Florida is five days into preparation for the season opener and what you’re hearing from Billy Donovan — calling out sophomores Dan Werner, Jonathon Mitchell and Mareese Speights — is the coach trying to force his young guys to grow up. Don’t be alarmed and don’t think he’s being harsh. He’s done this before with the 0-Fours and it worked.
As Donovan has grown as a coach, he’s learned how to push the right buttons with his players. Joakim Noah and Taurean Green both told me on more than one occasion that Donovan has become a real master of using every psychological ploy at his disposal to get his teams to respond the way he wants.
What Donovan is looking for out of his sophomores is the kind of hustle every single day that will set the tone for the five freshmen. In Thursday’s press briefing, Donovan talked about how the Gators grade rebounding in practices. If a player has 10 rebound chances and he blocks out only five times, then he has a 50% rebound grade and that’s not acceptable. Donovan knows that it’s rare when a player will actually pull down every rebound every chance he has, but he also knows that it’s possible to block out 100 percent of the time. Since the Gators are not going to be the tallest team in the conference nor will they be the most physical, they have to be the best block out team if they are going to hold their own on the backboards this year.
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