Florida Gators basketball a finalist for Dontay Bassett

The Florida Gators basketball staff played host to a huge official visitor over the weekend in power forward Dontay Bassett (6-8, 205, Oldsmar, FL Oldsmar Christian) who got the chance to do a lot of things during his visit to Gainesville.

“It went well, I got to meet a lot of people and connected with them as well,” Bassett said of his official visit to Florida. “I built relationships with the players and the coaches. It was a nice time. I also got to watch practice this weekend.”

Bassett was really impressed by the Florida Gators basketball practice and how much attention to detail Gators head coach Mike White focused on during practice.

“I really liked watching them practice, it was real intense and competitive,” he said. “Everyone was bringing high energy and working hard. They were real focused on the defense.”

This was the first time for Bassett and White to spend a lot of time together and the power forward believes success is in the future for this Florida Gators basketball program.

“Coach White, he’s a nice coach and I think he’s going to do really well this year in his first year at Florida,” Bassett said. “I like his drive for the game and his willingness to play defense. I like that he’s trying to get them better on offense too. He seems like a really good coach.”

During the official visit White and his coaches talked to Bassett a lot about their game plan on the court and Bassett liked what he heard from the Gators.

“On the court, Coach White likes for them to get up and down the court fast,” he said. “They execute well on defense and that’s what I like a lot. Coach White really emphasizes defense first. The way they run the offense is something I like because they use the bigs a lot.”

White also shared his vision on how the Florida Gators basketball team will use Bassett if he chooses the Gators for college.

“Coach White said that I’m good at a lot of things so he wants to extend that out some and make me great at a lot of things too,” Bassett said of White’s message to him. “He said that he can really develop me and that Coach Preston (Florida’s strength coach) is one of the best strength coaches in America so he can help me too. Coach White said he sees me as a stretch four or a four that can do a lot of things.”

Florida Gators assistant coach Dusty May has been the primary recruiter for Bassett but the forward said that he likes all of the coaches and the energy they bring to the program.

“Our relationship is going good with everyone, Florida has a nice group of young coaches,” he said. “I think the young coaches are good because we can connect on a good level and we are still in contact with each other.”

The Gators won’t have to wait long to see if they did enough to impress Bassett or not as the forward plans to make a decision this week.

“I’m making a decision on Tuesday between Florida and Colorado,” Bassett said. “I’m going to announce my decision on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon. Right now I’m still weighing out the pro’s and con’s for each school so I can see where I fit the best at and where I will develop the best at.”

 

Andrew Spivey
Andrew always knew he wanted to be involved with sports in some capacity. He began by coaching high school football for six years before deciding to pursue a career in journalism. While coaching, he was a part of two state semifinal teams in the state of Alabama. Given his past coaching experience, he figured covering recruiting would be a perfect fit. He began his career as an intern for Rivals.com, covering University of Florida football recruiting. After interning with Rivals for six months, he joined the Gator Country family as a recruiting analyst. Andrew enjoys spending his free time on the golf course and watching his beloved Atlanta Braves. Follow him on Twitter at @AndrewSpiveyGC.