Pat Dooley’s Back Nine: Gators Need To Solve Zone Defense

The Back Nine comes at you after a wild weekend where Gators were scattered all over the place.

10. Saturday was one of those days for the Gator Nation. Florida lost another basketball game, because it could not figure out how to play against a zone defense. The baseball team lost in Miami. And the softball team was run-ruled by Michigan in California. But the good thing about this time of the year is the sun always shines on a new day and Sunday was much better. The gymnasts went to Kentucky and won the SEC regular season championship outright and baseball took the series from Miami. See, Sunday was better despite the rain.

11. It feels like we keep watching the same two-hour mini-series (Google it millennials) over and over again. Gators get big lead, other team goes to zone, lead goes away. We knew that was going to be a tough place to play and it was an impressive performance for 30 minutes. Maybe this team is wearing down. Maybe the whole coaching staff should attend a clinic on how to attack zone defenses. Maybe they will beat Alabama on Tuesday night. I knew I heard the Kiss of death Saturday morning when a talking head in Sirius started talking about Florida being a team that could make a lot of noise in the tournament.

12. But, I mean, they are still fine. In fact, the Gators are 13 spots ahead of South Carolina in the NET Rankings. That’s because of two Quad 3 losses for the Gamecocks. Florida is fine, but the Gators could use another win.

13. Did the Gators get hosed by the officiating Saturday? Well, the road team usually does, and that crew did not have a good game. But you know that one of my rules is that you have to play around the officials. Let the coach complain to the officials.

14. It is pretty darn impressive for Jenny Rowland with all of the gymnasts out getting prepared for the Olympics, that she still cobbled together a team good enough to win the SEC. And they did it with their best score of the season. Is this team peaking?

15. Boy, if Jac Caglianone is going to give Kevin O’Sullivan what he gave him Sunday, we’ll all be summering in Omaha. He’s hitting .478 with four homers after 11 games, but these are the stats that impress me:

As a hitter — four strikeouts, eight walks.

As a pitcher — 18 strikeouts, four walks.

Better watch out Jac or you are going to win some awards at the end of the season.

16. I wanted to send a special thank you to Joey Johnston for organizing the Celebration of Life for sports columnist Martin Fennelly on Friday night. It was an incredible turnout at Raymond James Stadium. There were celebrities, people who Marty had touched and a lot of old hacks I had not seen in a long time. The best part was when former writers got up there and either told stories or read one of the funniest lines in his column. We miss him already.

17. And then we got more bad news with the death of Chris Mortensen of ESPN. He was a good friend who helped me cut my teeth covering the NFL very early in my career and I was always grateful to him. Mort was one of the best who ever lived at everything he did.

18. My wife and I had a little date night to cheer us up after Saturday’s rough day and ended up going to some of the places the cool kids go. Of course, they aren’t there at 7:30. I did come up with this playlist we were listening to at Arcade Bar:

• “I Can’t Be With You” by The Cranberries.
• “This Charming Man” by The Smiths.
• And for an old one, “Because” by The Dave Clark Five.

WRUF.com sports columnist Pat Dooley can be heard on “The Tailgate” along with Jeff Cardozo from 4-6 p.m. Monday-Friday on 98.1-FM/AM-850 WRUF.