Orange and Blue Hue » Creighton, Kyle Korver’s College, Comes to Compete with Calathes and Company

capt.5885641d4f2342f08e81051de6a6e791.correction_lakers_jazz_basketball_utsw107[1].jpg

Florida plays CU tonight, a school famous for its priests, point guards, and pre-meds. On paper, the two schools are nearly neck-and-neck. The Jays are currently 22-10, the Gators 22-11. Florida is a #2 seed, Creighton a #3 seed. Even both coaches have their share of similarities: Billy Donovan has 283 coaching wins, Dana Altman 282.

But there is one very important difference between the Jays and Gators, one that is out of both schools’ controls: No Creighton player is taller than 6′9″. Consequently, Florida’s best chance to win rests in the gigantic hands of Mareese Speights. If the good guys want to extend their season, Mo must play as big as his towering frame. No offense to Calathes or any of the other wizards behind the arc, but Donovan can’t afford a shootout at this point in the season.

I expect Florida to play dy-no-mite perimeter defense. The Gators aren’t going to beat 3’s with 2’s (Just ask last year’s Ohio State squad.) Also, the more fans inside the O-Dome, the better. I was there for the San Diego State game; the stadium wasn’t even a third of the way full. The young Gators are going to need all of the help they can get.

My prediction: Florida wins a close one behind a 20-10 game from Mo-reese.

6 Comments so far

Go Gators… it’s a game they can win… let’s get ‘er done and keep the season going.

Like your thinking, Pilot.

If they keep on playing like they do, they’ll never want to go back to their old practice facility.

“We don’t want [the facility] handed back to us. We want to earn it.”-Werner

That’s a step in the right direction, if you ask me.

They looked really quite competent Wednesday - Speights and Calathes in particular. (Calathes would have soared over 200 assists this season if Tyus, Allen, Parsons and Mitchell could actually, you know, shoot. I love Tyus’ hustle and grit and whatnot, but the dude simply cannot put the ball in the bucket. It’s like there’s a force-field over the hoop.)

One thing that was really obvious, even in a fairly easy win, is that the team plays better when Calathes is handling the ball. When he comes out, and Lucas takes the point, everything sputters to a halt. Far too many of the non-Calathes possessions against SDSU involved Lucas motoring aimlessly around the perimeter for twenty seconds, then somebody hoisting a desperate shot to beat the clock.

A satisfactory first half, wouldn’t you say?

Vengeance is mine, saith Billy the Kid.

Looking good. Another good win. I like the fact we keep adding wins on. The season continues…

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>