Tag: Pat Dooley

Free Throws: Quick hits from Florida’s blowout win over Vandy

Pat Dooley gives his quick reactions to Florida’s big SEC win over Vandy.

Vandy, which has the SEC’s leading scorer in Scottie Pippen Jr., scored no baskets in the final 10:47 of the game.

Zero. None. Nada.

Pippen Jr. played only five minutes of the first half because of foul trouble and the Gator defense never let him get into any kind of rhythm. He finished the game with six points on 1-for-10 shooting.

Florida did revert to form – and not the good kind – offensively. The Gators shot 20 times from behind the arc in the first half and finished the game shooting 25% from three. And they were 6 of 13 from the free-throw line after shooting 80% against Mississippi State Wednesday night.

Didn’t matter.

The Gators did not close the first half well and led by only three after a bad Myreon Jones turnover led to a Vanderbilt runout basket. But they started the half on a 12-0 run and never looked back.

As a result, the Gators are back to .500 in the SEC at 3-3 and 12-6 overall.

They obviously did it on defense by holding Vanderbilt to three second-half field goals. Florida also had only eight turnovers.

Tyree Appleby led Florida in scoring with 11 points (eight in the first half) but he needed 10 shots to get there. No other Florida player scored in double figures.

Didn’t matter.

Playing its second straight game without injured center Colin Castleton, UF still had three blocked shots and won the battle of the boards against a team that is last in the SEC in rebounding.

Florida shot 38% for the game. Wednesday night’s hero Anthony Duruji had only seven points, four turnovers and faced foul trouble.

Didn’t matter.

Free Throws: Instant takes on Florida’s shorthanded win over MSU

Florida wins its second SEC game in a row and Pat Dooley tells us why.

Florida basketball scored an important win on Wednesday night on its home floor.

The Gators, now 11-6 and 2-3 in the SEC, shot 51% from the field, making 10 3-point shots while embarking on an amazing 20-2 run late in the game to win going away against Mississippi State (12-5, 3-2 SEC).

Without star center Colin Castleton, Florida struggled in the paint. Add in four early fouls on Castleton’s back-up Jason Jitoboh and it looked like a recipe for disaster. It also looked like the recipe used in UF’s three losses, falling behind early and rallying only to fall short.

But Tyree Appleby hit some big shots to keep the Gators in it in the first half and Anthony Duruji took over when the Gators needed him most.

And the progress of freshman Kowacie Reeves continues to be a major part of this Florida team. Reeves scored 14 points including some big free throws at the end.

The Gators struggled to contain Iverson Molinar in the first half but limited him to 1-for-5 shooting in the second frame.

The Bulldogs went on a run midway through the first half that allowed them to take a 10-point lead before Florida was able to cut the game to six at the break. The Gators were outscored 18-6 in the paint in the first 20 minutes.

The second half looked like more of the same until Duruji got hot and the Florida defense amped things up. Mississippi State went 4:36 down the stretch without a point as Florida used a 1-3-1 defense that it rarely uses, ultimately resulting in the Gators’ second SEC win of the season.

Top 10 national championship teams from SEC over past 26 years

Pat Dooley takes a look at the 10 best SEC teams to have won the national championship since 1996.

Sometimes I think about Greg Sankey in his office in Birmingham and all I can think of is Scrooge McDuck.

Not that Sankey is cheap or narcissistic. But I still imagine him sitting inside a safe on piles and piles of cash, throwing bills in the air with the enthusiasm of a lottery winner.

No matter what they want to do to the SEC, it’s bulletproof. Non-SEC fans were having a field day on Twitter when the league started bowl season 0-4 – not bothering to notice that 13 teams had qualified – and then were humbled at the end when two SEC teams played it off again.

As a result, the SEC won its 15th national championship in the last 26 seasons. During that same stretch, the next best conference has four.

