GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- After another disappointing loss in a game that his team was right in the thick of for most of the evening, coach Mike White came away as frustrated as ever.

Sure, Tennessee was every bit of the No. 3 team in the country, a smooth unit offensively that also knows how to tighten the screws defensively when it matters the most. Still, Florida had its chances. Yet again, simple things doomed the Gators.

"I mean I can give you some positives, but I don't enjoy saying the same things every day," White said. "I can give you a laundry list of things I just talked to our team about. Fouling jump shooters? Are you kidding me? We're in the middle of January and we're fouling jump shooters. Guards rebounding down to help our bigs. Jump passes. Two jump passes. We called a couple plays there in the second half where we needed big baskets and we've got one guy going in the wrong direction."

Those little mistakes added up and Tennessee quickly pulled ahead in the second half thanks to some halftime adjustments.

Florida never seemed to adjust enough. A couple key offensive rebounds for Tennessee secured second-chance possessions that resulted in pivotal baskets down the stretch. Meanwhile, the Gators missed some open looks at the rim.

Sound familiar?

"Good teams finish at the rim through contact," White said for seemingly the umpteenth time. "And I don't expect us to be a good offensive team overnight, but we've got to start finishing those."

So back to that question that was aimed at White following the game: Were there any positives to being in a tight game against the country's No. 3 team?

Frankly, White sounds sick of looking for silver linings at this point.

"It's just got to be more important to us. There can't be moral wins here," he said. "We're the University of Florida and we did not do our jobs down the stretch. They hit a big three late in the game in the opposite corner of the bench. (We're) out of our stance and we're staring at the basketball. We can't talk about more than our staff talks about that on a day-to-day basis. I don't want to talk about it anymore."

For their part, players are saying the right things. So far this year, though, words have rarely translated into action.

"I feel like we've got to be more focused down the stretch," said freshman guard Noah Locke, one of the team's few bright spots in the loss. "It's happened the last three games. We've got to be more locked in down the stretch, focused. I mean we can't let those things happen."

At this point, with Florida sitting at 9-6, lacking many quality wins and teetering ever closer to the wrong end of the bubble picture, wondering whether White can simply keep total collapse from happening is a relevant question.

Eventually players just start to tune things out if they keep hearing the same things and nothing ends up changing.

Are the Gators in danger of falling apart after so many tough losses?

"I don't know the best way to answer that," White said. "I was concerned after Game 1. We've got some areas where we're just average or below average.

"We've got good guys that will continue to work and stay together but if we don't get more discipline and attention to detail relative to scouting and our offensive and defensive rules then this is going to happen a bunch more."