The Florida Gators basketball team is now less than a week away from heading to Jacksonville to play the first game of the regular season. Head coach Mike White feels like the Gators are in a good spot as they prepare to take on Florida Gulf Coast, an NCAA Tournament team last season, next Friday.
There were still some questions about where this Florida team was at following the exhibition against Eckerd College on October 26. The Gators pulled away with a 91-63 victory, but Eckerd kept them on their heels for much of the game.
Florida scrimmaged a Division-I program last weekend, but the event was not open to the public. Every year, schools participate in these “secret” scrimmages, but the NCAA does not allow the schools to give out many details.
According to White, it was a much better showing from the Gators than their previous performance. “I can’t confirm who it was (it was UAB), but I can confirm we had a secret scrimmage the other day and we played really well. Really well,” White said. “I was really pleased with our effort, but to another level, our unselfishness and the way the ball popped and moved around the court and our shot selection. Defensively, our attention to detail and accountability to each other was pretty good for late October.”
As the season inches closer every day, White still has no set starting five in mind. There may not ever be a starting five set in stone this season.
“I’d be shocked if we had a conventional, consistent starting five,” he said. “Not that I have anything against it at all. I just think that the strength of this team is our experience and our depth and the depth of that experience.”
White is a firm believer in going with the hot hand, and that’s what he plans to do throughout the season.
“We could go a bunch of different ways. If so and so’s playing great, he’s probably going to start. If a guy starts one game and he’s average and one of the guys he’s competing with comes off the bench and he plays his butt off, he might get the nod the next night. And I want all of our guys to be open to that. I’d rather them be more concerned with who finishes the game and how many minutes they get because of how they played and how many minutes they can earn the next game by their production.”
For that reason, Florida’s practices are set up to be very competitive. Nearly every drill is a competition, and there is a consequence for losing. “It’s the mental aspect of being able to overcome those adversities. And then, what we’re trying to do is increase the competitiveness level,” said White. “We’re hoping to get more game-like reps both offensively and defensively.”
Even with all the competition in practices, the team is starting to come together nicely. The biggest thing now is not losing sight of that when the competition is in a game-time situation.
“I’m really pleased with us right now, but it’s a daily eval with these guys. A lot of things that are positive right now, it’s about maintaining those things,” White said. “And it’s a little bit easier right now as we’ve talked about a lot with our team to have great camaraderie and great chemistry because we haven’t played on TV yet. Starting lineups haven’t been announced yet and rotations, parents watching games and ex-coaches watching games and all of it. Our fans, the feedback, these guys’ classmates on campus. If we can remain together, if our locker room can remain as healthy as it is right now — and again, we’re in a really good place, but a lot of teams are — then we have a chance to be a really good team and have a good year.”