After playing their best game of the season, the Florida Gators basketball team is no longer thriving off a dominant victory, but putting it behind them and looking forward to doing it again.
The team expressed how one game doesn’t guarantee they will score 80 points and shoot over 60 percent from the field again. Instead, the Gators need to resemble playing 40 minutes in every game.
Now knowing they can play an effective 40-minute contest, it goes to show viewers how good this team can be and how many more wins they could’ve picked up.
“It meant a lot for us to finally go out there and have a complete 40 minute game,” forward Chris Walker said. “Like coach (Billy Donovan) said, I wonder if we all would’ve played 40-minute games every game, what would our record be now? But that’s in the past, we just got to focus on what’s ahead.”
The Gators stand back at a .500 record of 4-4 and enter Friday night going against a Texas Southern squad that is struggling with a 1-6 record. This means a lot for this Florida moving forward.
After demolishing Yale by 38 points, Florida gets to play a woeful Texas Southern, then Jacksonville and Wake Forest teams that are all capable of defeating. Those games don’t only mean a better chance at winning, but for the team to find its identity and gel as one.
The players and coaches alike have a chance of finally building off a system after the players are fulfilling their roles effectively.
In executing the game plan, the players felt relieved and actually had fun compared to how frustrating the past two weeks have been for the team. But Donovan sees it as more than that.
“I think when they refer to the fun part of it, when you put forth that effort that they put forth and you are out there in the game and you’re playing it becomes an enjoyable experience, you feel good about what you are doing,” head coach Donovan said.” “I don’t know if I would use the word happy and fun as much as I would use the word rewarding, you know I think it was rewarding for them to see the fruits of their labor pay off you know in the way that they played the other night.”
All the fun and games are over now just like that. The points, alley-oops and shutting down an opponent doesn’t carry over to the next game and the players understand that more than anything right now.
Just like the old saying ‘it’s a process, we’re taking it one game at a time’ really reflects Florida right now. But the opportunity to flourish into the team they really can be is up for grabs.
“What we do in practice is why that happened. We played to how we want to play,” forward Jacob Kurtz said. “We got out and ran, we rebounded well, we defended and that’s why it happened, so don’t try to get caught up in it. We had one good game, now we’ve got to have another one tomorrow.”