Florida has yet to find an answer for its road woes this season.
The Gators (12-4, 0-1 SEC) dropped to an 0-4 on the road this season with a flat effort in a 67-56 loss at Tennessee. Florida trailed 33-29 at halftime and couldn't mount a run after allowing the Vols to shoot 54.5 percent from the floor in the second half and 51 percent from the floor for the game.
"I was more disappointed in the defense than anything else," Florida coach Billy Donovan said. "I thought both teams played hard, but the difference was the defense to me."
Florida already has more road losses than it did all of last season, when it finished 8-2 in road games.
"We didn't execute as well as we could have," Florida junior forward Erik Murphy said. "It's just a common theme we've been having on the road and we have to fix it."
Florida dropped two of its first four road games this season against No. 1 Syracuse and No. 6 Ohio State. But the other road losses have come against unranked Rutgers and unranked Tennessee. The Vols entered the game 7-7 overall, last in the SEC.
Still, Florida players and coaches were confident the problems on the road would end soon.
"I'm not too concerned," Murphy said. "We've got a group of mentally tough guys. It's been something that has been happening, been working on to fix it. I think we'll figure it out and we'll fix it."
Added Donovan: "I'm not too worried about it. Playing on the road is kind of, for me, a mentality you have to have."
NOTES, QUOTES
It was a rocky SEC debut for Bradley Beal, who finished with 9 points on 4 of 12 shooting with five turnovers in the loss to Tennessee. The heralded freshman McDonald's All-American guard hit a four-game slump in which he was averaging 10 ppg on 29.8 percent shooting from the floor (14 of 47) and 14.3 percent (2 of 14) from 3-point range. Beal's assist-to-turnover ratio in his last four games at that point was 9 to 14. "He's a freshman," coach Billy Donovan said. "He's going to have ups and downs. He's going to have some growing pains. That's part of the growth and development process for him."
Florida coach Billy Donovan refused to use the 11 a.m. tip time Saturday against Tennessee as an excuse for the reason why his team came out flat. The Gators had an 8 a.m. team breakfast and during the week leading up the game were on semester break and practiced in the morning.
"Both teams are up, playing," Donovan said. "If you are a competitor and you love the game, you play at 4 o'clock in the morning or 10 o'clock in the morning. If you love playing, you play."
With a 10-assist-to-15-turnover effort against Tennessee, Florida's assist-to-turnover ratio dropped to 50 to 69 in its four losses.
BY THE NUMBERS: 35.7 -- Season-low percentage Florida shot from the field against Tennessee.
QUOTE TO NOTE
"The home team always gives us their best game. I think offensively, I think we play different on the road than at home, and by different I think our team chemistry is better at home instead of on the road." -- Florida junior G Kenny Boynton, on the Gators starting the season 0-4 on the road.
