The slow start to begin the season is a distant memory. The Florida Gators are hooping.
To begin the season, Florida struggled to find footing under the new regime, with new pieces occupying crucial roles on the floor. Amid a daunting out-of-conference schedule which included six Quadrant-I losses in as many games to begin the year.
The spell of painful losses culminated with the Gators' first loss to a team outside of Quad-I when Texas A&M traveled to Gainesville on Jan. 4. They fell to 7-7 (0-2 SEC) with signs of bleak future for the remainder of the 2022-23 campaign. However, since then, Florida has performed at an uber-productive level to reel off three straight victories behind elite defensive efforts and opportune offense.
It started with a get-right victory over former head coach Mike White and Georgia at home on Jan. 7 before snowballing into two statement wins over LSU and No. 20 Missouri. The win over both sets of Tigers has proved the Gators to be a resilient, competent squad with an opportunity to make an unexpected run on conference play down the season's stretch.
Now, the opportunity to extend that win streak to four comes against the team they last lost to in Texas A&M. Playing for the second time in 14 days, head coach Todd Golden spoke to the benefits of playing to avenge a loss to the Aggies with the sour taste of the loss still freshly looming.
"Beneficial for us, I think, because, you know, we can go and look at the tape and it's pretty fresh," Golden said during media availability on Tuesday.
"The funny thing is, we are a little different already than what we were in that game. So, you know, some of its different, but we can go see, especially in the first half, we didn't attack things very well. The second half, though, we were a little loose with the ball. We can be better and we feel like if we can make some smaller adjustments going into the game, it's gonna give us a good shot to compete."
In the last contest between the two SEC foes who have produced back-to-back thrillers, with each aligning in the Aggies' favor, the Gators have fallen victim to the constant defensive pressure Buzz Williams' squad applied. This season, Florida turned the ball over 20 times — with forward Colin Castleton (six) and guard Trey Bonham (seven) accounting for 13 combined — as it was plagued by the TAMU trapping of Castleton when he touched the basketball.
The struggle taking care of the basketball continued at points in recent contests, although the Gators' top 15 defense has elevated the unit to reign victorious.
It's an area that stands above the rest as a tweak Florida can make to potentially split the season series.
"Clearly, a way for us to find a way to win tomorrow night we have to take better care of the ball. It was an area we've been great [at] all year. We were not great the first time we played these guys at our place. Not great Saturday [against Missouri]. It's been an emphasis for us and something we've been focusing on as we get closer to the game."
Golden and Co. will "lean back into that game and see" the areas in need of adjustments to ideally produce a flipped result from the three-point in which the head coach feels Florida underperformed.
"We didn't feel like we played very well, and part of [that was] A&M played well, aggressive defensively, but we feel like we can play a lot better. And, you know, with those tweaks, we feel like we'll put ourselves in a better spot."
Implementing and executing those fixes — like scheming easy outlets for Castleton when he draws double teams — will be paramount to the Gators' success on Wednesday night.
The Gators will travel to College Station on Tuesday evening in preparation for Wednesday's 7 p.m. ET tip-off with the Aggies.
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