Collin Chandler came into Saturday’s game shooting 47.2 percent from deep during SEC play. Florida held him to just six total shots, including an 0-3 three-point mark, in a game where Kentucky desperately could have used his outside shooting.
Chandler finished with just two points against the Gators in 35 minutes of action. His first three-point attempt came within the first 60 seconds of the contest, an off-balance jumper to beat the shot clock buzzer that had little chance of falling in. He didn’t attempt another one until early in the second half.
Keeping Chandler from exploding was a major emphasis of Florida’s gameplan in round two against the Wildcats.
“I thought Xaivian (Lee) did a wonderful job on Collin in the first half,” Florida head coach Todd Golden said postgame. “He got us at our place a little bit, made five threes, and kind of kept them in the game. That was a key part of our game plan today, was limiting his three-point attempts, which I thought X did a great job from start to finish.”
Back in Gainesville on Valentine’s Day, Chandler went 5-7 from distance. Golden wasn’t going to let that happen again in Rupp Arena. The result was Chandler’s lowest scoring output since January 7.
But there are two sides to that story. Kentucky could have done a better job of finding ways to get its best shooter the ball. The three-point arc is one of the few advanatges UK had against Florida coming into Saturday’s game. Both teams made eight triples apiece on the afternoon. The ‘Cats just couldn’t get into a flow on offense against a stout Gator defense. That made life tough on Chandler, who generates most of his shot attempts from the perimeter.
“I just felt like we didn’t initiate offense well at all,” Head coach Mark Pope said. “I was surprised, it’s actually been a strength of ours is kind of getting into early offense, and I thought we were poor in that. That’s space where it allows us to kind of, without doing a play call, allow Collin to run in some space. I thought we did a poor job helping him as a team. But yeah, he’s a major focus. He’s the best 3-point shooter in the league. So, he’s always going to be a huge focus.”
For most of conference play, Chandler hasn’t had much issue getting good looks from deep. He made multiple three-pointers in 11 of his 17 SEC games coming into the matchup with Florida, including six with at least three makes. It was just a week ago that the sophomore shot 6-8 from three in a huge win over a ranked Vanderbilt team. But then he went 1-5 against Texas A&M a few days ago, following it up with Saturday’s poor performance against the Gators.
With the postseason beginning next week, now isn’t an ideal time for Kentucky’s best shooter to enter a cold stretch. Chandler could probably do more to get himself into better scoring situations, but he’s also a player who has taken 68 percent of his shots from distance this season. At some point, he has to be more aggressive in trying to find his shots.
Knowing that he prefers to stay behind the arc makes the defensive scheme that much easier for the opponent. That was the case in another Florida win over Kentucky.