Since they had a winning streak at the beginning of the season, the players of the University of Florida have become more cooperative with each other, and the overall strength of the team has also improved to a higher level. The tactical cooperation among the players is becoming more and more mature.
Especially after Sakuragi's breakout during these games, it helped them secure the win relatively easily except for the game against Jacksonville Dolphins which went to the wire.
Although his midrange game is not very stable, it also plays a big role at critical moments. His defensive intensity also helps him at times so that he can perform all around.
From December 18th to 22nd, the team played against these 3 teams:
Florida State Seminoles, UCF Golden Knights and the Villanova Wildcats.
In these three games, the Gators have a record of 2 wins and 1 loss. Among them, they defeated the UCF Golden Knights and the Villanova Wildcats and lost the game by a narrow margin to the Seminoles.
The game against the Florida State Seminoles was held at the Donald L. Tucker Center on the University's Tallahassee, Florida campus.
Although the winning streak at the beginning made all the players excited, the pressure on all the players was also obvious. All the team members were already tired, but they were holding their breath and did not dare to relax. 3 games in 4 days made them physically and mentally tired as well.
After training, everyone will stay in the training hall to practice more. Head coach Kruger is both happy and a little worried. What he thinks is that everyone is working hard to expand the winning streak; what he worries about is that once the team loses, it will cause the players to become discouraged, leading to a losing streak for the team.
Finally, against Florida State Seminoles, the pressure, physical exhaustion and the opponent's defence caused the Gators team to feel completely useless in the first half.
In this game at Donald L. Tucker Center, the Gators had no touch. Especially the Seminoles launched a double-team defense against Sakuragi from the beginning.
This also resulted in Sakuragi never having good shooting opportunities from anywhere, so he forced some shots. He found that the confrontation consumed most of Sakuragi, causing him to have no shooting touch as he had to bear the pressure at the defensive end also.
Sakuragi is not obsessed with regaining his touch but continues to assist his teammates by passing the ball. But in the first half of this game, it seemed as if all of his teammates were missing their shooting touch, and their shooting percentages were low.
At the end of the first half, they were directly behind by 19 points. It was hard to find the shooting feeling in the second half, but the hole dug in the first half was too big. It resulted in the loss of the game by the score of 59-69.
Sakuragi also had his lowest-scoring game with 17 points. But had a team-high 9 assists along with 15 rebounds.
So the game was lost to the Seminoles on the road by 10 points. This makes the record at the beginning of the season 8-1.
After losing to the Florida State Seminoles, the Gators will participate in the Rainbow Classic which is held in the Neal S. Blaisdell Center, in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Started in 1964 by radio broadcaster Chuck Leahey and then-head coach Red Rocha, the Rainbow Classic grew in prominence as a proving ground for some of the best teams and players in the college game. Its participants included blue blood programs like Kansas, North Carolina and Duke and the court at the Blaisdell Arena was graced with the likes of Elvin Hayes, Pete Maravich, Isiah Thomas, Michael Jordan and Christian Laettner.
The other three teams participating this time in the Rainbow Classic are the Oklahoma State Cowboys, Louisville Cardinals and the Evansville Purple Aces.