Every game is an adventure for Gators

“Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.” — Forrest Gump.

Alabama grad Winston Groom could have been writing about the Florida Gators when he penned that line in his bestseller “Forrest Gump” because you really never know what you’re going to get with this basketball team. Twenty-five games into the season and this is a team still in search of consistency, which means every game — like tonight’s Southeastern Conference encounter with Alabama at the O-Dome (7 p.m., Tape delay Sun Sports) — is an adventure.

Take last week for instance. The Gators lost two winnable games on the road and the only thing consistent in the two losses was the fact that Florida could have pulled out a win in the final seconds.

The Gators lost by three (68-65) to Kentucky at Rupp Arena in a game they couldn’t shoot a lick but played good tough enough defense to force 19 turnovers that kept them in the game. It took a miracle three-ball by Jodie Meeks to win the game for Kentucky and even that shot probably couldn’t have been defended any better.

Saturday, the Gators headed to Athens to face a Georgia team that was winless in SEC play and was the worst shooting team in the league. This one had the earmarks of a Florida blowout if only the Gators had remembered to bring their defense along. Georgia hit its first eight shots and that noted marksman Terrance Woodbury (29.4 percent from the three-point line heading into the game) hit five consecutive threes in the first half and seven for the game (10 attempts). Florida scored in bunches but without much help on the defensive end, a very winnable game on the road against a very bad team slipped through the cracks, 88-86.

The Gators have had their moments when both hot shooting and defense showed up on the same night (see Vanderbilt), but for the most part, it has been a season when you never know which Florida team is going to show up. One night they play decent defense and can’t shoot. The next night they can shoot lights out but can’t play defense. One game they can’t miss a free throw and close out a win in the final moments (see South Carolina at the O-Dome) and another game they can’t hit foul shots down the stretch and lose (see South Carolina in Columbia, Kentucky in Lexington).

Only Tennessee beat the Gators soundly (16 points) but the other three losses (all on the road) were last second affairs that the Gators could have won. The difference in winning and losing has everything to do with consistency.

“I think you want to try to put yourself in a position to win at the end,” said Florida coach Billy Donovan. “I think we have had an opportunity to do that but I think the things that come down during the course of the game that always affect the end of the game are always how well do you rebound the ball coming down the stretch and do you give up second shots and what kind of discipline do you have on defense to not break down. Then you have to take care of the basketball and make free throws. At certain points in time, those things have probably come back and have caught us a little bit in some different situations.”

It’s in Florida’s favor that tonight’s game with Alabama is in the friendly confines of the O-Dome. About the only real consistency all season for the Gators is that they have played well enough to win at home (13-0). Florida is tough to beat on the home court and Alabama hasn’t won a road game (0-6) all season so this has the earmarks of a game the Gators should win.

Alabama (13-11, 3-7 SEC West) is in a bit of disarray. This is the sixth game under interim coach Philip Pearson, who replaced Mark Gottfried three weeks ago. Alabama may not be a very good team, but the Crimson Tide does have some imposing physical talent like senior small forward Alonzo Gee (14.1 points, 7.2 rebounds per game) and stud freshman JaMychal Green (10.0 points, 7.0 rebounds). Due to a lack of consistent outside shooting, Alabama’s game plan has been to pound the ball inside to compensate for any kind of threat on the perimeter.

Senario Hillman (23.4 percent) and Brandon Hollinger (17 percent) are all too willing to launch Scuds from the three-point line and conventional wisdom says let them fire away. The only problem with conventional wisdom is that it has come back to bite the Gators badly in a couple of their SEC road losses.

When the Gators traveled to Knoxville, the Vols were the worst three-point shooting team in the SEC. By the time freshman Scotty Hopson had a career-best 20 points and the Vols had hit 12 three-balls, the Gators were 79-63 road kill.

Georgia was hitting 31.7 percent from the three-point line but against the Gators Saturday, the Bulldogs went 14-26 with Woodbury going off for a career-best 32. 

So Florida must find a way to play consistent enough defense on the perimeter to keep Hillman and Hollinger firing up blanks while giving enough help to stop Gee and Green on the inside. Consistency on defense would go a long way toward winning this game.

But it isn’t all about the defense, although that’s a good place to begin. Florida’s offense gets a lot of points on the board (79.1 per game average) but other than Nick Calathes, there is not a consistent threat to score. Calathes has been magnificent in the last 13 games, averaging 21.9 points, 6.9 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game. Calathes has carried the Gators offensively, but he has to have help. Alex Tyus (12.4 per game) has games when he’s an active scorer but he’s prone to disappear. Chandler Parsons is still looking to find his shot. Dan Werner seems to have lost his and Walter Hodge needs more games like the one he had against Georgia (22 points) and fewer like the one against Kentucky (two points).  Erving Walker is scoring 9.3 points per game off the bench but he plays well at home and inconsistently on the road.

For the Gators to emerge from their final six games with a good enough record to make the NCAA Tournament, it will take at least four wins, a daunting but doable task against the toughest stretch of the schedule. To avoid a second straight year in the NIT, the Gators desperately need another scorer to emerge and they have to find a way to play decent defense every night.

If they can’t find a consistent scorer or a way to play a respectable brand of defense regularly, then every game will be like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. The teams that know what they’re going to get every night are the ones that not only make the NCAA Tournament but they make waves. The teams that can’t figure it out wind up in the NIT.

Franz Beard
Back in January of 1969, the late, great Jack Hairston, then the sports editor of the Jacksonville Journal, called me on the phone one night and asked me if I wanted to work for him. I said yes. The entire interview took 30 seconds. It's my experience that whenever the interview lasts 30 seconds or less, I get the job. In the 48 years that I've been writing and getting paid for it, I've covered Super Bowls, World Series, NCAA basketball championships, BCS championship games, heavyweight title fights and what seems like thousands of college football, baseball and basketball games. I'm a columnist and special assignments editor for Gator Country once again, writing about the only team that ever mattered to me, the Florida Gators.