Florida Basketball: Are 2019-20 Gators already doomed with early struggles?

Slow pace of play

Of course, one way to limit the amount of half-court offense you run is to try to get as many transition baskets as possible. The Gators have a number of tremendous athletes that excel in the open court.

Good news, right? Well – you may have guessed something like this was coming – Florida ranks 346th in the country in pace. Yup, instead of playing fast, they’re the nation’s eighth-slowest team.

This is because White prefers to have his teams play at a slow pace. Florida has gradually gotten slower each year he has been in charge, going from 110th in the category in 2016 to 117th to 226th to 344th last year. That’s fine when you’re successful in the half-court, but the Gators haven’t!

First off, they’re choosing to not utilize these skills for whatever reason:

And, secondly, their secondary break has actually been fine (this is where we’ve seen more of the Nembhard pick-and-rolls). So, even when they aren’t getting to the rim on the fast break, they’re having success when the defense is unsettled.

Pushing the pace will help the Gators get more easy points and likely jump-start their offense while they work on their halfcourt sets.