And there is no reason to think that this dynasty is going to change. Populations continue to move to the South and the additions of Texas and Oklahoma are going to make it feel like the SEC has all the resources necessary to keep it going.

Oh, there are schools that can compete enough to win one occasionally. But it’s an SEC football world and when you hear that CBS college football intro you know something epic is about to happen.

There have been some great teams during this run. We give you the 10 best championship teams from the SEC over the last 26 years.

5 reasons it’s OK that Georgia won the national championship

This one is sure to rustle a few jimmies but Pat Dooley has 5 reasons Gators fans should be happy for Georgia.

There was a map that showed up on Twitter last week that showed which team each state was rooting for in the national championship game. According to this map, the state of Florida was rooting for Georgia.

Of course, we all know better. Florida fans have been rubbing that 41-year drought in the noses of Bulldog fans as if they just made an inside poop and need to be punished.

That’s over now – the drought beat the dynasty by finally having a team that was just too good. And this has caused the Gator Nation to feel this week like it was another loss in a season that already had seven of them.

But it’s not all bad.

I mean, it’s not like FSU won it.

There are some slurs you will have to retire, but really, the more distance you put between you and that game, the better you will feel. In fact, I’ll give you five good reasons you shouldn’t feel that bad.

Free Throws: Pat Dooley’s quick reactions to Florida’s first SEC win

Pat Dooley gives his quick takes from this afternoon’s big road win.

It seems hard to believe that you can type that headline on Jan. 15, but that’s the way the schedule has crumbled for this team.

It wasn’t so much that Florida played like a different team than it did during its losing streak, but the level of opposition was a lot different. And Florida hit some early shots that helped breed confidence that had evaporated after the fast start to the season.

“I get asked all the time about the older guys, but people have to learn how to win,” Mike White said. “And they have to learn how to win at this level.”

Not that it matters. Just getting an SEC win should take some of the pressure off a team that had been dealing with a lot.

“We were 6-0, but after Oklahoma, after we experienced failure, you could see the change in body language. People were hoping the ball would go in.”

Florida had a run midway through the first half that allowed the Gators to take a 13-point lead at one point. Part of the problem in Florida’s three SEC losses was that the Gators started poorly and had to dig themselves out of holes.

The opposite was true in this one as South Carolina, now 10-6 and 1-3 in the SEC, clawed its way back to within four in the second half.

But the Gators (10-6, 1-3) made key baskets and free throws down the stretch and Colin Castleton blocked everything in sight as Florida was able to pull away.

Castleton finished eight blocks and Florida had 11 total for the game.

Free Throws: Pat Dooley’s response to UF’s worst SEC start in four decades

Pat Dooley gives his quick reactions to Florida’s third-straight SEC loss.

This one was a lot like the Auburn game as Florida got off to a bad start and trailed by 14 in the first half. Facing a nine-point deficit at halftime, the Gators rallied but never led.

Down three with 4:06 to play, Myreon Jones missed two of three free throws and Florida could never get back to even.

LSU, now 15-1 and 3-1 in the SEC, was playing without its starting point and lost leading scorer Tori Eason to fouls after only seven minutes of playing time.

But the Tigers defense, which leads the nation in field goal percentage defense, held the Gators to 36% shooting and 23% from three-point land.

The Gators fell in love with the three again, taking 31 shots from beyond the arc (making seven) to 24 shots inside the arc.

LSU, on the other hand, took only nine 3-point shot attempts and outscored the Gators in the paint 42-26.

Let’s face it — this team plays hard, although it is defensively inconsistent. But the big problem is that it is not a skilled offensive team and going against future NBA players makes it pretty obvious.

Free Throws: Quick reactions following Florida’s loss to Auburn

Pat Dooley gives his quick reactions to the Gators’ second-straight loss in SEC play.

The Gators lost both of their conference games in different fashions, but they have both been double-digit losses nonetheless.

