WHAT THEY BRING

They’re good on offense now. Terrific!

Hey, would you like to know which one of the following teams is the best-shooting offense in SEC play?

1. LSU
2. Mississippi State
3. Kentucky
4. Florida

If you guessed Florida, 1. You cheated; 2. Amazingly, that is the correct answer.

The same Florida team that barely ranked in the top 60 of offense nationally circa the turn of 2020 has quietly shot better than any other SEC offense this winter. On January 1, they ranked 159th in eFG% nationally; today, they rank 72nd, and while that’s not beautiful, it’s now a top 30ish offense by most metrics. Since the turn of the new year, Torvik has them as the 17th-best offense nationally.

What had been a massively disappointing team for three months has snuck under the radar with a 6-2 run of play over the last four weeks. 12-8 has turned into 18-10, and Florida, sitting at a 9 seed in the Bracket Matrix, now looks like a potentially dangerous March opponent.

Keyontae Johnson has taken the leap

The biggest reason for the surge, surprisingly, has not been once-upon-a-time SEC Player of the Year hopeful Kerry Blackshear. Instead, it’s been undersized power forward Keyontae Johnson, a sophomore that’s paired solid outside shooting (27-of-71, 38%) with a very efficient inside-the-perimeter game.

Johnson predominantly takes very good shots and uses his lack of size as an advantage, beating slower, taller defenders to the rim from the perimeter with high frequency.

He almost never pulls up off the dribble, preferring to either get to the rim or take an outside shot. One of his most underrated facets, I think, is that he’s one of the SEC’s best players in transition, elite both as the ball handler and when streaking down the wing.

Kerry Blackshear is quite good

Blackshear, meanwhile, has been a solid, reliable piece for the Gators. He’s not really one to create his own shot inside the perimeter, but having a 6’10” center that takes multiple threes per game and hits them at a 32% rate is basically always going to be fairly valuable.

Blackshear’s highest offensive value relies in the dirty work, as he’s great at forcing his way to the rim and getting fouled in the post.

He’s also a very good rebounder, and his offensive rebounding has saved Florida’s bacon in a couple of games, notably the Alabama game on January 4 where Blackshear’s six offensive rebounds resulted in seven Florida points in a 104-98 2OT win.

Andrew Nembhard and Noah Locke

The two main guards, Andrew Nembhard and Noah Locke, are holdovers from last year’s somewhat disappointing Florida squad. They play very differently – Nembhard the point guard that looks for long twos and kickouts, Locke the shooting guard that eschews the rim entirely and takes nearly six threes per game.

Nembhard:

Locke:

Nembhard’s personal offense is almost entirely built off of ball screens, whether that’s him pulling up off the dribble for a long two, getting to the basket, or kicking it out to an open shooter.

Locke happens to be one of those open shooters fairly frequently, and he’s been the recipient of several of Nembhard’s passes this year.

Other offensive players of note

Scottie Lewis is the fifth starter and has been so for the last month, which happens to coincide with Florida’s overall rise. Lewis has an almost perfectly even split of shots at the rim, non-rim twos, and threes; if I had to highlight one thing on him, it’s that he’s good at getting open from deep.

Five-star freshman Tre Mann and five-star freshman Josiah-Jordan James have a lot in common, namely missing shots away from the rim.

Local product Ques Glover gets around 13 minutes a game and has been moderately effective when using a pick to get to the rim.

None of Omar Payne, Jason Jitoboh, or Dontay Bassett take any threes.

I can’t figure out why this defense isn’t better

Here’s an odd deal: after pressing nearly 20% of the time last season, Mike White has almost entirely eliminated the Florida full-court press outside of late-game/desperation situations. Now, it wasn’t terribly effective last season – Florida’s press ranked in the 50th percentile nationally, per Synergy – but considering White’s defense has been at its best when it’s forced turnovers en masse, you would think he would give it another shot with a defense currently ranking 145th in opponent TO%. Plus, it’s not as if Florida egregiously fouled a lot, either – this season is just the second time they’ve ranked below the national average in Opponent Free Throw Rate.

So, yeah, I guess I’m dancing around the main message here, which is that this is the worst Mike White defense at Florida to date and Florida’s worst since the 2011-12 Billy Donovan squad. They don’t force turnovers or protect their own boards at an elite rate.

They foul more than you’d expect them to. The shooting numbers look fine, but they rank just 135th in opponent FG% at the rim and genuinely seem unable to Figure It Out for random stretches of games. A team with as much talent as Florida – which I still genuinely believe entered this year with one of the 10 most talented rosters in America – should never allow 1+ PPP eight times in 11 games. It’s inexcusable.

It’s an okay interior defense that is massively reliant on Kerry Blackshear not fouling

Florida does block about 11.1% of opponent attempts at the rim, right in line with what you’d expect based on the FG% allowed.

This part really isn’t all that surprising, seeing as nearly 90% of Florida’s lineups feature four players that are 6’5” or shorter. Blackshear does his best, and Scottie Lewis has quietly been a freak on defense, but the height disadvantage has been a lot to overcome at times. Per Hoop-Explorer, Florida allows just a 53.3% hit rate at the rim when Blackshear is on the floor, which would be good for 41st nationally. When Blackshear is off, that FG% escalates to 59.9%, which would rank 208th. It’s two different defenses, and Tennessee needs to go at Blackshear, who commits 4.7 fouls per 40, as early as possible.

Non-rim defense: good!

I wouldn’t touch Florida’s non-rim defense, as this is where the height disadvantage is actually an advantage. Playing what’s basically four guards makes it tough for any player to find serious space in the mid-range, and opponents have frequently defaulted to just shooting threes instead.

Tennessee can take these shots if it’s what’s available, but they need to look elsewhere first.

Three-point defense runs extremely hot or cold

There are stretches of time where Florida looks purely dominant on the perimeter (LSU shot 6-of-23 from deep in the blowout win Wednesday):

And stretches where I’m not sure that all five players on the court realize they’re on the same team (allowed 12-of-19 on three to Missouri in blowout January loss).

There’s no statistical explanation beyond either randomness or simple inconsistency for how a team can hold its opponent to 19% or lower from three seven times while also allowing 42% or higher seven times. This is far from a truly bad perimeter D on the whole, as I think they’re somewhere around “fine,” but Tennessee’s played tougher, more focused groups.

NEXT PAGE: Alright so the baseball team’s got George Washington for a three-game set and they’ve already dropped a pair to SIU Edwardsville and Marist. Then they got Longwood at home, that’s a win. Then it’s Wright State for three and if all goes right, that should be a sweep. Then it’s ETSU on March 10 and ETSU lost to Rider last weekend. So you’re looking at a 17-0 Tennessee baseball team, going on the road to play unranked South Carolina for three games, I’m just saying it’s on the table