The Florida Gators won their 20th game of the season Wednesday night, going 8-8 from the foul line at crunch time in the final 2:15, something they hadn’t been doing lately. This 83-74 win over Alabama wasn’t picture perfect by any stretch of the imagination and some of the same holes on this Gator team that have been exploited before were exploited once again. For a team with so many obvious flaws, maybe they shouldn’t be tied for first place in the Eastern Division of the Southeastern Conference but that’s exactly where the Gators are.
“These guys are giving me everything they have,” said Billy Donovan after the Gators broke their two-game losing streak in the SEC with an NIT is calling if you don’t win over the Crimson Tide (13-11, 3-8 SEC West). “I understand all their flaws and all their flaws can be seen but sometimes we get a little bit fatigued and we get tired and they’re young and they’re thinner and they’re not quite as old as some of these teams and they get pushed around.”
They do get tired. They do get pushed around. They don’t have enough depth. They miss critical free throws. They aren’t going to scare anybody with their defense. They’re dead last in the SEC in rebounding. Those faults are there for anyone to see and maybe it is because the flaws are way too visible that it is so easy for spoiled Florida fans to pick this team apart.
These guys aren’t the Oh-Fours but fans tend to think they should play like that team that won back-to-back NCAA championships just two years ago.
“I see them really trying hard and they’re not Noah, Horford, Brewer, Green and Humphrey,” said Donovan. “They are not those guys. It’s not even about them upholding a standard of what those guys did. It’s about them right now creating their own legacy and trying to create their own thing. That time is over with. That happened two years ago.”
Two years ago, Donovan had a team for the ages. He had the defense, the power game with Al Horford and Joakim Noah with Chris Richard coming off the bench, the slasher and defender deluxe in Corey Brewer, the best three-point shooter in the history of the NCAA Tournament in Lee Humphrey and the point guard in Taurean Green who made it all blend together into the ultimate team.
Last year the Gators won 24 games with a team that Donovan says didn’t even know how to practice. After they lost in the first round of the SEC Tournament, Donovan took away their privileges. He banned them from their plus practice facility and made them do their own laundry.
“It was a nightmare going to practice every day,” Donovan said. “Now they’re starting to involve the work ethic that is involved and now they understand the commitment.”
They work harder. They’re more committed. They try harder in games. They give Donovan everything they have.
But still there is so much that has to be learned. It’s a process that isn’t always easy and it has involved plenty of heartbreak along the way.
“I understand that everybody’s worried and focused on the result,” said Donovan. “They [the team] want a good result too. They wanted to win today. They wanted to win against Kentucky and Georgia. They need to understand what goes into winning to win and unfortunately there are going to be some growing pains. They are meeting my expectations in terms of their work ethic. Are they the most talented, physically gifted team in our league? They’re not even close but they’re doing the best that they can.”
They have won 20 games this season, the 11th straight year Donovan has done that. To put it in perspective, it’s the fifth longest active streak of 20-win seasons in the country and it is the longest streak of consecutive 20-win seasons for an SEC coach at the same school. Adolph Rupp, who won 875 games and four national titles at Kentucky in an era when 90 percent of the schools in the SEC assigned a football assistant to coach basketball, never had 11 straight 20-win seasons. Tubby Smith had 12, but his first two were at Georgia and his last 10 were at Kentucky.
Argue all you want that the SEC is in a down cycle but even in a down year, the last place team in the SEC (Arkansas) owns a win over second-ranked Oklahoma, which has the horses to win it all. Schizophrenic Tennessee has a win over Marquette, which trails Big East leader UConn by a half game, and the Vols gave Kansas and Memphis all it could handle. Florida’s win over Pac-10 leader Washington is looking better all the time and there is a win over North Carolina State, not a great team, for sure, but one that nobody in the ACC or any other league really wants to play. Who knows what might have happened with Syracuse if the Gators (13 free throw attempts) had gotten as many chances as the Orange (32) in that six point loss on a neutral floor?
Twenty wins is still a huge accomplishment, particularly for a team that has only one consistent scorer in Nick Calathes, who scored 22 points Wednesday night, his 14th straight game in double figures. He also had six assists and five steals to go with three rebounds and he hit 4-7 on his three-pointers. The Gators need someone else to emerge as a legitimate scoring threat on the perimeter to take some of the pressure off Calathes, but some nights it’s there and some nights it isn’t. Wednesday night it wasn’t. Erving Walker (3-7), Walter Hodge (1-9) and Chandler Parsons (0-3) all had great looks at the basket and you could almost swear that more than half their shots were at least 70 percent down when somehow they kicked back out. But that’s shooting for you.
The Gators are dead last in the SEC in rebounding and they got outrebounded again by Alabama, 41-37. JaMychal Green (nine second half rebounds, 15 overall) and Alonzo Gee (five second half rebounds, seven overall) seemed to live in the paint, especially in the second half, but somehow the Gators hung in there well enough to snag 17 offensive rebounds and score 13 second chance points. Alex Tyus looked like a twig next to Green, Gee, Justin Knox, Yamene Coleman and Demetrius Jemison but somehow he worked his way inside to score 16 points and pull down seven rebounds, including four on the offensive end. Freshman Kenny Kadji looked like a lost ball in the tall grass about half the time, but when he did figure things out, he scored eight points, grabbed eight rebounds and blocked two shots.
Alabama was taller, obviously stronger — all you had to do was look at the imposing size of the Crimson Tide athletes — and definitely quicker and more athletic. For all their flaws, the slower, shorter Gators, who played below the rim for most of the game while Alabama was soaring above it, found a way to win.
They won by hitting 19-24 of their free throws, none bigger than the two Walter Hodge nailed with 39.3 seconds remaining to give the Gators a nine-point cushion. They won with a lot of guys making contributions. Calathes is the only star on the team, but guys like Dan Werner (six points, four rebounds, two assists, one blocked shot and three steals) did a lot of little things that affected winning.
The Gators have games like that when the pieces all fit together and the team just clicks. They also have their games like the two they lost last week when they couldn’t close the game out in the last few minutes.
Depth is an issue. Because of the transfer of Jai Lucas before game one, the loss of Adam Allen for the season, ankle surgery to Eloy Vargas that has slowed his development to a creep and a recent injury that has kept Allan Chaney out of action for two weeks, Donovan sometimes operates with five on the floor and a three-man bench.
Then there is that ongoing issue with leadership.
“The freshmen last year came in here with no leadership and no understanding of what goes into anything and they kind of learned on the road,” Donovan said. “Now they’re sophomores and now they’re expected to be leaders? This is the same group of guys that didn’t even know how to practice last year. This group of Chandler and Nick, and even Dan to an extent, and Alex Tyus, have been thrust into a situation that to be quite honest is really unfair and I probably hold myself more responsible in terms of not having more pieces around those guys so they can do what they can do and be complemented more.”
And yet they are 20-6 and tied for the lead in the SEC East, needing three more wins in the regular season to seal a tenth trip to the NCAA Tournament in the last 11 years. Maybe Florida fans can’t appreciate what they’ve accomplished, but Donovan can.
“These kids have done a pretty good job considering our program got really wiped out and decimated with Noah, Horford, Brewer, Green, Humphrey and Richard and the whole lot leaving,” Donovan said. “For them to win 24 games last year and they’ve won 20 right now, these guys have done a pretty good job.”
Not a great job, mind you, but a good one for a team that wears its flaws for everyone to see.