Key takeaways from Florida basketball's win over Dartmouth

Florida wrapped up its non-conference schedule with a 94-72 win over the Dartmouth Big Green on Monday night.

The Gators cruised to a 26-point lead in the first half, but the second half was uglier than anyone would have liked. Dartmouth outscored Florida, 45-41, after the break, and the Gators once again lost the turnover battle, 12-10. The major difference was 3-point shooting. Florida continues to struggle while allowing opponents wide-open looks. Golden has said the game plan is to live with that in the past, but things are reaching an inflection point.

Despite the ugliness, Florida still won by 22 points. That's the difference between an SEC team and an Ivy League squad. Alex Condon led all scorers with 17 points, and Rueben Chinyelu posted another double-double with 13 points and 12 rebounds. Micah Handlogten almost had his own double-double of the bench, but he came up two points shy.

Thomas Haugh had an uncharacteristic night, going 3-for-9 from the field, and the backcourt tandem of Boogie Fland and Xaivian Lee was serviceable, scoring a combined 22 points on 10-for-19 (52.6%) shooting. A lack of 3-point attempts in the second half helped boost that field goal percentage.

Florida came out of the Christmas break sloppy

Turnovers have been a problem all year for Florida, and whatever progress was made going into the Christmas break appears to be gone. Florida's first turnover occurred at the 15:34 mark. Dartmouth already had four by that point, but the tables turned in a hurry after that.

At least half of Florida's 12 turnovers were the result of careless ball-handling and miscommunication. Very rarely did Dartmouth provide the kind of defensive pressure that forces an SEC team to give the ball away. Condon was the worst offender with four. It's becoming a real problem for him now with a team-high 33 on the year. The offense runs through him often, and his 44 assists are the second-most on the team to Lee's 45, but the 1.33 assist-to-turnover ratio leaves something to be desired — even for a college big. Condon also found himself in foul trouble early, albeit thanks to a couple of soft calls from the officials.

Surprisingly, Florida only turned it over four times in the second half, but the laziness transferred over to the defense. Allowing open transition 3s isn't going to win Florida an SEC Championship, and forget about a Sweet 16 run if this is what's going on.

Florida phoned in the win

Florida led by 20 or more for most of the game. The Gators went up by double digits 3 minutes and 22 seconds into the game and stayed there for good after the 13:40 mark in the first half. Once again, the Florida frontcourt made the battle on the glass one-sided, outrebounding Dartmouth 37-9 before the break. The final tally of 60-24 wasn't any prettier.

The Big Green couldn't outphysical the Gators' bigs, opting to foul instead of giving up easy looks — which still came plenty often. Florida shot 26 free throws in the first half, slowing the game down and adding more Gators points to the scoreboard.

Then, up 30 points with 10 minutes to go, Florida started going through the motions. In two minutes, Dartmouth went on a 10-4 run, swinging the momentum. Florida fought back to a 30-point lead once again, and then the final five minutes were all about getting the game over with. An 11-3 run over the final 4:39 is unacceptable, and it's not like the starters were off the court yet. Sure, the final minute and change can go that way, but these guys were tired despite not playing for nearly a week.

It's an ugly cherry on top of what looked like a beautiful sundae that will leave a bad taste in Gator Nation's mouth until SEC play starts. The good news is that SEC play should get the boys going.

The non-conference schedule has finally come to an end

Todd Golden made sure to make the non-conference schedule more challenging than it was a year ago, but this team needs consistent challenges against Quadrant 1 and 2 teams to get ready for March. Starting the season against Arizona was a tough break. The Gators are a much different team than they were on Nov. 3, especially the starting guard tandem of Fland and Lee.

Florida State doesn't look like a competitive win, and that was also during Florida's adjustment period. The Gators only beat the Seminoles by two. Miami was the start of the turnaround, but a road bump came in TCU as the Rady Children's Invitational. That loss also took away a quality matchup against Wisconsin in the following round.

The stretch against Duke, UConn and GWU was in the right spirit, but following up with three Q4 games in a row dilutes whatever progress might seem apparent. Florida learned a lot and then had no real competition to make adjustments against.

Conference play should give the Gators a consistent schedule against NCAA Tournament-caliber teams. Starting with Missouri on the road is a nice way to ease into things, and then comes a challenging stretch: Georgia, Tennessee, at Oklahoma and at Vanderbilt — all Q4 matchups as of now.

Hopefully, raising the level of competition forced Florida to clean up its problem areas: early foul trouble and too many turnovers.

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This article originally appeared on Gators Wire: Florida basketball vs. Dartmouth Big Green recap, takeaways