I'm very happy with the win and starting 5-0 in conf play. Seemed like last night we dribbled around perimeter and then took a lot of bad shots instead of trying to get inside the paint and be aggressive. Coleman foul trouble certainly could have impacted whatever we were going to do. The officiating was not good but we didn't give ourselves as many FT opportunities due to not being physical on offensive end. I don't think we can win at UK or Auburn with an offensive game like we played last night.

Because of Castleton, Florida is one of the best teams in the country at blocking shots and defending 2pt shots and they do it without fouling a ton.

I think the plan was actually okay, we had some good looks late that need to fall, but winning without those shots falling was pretty impressive to me. I wish we'd have just pressed the issue with Marble more, we had some stretches where we were going away from what was working.

Kentucky isn't close to as good defensively as Florida is. Auburn is, but they go about it differently. They're elite at defending the three point line and they pressure the ball a lot, but they foul a lot. How that game is officiated is going to make a big difference for us because we probably can't hold up to ball pressure for 40 minutes if they're allowed to hand check us everywhere.

SilverTongueDevil said:

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I'm very happy with the win and starting 5-0 in conf play. Seemed like last night we dribbled around perimeter and then took a lot of bad shots instead of trying to get inside the paint and be aggressive. Coleman foul trouble certainly could have impacted whatever we were going to do. The officiating was not good but we didn't give ourselves as many FT opportunities due to not being physical on offensive end. I don't think we can win at UK or Auburn with an offensive game like we played last night.

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If we hold Kentucky to 12 points in the first half then we still might!

That was a rock fight last night!

In the 5-0 SEC start, we avg giving up 57 ppg. IMO, we have not played a team that will finish in the top 5
of the SEC this year. I think UF and Mizzou will be in the middle 4-5 teams. I think our Ags will finish in the top 5.
USC ad LSU will be at the bottom with Ole Miss.

Yeah I agree, I think down the stretch we may struggle against really good big men that don't foul a lot.

A huge part of it is we need our other big man not to foul. Coleman can't get himself put on the bench for half the game. He needs to know what rebounds are worth going for and which ones are a lost cause and not worth the foul.

There's just a huge dropoff from him to anyone else we're going to put out there on the offensive end. When we have to put Washington or Garcia out there the defense basically doesn't have to guard them which makes it even harder to execute on offense.

Pumpkinhead said:

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SilverTongueDevil said:

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I'm very happy with the win and starting 5-0 in conf play. Seemed like last night we dribbled around perimeter and then took a lot of bad shots instead of trying to get inside the paint and be aggressive. Coleman foul trouble certainly could have impacted whatever we were going to do. The officiating was not good but we didn't give ourselves as many FT opportunities due to not being physical on offensive end. I don't think we can win at UK or Auburn with an offensive game like we played last night.

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If we hold Kentucky to 12 points in the first half then we still might!

That was a rock fight last night!

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Rock fight is an excellent way to describe it.

WoodlandsAg09 said:

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Yeah I agree, I think down the stretch we may struggle against really good big men that don't foul a lot.

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Said every fan of every team everywhere.

SilverTongueDevil said:

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I'm very happy with the win and starting 5-0 in conf play. Seemed like last night we dribbled around perimeter and then took a lot of bad shots instead of trying to get inside the paint and be aggressive. Coleman foul trouble certainly could have impacted whatever we were going to do. The officiating was not good but we didn't give ourselves as many FT opportunities due to not being physical on offensive end. I don't think we can win at UK or Auburn with an offensive game like we played last night.

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I thought the execution was pretty good actually. Not a lot of bad shots but castleton and their size changed that game. We normally get a lot of free throws but they were able to affect our shots by going straight up. I really just view Florida as a really good defensive team and I don't think anyone would say we are a great offensive team.

I'm choosing to look at it glass half full in that you have to give Florida a lot of credit for their defense and also that we did a really good job of not only getting the ball to Marble cleanly, but getting it to him in different spots he can work from. That's the kind of thing that is hard currency for crunch time and later in the season.

Teams that don't have someone close to a Castleton defensively are going to have to start doubling Marble, so the next evolution is being able to find guys for good shots out of the double.

Let's give Florida credit for playing good defense while not fouling us (at least in the opinion of the refs).

I actually think Florida will finish with a winning record in conference - like 10 or even 11 wins - and, depending if those wins include Alabama, Auburn, and/or Tennessee - may do just enough to squeeze into the NCAAT as an at large team themselves.

cs69ag said:

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In the 5-0 SEC start, we avg giving up 57 ppg. IMO, we have not played a team that will finish in the top 5
of the SEC this year. I think UF and Mizzou will be in the middle 4-5 teams. I think our Ags will finish in the top 5.
USC ad LSU will be at the bottom with Ole Miss.

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So there's two ways of thinking on that. You can say that we haven't beaten a top 5 in the SEC team but you can also say that we have taken care of business against teams that we're supposed to beat.

Not letting a bottom dwelling team beat us is kind of a big deal for a team like A&M that's looking for consistency in conference play.

Can we mention our defense wasn't that hot in the second half? They missed several bunnies. We did too.

GrayMatter said:

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cs69ag said:

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In the 5-0 SEC start, we avg giving up 57 ppg. IMO, we have not played a team that will finish in the top 5
of the SEC this year. I think UF and Mizzou will be in the middle 4-5 teams. I think our Ags will finish in the top 5.
USC ad LSU will be at the bottom with Ole Miss.

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So there's two ways of thinking on that. You can say that we haven't beaten a top 5 in the SEC team but you can also say that we have taken care of business against teams that we're supposed to beat.

Not letting a bottom dwelling team beat us is kind of a big deal for a team like A&M that's looking for consistency in conference play.

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yep.

good job beating the teams we can't afford to lose to, now we just neeed to steal a couple from the teams that are the cream of the league and continue beting the other teams.

for me, these next 2 games will set the tone.

if we can manage a split with the @uk and @auburn games then that bodes well for us making the dance.

6-1, just neededing to go 7-4 to get to that magic 13-5 feel safe record.

lose them both, however, and you're staring at having to go 8-3 to get to 13-5. not an easy task

For the record neither Florida nor Missouri seem to be bottom dwelling teams in the league. I don't know what happened to LSU.

The style of the wins matters as well. 3 of our 5 wins are of the comfortable variety and 1 was over with 10 minutes to go in the first half.