Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Both North Carolina, just a year removed from the fifth national championship in school history, and UCLA, two years removed from three consecutive trips to the Final Four, are hanging on for dear life, hoping to avoid a losing season partially induced by an exodus of outstanding players to the professional ranks.
Billy Donovan can relate. It was just three years ago when he said good-bye to Al Horford, Joakim Noah, Corey Brewer, Taurean Green, Lee Humphrey and Chris Richard following Florida’s second consecutive NCAA championship in 2007. Horford, Noah and Brewer left a year early and were lottery picks in the NBA Draft. Green, who also left a year early, and Richard were both second round selections while Humphrey signed professionally to play in Germany.
A year later Donovan said good-bye to Marreese Speights, who was a first rounder in the NBA Draft after his sophomore season. Last year, sophomore Nick Calathes declared for the NBA Draft and then signed a lucrative three-year deal to play in Greece.
While there is no question that both North Carolina and UCLA were hurt by players leaving for the pros and they aren’t the only top programs to suffer from attrition in recent years. Syracuse won the NCAA in 2003 but in 2007 and again in 2008 went to the NIT. Georgetown, which made the Final four in 2006, went 16-15 last season and went to the NIT. Ohio State, whom the Gators beat for the NCAA title in 2007, won the NIT in 2008. UConn, a year after going 30-4 and losing to George Mason in the Elite Eight game, went 17-14 and didn’t even make the NIT. Maryland, which won the NCAA in 2002, has had four NCAA seasons and two NIT seasons since.
Another one of those tradition rich programs is Indiana, which saw a wholesale exodus of players when the long arm of the NCAA caught up with Kelvin Sampson, went 6-25 in 2009 and is 9-17 this season.
If you talked to the coaches of these teams, they would spin a tale of what might have been if only players had stuck around another year or two. Think of the tale Billy Donovan could tell.
Had the Oh-Fours stayed the Gators would have been odds-on favorites to make it three NCAA titles in a row. Had Speights stayed another year, the Gators probably would have been a Sweet 16 team last year. Give the Gators Speights and Calathes this year and you’re talking a team that could make a serious run at another title.
But instead of continuing the championship run, Florida has been in a gradual state of reload. Two straight years in the NIT have fans grumbling and while an NCAA bid is likely for this year’s team, which is 20-8 with three SEC games to go after blowing out 19th-ranked Tennessee Tuesday night, nothing is guaranteed. Even if the Gators do make the dance, their depth issues are considered a liability for a long stay, although anything is possible since it only takes a six-game winning streak to take home the big trophy.
Donovan is clearly proud of this team, which only has a three-man bench. He’s also proud of the previous two teams that went to the NIT. Fans might not think much of the 2008 and 2009 teams, but Donovan doesn’t think fans give those teams near enough credit.
“Clearly our team over the last four years has lost more players to professional basketball than any other program maybe in the country and I don’t know if enough credit has been given to our guys that we have not had a type of dip when we’ve gone 9-20,” Donovan said Tuesday night. “In essence we probably should have when we lost Noah, Horford, Brewer, Green, Humphrey and Chris Richard. Brewer’s a lottery pick, Horford’s a lottery pick, Noah’s a lottery pick. Chris Richard goes in the second round, Taurean Green goes in the second round and Lee Humphrey is the all-time three point field goal maker in NCAA history.”
Those guys were replaced by a bunch of sophomores who rarely played the year before and a wide-eyed group of freshmen. The Gators were the youngest and most inexperienced team in the country in 2008.
“All those freshmen came in and they won 24 games,” Donovan said. The Gators of 2008 made it to the Final Four of the NIT, which, ironically, was won by Ohio State, which suffered a mass exodus after losing to the Gators in the NCAA title game in 2007.
Contrast that to this year’s North Carolina team whose freshmen and returning players are 14-14 after a blowout loss to Florida State Wednesday night.
Although the NIT certainly represents a second tier and might be hard for fans who have tasted championships to swallow, the fall for the Gators hasn’t been nearly as bad as it has been or is at some other places.
