The Gators looked great yesterday beating Vandy 82-68. Despite early turnovers with Walter Hodge traveling and Dan Werner passing “behind the back” to a camera man, the Gators got off on a 19-4 start and led by at least 10 for the rest of the game. Our big men played hard most of the game but seemed to lack interest when our lead approached or exceeded 20. Everyone contributed something positive this game with 5 players in double figures. The team had 14 turnovers and 13 assists, but many of these turnovers were made from passes that could have resulted in easy points. The officiating was terrible as it usually is with this set of refs (Ted Valentine, Pat Adams and Mike Nance) which was hard to watch after last game's set of refs (Doug Shows, Tracy Woodson and Anthony Jordan) called the game so well. Here is a breakdown of how I thought each player played in order of minutes played:

Nick Calathes had his usual great game scoring 14 points and going 4 for 9 from the field, with 2 for 3 from the arc and 4 for 4 from the line. He started each half slow: scoreless for the first 13 minutes of the first half and 9 minutes of the second half. Supposedly he was sick, but played 36 minutes anyway. With 4 assists and 4 turnovers the numbers look like he was having an off night at the point, but Tyus missed 3 of his passes that were catchable balls if he knew they were coming. Overall I think he did not score as much this game because he didn’t have to. Other players contributed more and allowed him to fall more into a traditional point guard role.

Chandler Parsons played his usual great transition game. If he learns to go up stronger and make free throws he will be a dangerous player. Unfortunately he did not break his mental barrier shooting and went 0-2 from the arc and 60% from the line with the team as a whole shooting 80% from the line. We will need him to contribute more to our half court offense if we want to win games come tournament time. Most of his points came from dunks and free throws which will probably be the case for the rest of the year unless he starts shooting more consistently.

Alex Tyus ended the game with 10 points going 5-6 from the floor and 2 blocks. His numbers would have been even better if he had been on the same page as Calathes for some of the passes thrown his way. In his defense Calathes threw incredible passes that he was not expecting. He showed his range multiple times during the game hitting shots in an unfortunate Vandy Player’s grill. He worked hard on the boards despite having only 3 total rebounds.

Facebook groups about Dan Werner might lose members after these past few games. Dan continued his shooting streak going 4-4 from the field with 3-3 from the arc with all his 3’s barely touching the net. This is coming off a 2-3 night from 3 point range last game against Bama extending his streak to 5-6.

Walter Hodge scored his first basket with one minute left in the first half. He played a completely different second half starting with a made 3 and two good transition layups in the first 3 minutes. Hodge ended the game with 12 points in 26 minutes.

Erving Walker led the Gators in scoring with 17 points going 5 for 8 from the field with 3 for 6 from the arc and 4 for 4 from the line. Walker has one of the best mid range jump shots that I have seen at UF and showed it this game embarrassing the Vandy defense on several occasions. Keeping his streak alive of slipping at least once each game, we should probably start a “buy Erving some new shoes” fund for how well he played this game.

Kenny Kadji Had the best half of his career at UF (that I can remember). He had 3 blocks and 7 points in the first half as Billy at one point towards the end of the first half was rotating him in to guard Ogilvy. He was the first off the bench in the first half. After his first play resulting in an off the ball foul on him he blocked a shot and had a 3 point play on the other end. Billy played him with Tyus for limited minutes, but the pair showed some promise. They seemed to have the lane well guarded with each having a block on the same play. Kadji seemed to step up this game and will need to because we will need as many big men as we can get tournament time.

I understand that Ray Shipman was recruited to play defense. He will still have to do more than play defense and look like Juwanna Mann in the coming tournaments. Shipman played only 7 minutes this game. He showed some offensive skills in transition, making two great cuts to the basket, but was generally unseen during his minutes in the half court offense.

Overall I saw some good things from everyone on the floor. This game was a great morale booster for the team and the good play will hopefully carry over to our hard last 4 regular season game stretch.