Air Force @ Florida- Sorry, Lobo, but this isn't going to be close.
Uh, how about #9 Kansas @ #7 Ohio State? Or Temple vs Syracuse? Or Texas @ Michigan State? Or Florida vs. Kansas State? These are just the games this Saturday. Intead you throw out Stanford-Northwestern and Ole Miss-Loyola Marymount? Come on, man!
1. The game isn't at home, it's part of the Orange Bowl Classic in Tampa. So it's far from a neutral environment, but it's not a home game either.Fair 'nuff, but Tampa is 2 time zones away from Colorado Springs and it's in Florida. While not a home court advantage, Gators have an advantage.
2. Air Force is solid. Don't get me wrong. But "solid" teams don't usually beat top ten teams, regardless of how experienced they are. Middle Tennessee wasn't able to keep the game close in the second half, and Middle Tennessee is a better team than Air Force imo.
3. Your comment about Yeguete, and our interior defense in general, is strange. How is he Yeguete not playing up to his potential? He was a lightly-recruited 6'7" 'tweener with a terribly limited skill set. His skill set is still limited, although he's developed a nice hook shot and his free throw shooting has improved dramatically. He's improved every season that he's been at Florida, and if anything, he's an overachiever. Young, when you take into acount his mixture of strength, sise, and athleticism, is an underachiever. Yeguete isn't.Also good points, but neither can hit a freethrow- I guess in the case of Yeguete, when you start hitting 1/3 of the total, there's only one way to go....up! Agree he is improving, but both were beaten badly at Arizona on the boards. If it weren't for Murphy, they would have been in trouble. Don't believe Yeguete will have another 10+ against Air Force like he did with Middle Tennessee St.
Our interior defense has been perfectly fine this season. Yeguete is a perfectly good defender, and Young has improved in his help defense as well. Murphy is decent in both position and help defense, although he isn't necessarily great in either. You can't be the third most efficient defensive team in the country (KenPom stats) if you struggle with interior screens.
Given that Middle Tennessee delivered Ole Miss' only loss, I got your point, but in that particular game Florida didn't see the real Middle Tennesse St team. (They couldn't buy a bucket.) I thought they MTS some very good shots, but just missed them. I do agree it is fair to say that Florida's quickness bothered MTS. I still believe Air Force will cause Florida problems because of their discipline- especially in the half-court. If they make it a half court game and take Florida out of the transitions, it will be close.
That's not what I saw at all in that game. It was a very physical game and both teams struggled to get good shots off. Florida was longer and more athletic than Middle Tennessee and was very good at getting to the free throw line (although not so great at making them).
Also good points, but neither can hit a freethrow- I guess in the case of Yeguete, when you start hitting 1/3 of the total, there's only one way to go....up! Agree he is improving, but both were beaten badly at Arizona on the boards. If it weren't for Murphy, they would have been in trouble. Don't believe Yeguete will have another 10+ against Air Force like he did with Middle Tennessee St.
He's still not a good free throw shooter, but he's leagues better than he was last year lol. He had five rebounds against Arizona, more than anyone on Arizona's team, so he wasn't beat badly on the boards at all. Rebounding wasn't our problem at all against Arizona. You'd definitely like to see better rebounding production from Young, though. But when you out-rebound a big team like Arizona by six, I'm not going to complain too much about that. Yeguete has been our most consistent rebounder by far, considering he hasn't had a game all season with less than five rebounds. Murphy isn't even averaging five rebounds. Murph has had a few solid rebounding games lately, but that's one area where he definitely needs to get better.
Also good points. Murphy is a consistent performer on offense and on the offensive boards. On defense...not so much. I like Yeguete's quickness and competitiveness. Hey, I'm being a bit tough on the Gators because I thought they should have won at Arizona and just lost their intensity and gave the game away- on defense in the second half. Let's see what happens. I think we agree that Florida will chalk up another win, but Air Force is an unusual competitor.
I don't think it was necessarily a lack of intensity that lost us the game... Rather it was the inability to get the ball inbounds and up the court that lost us the game. Wilbekin has a broken finger that might affect his ability to handle the ball, and that magnified that problem at Arizona. Boynton doesn't have the handle to be a PG. Rosario doesn't have the mentality. Ogbueze isn't even close to being ready. We need to get Wilbekin healthy, as he's our best PG by far.
But I don't think losing to Arizona by a point on the road is any indication that Air Force will be able to play us close in Tampa. That just seems... Unlikely. Air Force is solid, but not great. I don't think it will be close at all, unless we come out extremely flat.