“We haven’t had that here [big fall] and that’s a tribute to those kids,” Donovan said. “These guys want to get to the NCAA Tournament, no question about it, and so does every team across the country. Give those kids some credit that in two years going into this season, they won 49 games. You look at some of the programs out there that have some “phenomenal tradition” and have great programs and our guys have been able to overcome the departures and have played pretty hard and really, really competitive. It’s a tribute to our guys. I know the programs that have lost the number of players that we’ve lost — it’s really hard to sustain and hard to overcome that stuff but that’s kind of the nature of the beast of college basketball.”
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This year’s team can’t always shoot straight and rarely gets more than a handful of points from its very short bench. They aren’t big enough or strong enough or quick enough, yet they find ways to win games. With three games remaining in the regular season, the Gators are a half-game behind Vanderbilt for second place in the SEC East.
Some experts tend to think this is Donovan’s greatest coaching job although you would get an argument from Tennessee’s Bruce Pearl, who says, “I think those two national championship years were pretty spectacular although I would say yes if you want to compare this year to the last two.”
While it can be debated if this is Donovan’s best coaching job, there is no question that he has proven he belongs among the nation’s elite coaches the way he has gotten this team to will itself to win even on nights when nothing seems to go right. Further proof that Donovan belongs on the short list of the nation’s best is the fact that Tuesday night’s win extended Donovan’s streak of 20-win seasons to 12.
Roy Williams of North Carolina owns the longest streak of 20-win seasons nationally although it’s highly doubtful that streak makes it to 22. Kentucky’s John Calipari (UMass, Memphis and now Kentucky) and Minnesota’s Tubby Smith (Tulsa, Georgia, Kentucy and now Minnesota) both have won 20 games 16 years in a row while Mike Kryzyzewski of Duke has 14 and then there are Donovan and Self with 12.
In SEC history, Donovan and Tubby Smith have the most consecutive 20-win seasons although Donovan got all 12 of his at Florida while Smith had two at Georgia before a run of 10 straight at Kentucky. Kentucky fans would argue that Adolph Rupp had 14 20-win seasons in a row but historians debate that it should be considered since the NCAA prohibited Kentucky from fielding a team in 1952-53 for cheating and having players who participated in a point shaving scandal. Rupp had a streak of eight in a row before the one-year ban and then won at least 20 in the next six.
The string of 20-win seasons gives Donovan a resume that reads consistency and it’s more impressive when you consider he’s done it at a school that will put 60,000 fans in the stands for a spring football game but won’t sell out the O-Dome for a game against a nationally ranked Tennessee team. Prior to Donovan, there were five 20-win seasons in Florida basketball history. Donovan owns 330 of the 1,209 wins in Florida history in just 14 years. His teams have averaged 23.5 wins per year while the other 77 Florida teams (combined record 879-874) averaged 11.3 per season.
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The goals for this year’s Florida team are the same ones that are in place every single year — compete for the SEC Championship and get into the NCAA Tournament. An SEC championship is pretty much out of the question the way Kentucky (26-1; ranked second nationally) is playing but the Gators could still make hay in the SEC Tournament (league champion determined by regular season) and they seem to be in good shape to make the NCAA Tournament.
A win Saturday at Georgia would give the Gators their tenth SEC win of the season with remaining games against Vandy at home and on the road at Kentucky. A win over either one of those teams would be a resume enhancer that could give the Gators a very good seed in the big dance. Ten league wins and a first round win in the SEC Tournament should do the trick and get the Gators in their first NCAA since the 2007 national championship team.
“Our goal here is to compete for league championships and get into the tournament,” Donovan said. “I’ve always said the NCAA Tournament is like the lottery. You gotta be in it to win it. You don’t buy a lottery ticket, you can’t win the lottery. And once you get in it, you’ve got a chance.”
The Gators have a chance because the guy on their sideline has proven to be the picture of consistency.