talent ... uhhh Florida is fast and talented top to bottom. We are good but we are not there yet. I almost wish their best players HAD been in the game

I was encouraged by several things.
We are not phased by playing at a hostile environment on the road.
Also it did not look like our reserves were a huge dropoff in talent. In fact, they looked pretty good. We played 11 players last night and only one of those 11 had less than 10 minutes PT (7 actually) ...
The coaching did not seem as bad as folks had led me to believe. We ran some set plays early in the game that looked pretty good and for the most part we broke their press early in the game. I am shocked that Florida stayed with it because we ended up with some easy buckets. It did keep us from setting up our half court sets with any time left on the play clock and that likely caused some rushed shots which are reflected in the final shot %age.

All in all ... a loss sucks but few teams finish a season without them. We will have plenty of chances to prove that we are better than what we displayed last night. We need to shake it off and get better.

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/scores...19/lapfak.html

[BULLDAWG]

Someone has to step up and hit the open shot. Meeking will be double teamed all year and he will need to find the open man. That open man needs to consistently hit the open shot. That was a major problem last night.

[Dwayne From Minden]

Someone has to step up and hit the open shot. Meeking will be double teamed all year and he will need to find the open man. That open man needs to consistently hit the open shot. That was a major problem last night.

I think GUY or guys will be Eric Woods and maybe Corey Dean...

I really think Bruce will push to be the starting pg by the time conference rolls around...

DBrown had an off-nite and struggled defensively...

Tiger probably played his best game ever against that type of competition...

Our starting guard play was poor at best and I think the last 15 minutes of the ballgame was an eye-opener to KR and was very good for Edwards, Dean and Woods - you can't practice that type of environment...

[Tech77]

Re: Florida's shooting percentage -- those fast break layups off turnovers will raise you percentage quite nicely.

[JAY]

except for the 5-10 minute onslaught of pressure and forcing turnovers, we hung with them. they blew it open in that stretch then cruised to the win. that freshman was way better than i ever dreamed.

i think wilder will be fine, i know his shots were off and he forced some. i do think, however, that edwards, woods, and dean should get at least 15 minutes a game and if they play well, dean and edwards should have a chance at unseating felton or wilder. i really think dean can be our scorer. he will be the go to guy next year.

[JHC15]

You said it!!!! No truer words were ever spoken. Meeking will be hounded the entire year. Get ready.

[Gooddawg]

I really thought our experience would keep us in this game and even give us a little advantage over all of these freshman Florida was suppossed to have but boy was I wrong. They were very talented and I'll take talent over experience any day of the week as of last night! It has been my opinion that the last 5 minutes of the first half and the first 5 minutes of the second half are very important to the outcome of cbb games and momentum/confidence. In the last 5 minutes of the first half Florida went on their 11-2 run much in part to our sloppy handling of the ball allowing them to surge ahead by 14 at the break. To start the second half we score 1 point in the first 7 minutes of play? Why we didn't immediately try and get Tiger involved I don't know but we missed numerous easy lay-ups and this blew the game out of the water. Boy was I glad Richard benched Felton and Wilder and let Edwards, Dean and Woods play. I enjoyed seeing those guys on the floor at the same time even though we were getting blown out. Woods has a nice stroke and was impressive I thought. Dean is gonna be a player with his attacking and slashing. If he can practice up on his free throws he could get to the line a million times and score a bunch of points.

What can you say about Bruce Edwards? He was GREAT last night. In fact, I say start him next game and put Felton at the 2. We looked a lot better with him at the point. He can handle the ball like a yo-yo and his D is too good. He can break you down and penetrate and he handled the press all alone. I don't know how many turnovers he had but I don't remember many of the 22 being his.

Tiger was the man last night and I wish we could have gotten him the ball more to start the second half. He beat a lot of double teams last night and scored on them. Just as impressive was his D as he SHUT down thier leading scorer and held him to 4 pts.Zach was disappointing, he missed a lot of lay-ups as put backs. I didn't think D Brown played that bad on O, but Walsh lit him up. Hamilton also was a big key for them and he was good.
All in all, I think this game will give Richard some things to look at and maybe make his job a little harder b/c I think Dean, Edwards, and Woods deserve some PT this year somehow and somewhere.

[Cool Hand Clyde]

Unlike many of our posters who don't know a damn thing about football but claim to be the reincarnation of Vince Lombardi, I will be the first to admit my basketball knowledge is lacking.

But it seems our experience (5 Sr. starters) should have been an advantage for us but there was none.

[PawDawg]

I'll help you say it Clyde!

Basketball - I'm a student of the game (don't know a thing)

Football - I'm an expert. Heck, I almost walked on at Tech :lol:

[Dwayne From Minden]

Unlike many of our posters who don't know a damn thing about football but claim to be the reincarnation of Vince Lombardi, I will be the first to admit my basketball knowledge is lacking.

But it seems our experience (5 Sr. starters) should have been an advantage for us but there was none.

The thing with basketball -

One VERY talented individual can dominate the whole game whether he is a true freshman starting his first game or a seasoned senior playing his 90th game...

Unlike football and especially baseball (unless it is a pitcher) one individual can make a difference...

Billy Donovan and sunshine is a powerful combination in landing that type of talent...

Meeking and DBrown was our experience - Felton and Wilder were role players for the most part last year and Zach could only play in 5 minute spurts because of constant foul trouble...

And don't forget that in college basketball Home Court advantage is worth a minimum of ten points - this is the one sport where being at home is HUGE...

All in all - if we can get Woods, Dean, Edwards and Powell seasoned properly before the meat of the conference schedule - they will be successful not only this year, but for SEVERAL years to come...