By Josh Brannock, Sports Editor
Email Josh Brannock at sports@unfspinnaker.com
Follow @spinnaksports
“We will never let that happen again,” were the words spoken by men’s basketball head coach Matthew Driscoll after the teams 91-55 loss to the no. 7 Florida Gators Nov. 17. Driscoll wasn’t talking about losing by 30+ points, being out rebounded by eight rebounds, or shooting just two of fourteen from beyond the arc.
Instead Driscoll was talking about the final five seconds of the game of the game in which Florida’s Erving Walker made a disrespectful play in the coach’s eyes.
With less than 35 seconds to play, the amount of time allowed per possession, and a 34 point lead it seemed as though the Gators would run out the clock and take their win. But with just under six seconds to play Walker decided to drive through a wide open lane and make an easy lay-up to take the 91-55 lead. Then on the inbound pass after the lay-up Walker attempted to steal the ball from UNF’s Jimmy Williams.
During the post game interview Driscoll was livid about how disrespected he felt after the plays. Florida coach Billy Donovan didn’t answer the question at his press conference and has yet to return a phone call placed at 3pm.
Going away from the drama and score, the Ospreys are taking some positive things out of this game. The team shot 81.3% from the free throw line, hitting all six in the first half.
The Ospreys were only out rebounded by the Gators by eight and had 15 total offensive rebounds.
Three of the team’s players were in double-digits in points including Parker Smith who led the team with 17 even though he only hit two of eleven from three-point range. In comparison though UF had five players in double digits and had 20 offensive rebounds.
The team doesn’t like losing games in this fashion, but understand that they have to happen in order to grow and learn expressed both Andy Diaz and Smith.
Driscoll also showed appreciation of these games for the same reason and he also likes them because of the six figure payment the school receives for playing teams like Alabama, Florida and Nov. 21 opponent Ohio State. Driscoll did not express this in his interview, but it can be seen that the athletic department encourages these games for that reason.
Either way fans can enjoy these games as well as they get to take in the talent of top ranked teams and hope the games highlight weakness’ in the team before it begins conference play in December.