At Auburn, Florida had an awful first half where the offense looked like an unorganized mess. The Gators trailed by nine at halftime but fought back in the first 10 minutes of the second half to cut the lead to two, and then to one (60-59).

But Auburn went on a 13-2 run triggered by Jabari Smith’s three and that was all she wrote.

Florida is now 9-5 with multiple opportunities for Quad 1 wins slipping into the abyss. The Gators have been an inconsistent offense and a defense that seems to play well for a few possessions and then take the next few off.

Perfect example – Tyree Appleby’s first half in which he had five assists and four turnovers.

Not only has this been a team that is in a slump after the great start to the season, but the slumps during stretches in each loss have also been unwatchable.

Florida was beaten on the boards and allowed Auburn to shoot 44% from three. It’s obvious this is a team that has a small margin for error and is feeding the opponents too many easy baskets.

And it doesn’t help that Florida again missed a bunch of free throws – nine in this case.

5 reasons why Florida fans won’t be patient with Billy Napier

The Gator Nation is not the most forgiving of fanbases.

Remember a place a long time ago when Florida football had a coach who stuck around for longer than five or six years?

There have only been three in UF history that have lasted double-digit years – Bob Woodruff, Ray Graves and Steve Spurrier.

And Spurrier was always flirting with the NFL.

No, we expect a little uncertainty about the head football coaches at Florida because expectations had kerosene poured on them with three national titles and Spurrier’s amazing run of six SEC titles (he counts a seventh and we should, too).

Into this walks Billy Napier with pleas of positivity to a fanbase that just wants a little normal. Sheesh, the crazy around these parts has been a decade long.

We know the fans are demanding. It’s like that old cliché where a coach says, “Nobody can put more pressure on me than myself,” and the fans say, “Hold my beer.”

Earlier, I gave you five reasons why the Gator Nation should be patient with Napier. Now, five reasons why they probably won’t be.

5 reasons Gator fans should be patient with Billy Napier

It’s not going to be all unicorns and rainbows from the get-go.

As Billy Napier continues to build his army of worker bees and we wonder where the heck they are all going to park, the Gator Nation seems to be relishing each hire as they come out as if the new coach is the dad who won’t let one child open a Christmas present while the other is still opening his.

It’s almost as if he is teaching everyone a little patience in a microwave world.

He talked about patience in his first press conference and there are plenty of reasons to be patient with a coach in his first commander’s seat of a Power 5 program.

Of course, this is the SEC where patience goes to die.

This is the conference that fired two coaches within two years of a national title. And where the last three Florida coaches have been let go with a Sugar Bowl, an Orange Bowl, a Cotton Bowl, three SEC East titles and four seasons with at least 10 wins on the combined resume.

All in a span of 11 seasons.

Patience? We don’t need your stinkin’ patience.

It’s just not the norm for fans to be patient, but it might not be a bad idea right now.

So, let’s try this. Five reasons Gator fans should be patient with Billy Napier (to be followed by five reasons they won’t be):

Free Throws: Pat Dooley’s quick reactions to Florida’s loss to Alabama

Pat Dooley gives his quick reactions to the Gators’ loss to open the SEC slate.

Well, Florida (9-4) certainly let this one go with a miserable second half at home.

The Gators looked good for the first 20 minutes, but Alabama (11-3, 2-0) went on a 17-1 run in out of the locker room and Florida missed its first nine shots in the second half.

The Gators made a run to cut what was a 15-point lead (after Florida led by three at the half) to six points, but the Tide responded with a pair of easy buckets at the basket.

There is no doubt that Florida looked like a team in the second half that had not played in two weeks and was dealing with players missing practice left and right, but it was more than just tired legs. The Gators played some awful basketball during that stretch.

And they finished the game with a rare 20-20: They turned it over a season-high 20 times and allowed 20 offensive rebounds.

There was a little bit of everything in the miserable start coming out of halftime. That included a stretch of 11:18 from the last three minutes of the first half and start of the second without one lousy field goal.