Florida basketball: Can Kerry Blackshear lead Gators to Final Four?

After a disappointing second-round exit last March, Florida looks primed to compete for an SEC title behind Virginia Tech transfer Kerry Blackshear and a potential run at the Final Four.

It wasn’t a very poetic ending for the Florida basketball team in 2019. After upsetting No. 7 seed Nevada in the first round of the 2019 NCAA Tournament, the Gators were only able to put up 49 points in a second-round loss to Michigan.

That final game highlighted the problem for the Gators the entire season. They were a solid defensive team but often struggled to produce on the offensive side of the ball. But still, there were some positives to an overall disappointing 20-16 season in Gainesville.

First, despite having a senior-laden lineup, the young guys for the Gators showed some real promise. Then freshman Noah Locke, showed some promise scoring the ball as well as being able to shoot from distance. Locke led the team in 3-point shooting percentage at 38 and was second on the team in scoring, averaging 9.4 points per game. It was a promising season and included early season outbursts for 27 and 22 points against Texas A&M as well as Ole Miss.

Unfortunately though, for as great as Locke was at the beginning of the season, he tamed down a bit in the latter half of the season. The Gators will look for him to put his excellent shooting skills to work in the 2019-2020 season.

Freshman Keyonte Johnson also showed some major promise for the Gators at the forward position, leading the team in rebounds per game. Andrew Nembhard proved to be an effective asset in distributing the ball, leading the team in assists per game.

All of these players will be back for the upcoming season and will be huge features in a Florida rotation that already has some lofty expectations. In the preseason AP poll, the Gators came in at No. 6, and those three are part of the reason for the ranking. But that isn’t the whole story with this Florida Gator team, as head coach Mike White had a huge offseason that landed a top-10 recruiting class, and the best transfer player on the market — Kerry Blackshear Jr. from Virginia Tech.

Last season for the Hokies, Blackshear averaged just under 15 points per game, 7.5 rebounds, and was a 33 percent shooter from beyond the arc, proving he has the ability to stretch defenses. He emerged as one of the best big men in the country after Virginia Tech’s leading scorer and point guard Justin Robinson went out with an injury against Miami. He only had one point in the contest, but he was the focal point for a sputtering Virginia Tech offense in the weeks that followed.

Without Robinson in the lineup, the Virginia Tech big man starred, averaging eight more minutes and 18.3 points, roughly a six-point increase from the 12.7 points he averaged prior to Robinson’s injury. That is exactly the type of player Florida needs to head their offense, and it was the exact type of player they were missing in so many games last season. Call Blackshear the missing piece to the Gator puzzle.

But the most important thing Blackshear will bring to Gainesville this winter is a veteran presence who knows how to win. The young guys will grow around the graduate senior and the whole team will be better as a whole — not only because of the leadership Blackshear will bring to a squad that will start three sophomores and a freshman but because Blackshear also brings things schematically, that will open up opportunities all over the court.

Late last season for the Hokies, when Blackshear started putting up eye-popping numbers, defenses obviously paid him more attention. This led to plenty of opportunities to hit slashing guards going to the basket and made him a matchup nightmare the post. His vision as a big man led to him averaging almost three assists per game last season. He should be a valuable asset to use as an inside-out fulcrum. If you guard him one-on-one in the post, he’s very difficult to stop, but bring help from the outside and he will find one of his sharpshooters on the perimeter.

One of those outside shooters is going to be freshman five-star 2019 recruit Scottie Lewis, part of a recruiting class for the Gators that ranked No. 8 in the country in 2019 according to 247Sports. Lewis himself is a part of a duo of five-star recruits who came to the Gators. Both are set to be major contributors to the Gators in 2019. Lewis, the No. 7 ranked prospect in the class and No. 1 ranked small forward in the class, is projected to be in the starting lineup for the Gators. With the ability to both shoot the ball and slash to the basket, Lewis is going to be lethal combined with their new star in Blackshear and their outside sharpshooter in Locke.

The other five-star recruit for the Gators is the second-best point guard in the class — Tre Mann. Mann won’t make the star-studded Gator starting lineup right away, but he should see some significant time at point guard even with Nembhard returning as the starting point guard from last season.

Mann’s court vision is undeniable on tape and the youngster has the ability to shoot the ball a little bit as well. That combo is deadly especially at the college game and with Nembhard raising questions as to whether his vision is good enough to run the point, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Mann take over the point guard duties at some point this season.

If these assets mesh together well this season for the Gators, Florida won’t just be aiming for an SEC title this year, they’ll be looking for another national title to add to their repertoire.

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