It's hard to focus on the hardwood version of the Florida Gators, but they had a pretty big game last night. It was their second SEC game and their first big-conference game on national TV (SEC Tuesday on ESPN!) against an Arkansas team that just dominated the Crimson Tide by 27 points.
In front of a sold-out crowd in the O-Dome, most of them excited about the introduction of the National Championship football team at halftime, the Gators used a balanced scoring attack from their starting 5 in a 79-72 win over the Razorbacks; moving their SEC record to 2-0 and their overall record to 15-2.
Not to beat the word "balanced" to death, but that is just what the scoring breakdown was. Just look at the starting 5:
Green: 17 pts
Brewer: 13 pts
Humphrey: 11 pts
Horford: 10 pts
Noah: 11 pts
While that is pretty impressive, several other statistical categories did not look as pretty: Arkansas won the battle in points off turnovers (18-12), points in paint (46-32), 2nd chance points (13-11), fast break points (14-2) and bench points (29-17). The Gators also shot only 58% from the free-throw line, continuing a very unfavorable trend.
While it wasn't the best performance, it's a W and that's all that matters. However, they'll need to improve on some of these categories if they want to run through the conference schedule with quite a bit of success.
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LSU opened up its SEC season with a 71-61 loss at Alabama in a battle of top-25 teams. Glen Davis, despite getting banged up in a car accident on Sunday morning, scored 24 points, pulled in 17 rebounds and had 3 blocks in the losing effort. As a team LSU only shot 35% from the field.
The Tide shot 9-16 on 3 pt baskets in the win and were pretty disciplined in this game, only committing 11 fouls - giving LSU only 10 shots from the FT line. Pretty solid performance out of Alabama, bouncing back from that embarassing loss to Arkansas.
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Clemson won at NC State last night, 87-76, to remain unbeaten on the season at 17-0. They remain the only unbeaten team in Div 1-A. The Tigers will have a tough time in their upcoming games though, taking on Maryland, UNC and Duke in 3 of their next 4.
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Ohio State lost another tough road game against a top-10 team last night, 72-69 against #4 Wisconsin. The Buckeyes now have 3 losses on the season, losing games at UNC, Florida and now Wisconsin. That, my friends, is a brutal road schedule to start out the season.
I would really watch out for the Buckeyes near the end of the season. These road tests are doing nothing but strengthening them as a team.
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I'm still recovering from Monday night.
Go Gators!!!