As the Florida Gators basketball team sprints down the court shifting to defense, guys like Devin Robinson can hear shouts from the bench.
Box out!
Get a rebound!
Hands up!
Defend!
It’s not necessarily head coach Mike White or even one of his assistants.
Often times it’s redshirt senior Alex Murphy.
“On defense I can hear him a lot,” says sophomore forward Devin Robinson. “I hear him all the time.”
The forward has been regulated to the bench for weeks now after suffering an injury during the Gators exhibition game and incurred plantar fasciitis.
The hope all along has been that Murphy would be available to return during this difficult three game stretch of Miami, Michigan State and Oklahoma State. Now that Florida is preparing to take on the Cowboys on Saturday, it might finally be with Murphy back on the hardwood.
“He came off practice a couple days ago and was good,” explains White.
“He’s doing much better than he was three weeks ago. I think there’s a chance that he plays Saturday, just depending on over the next couple of days with the banging and the pounding and the sprinting up and down the floor, the bone on bone stuff and how well he deals with it.”
While he ideally will be on the court helping to improve what has become a somewhat stagnant offense, Murphy’s presence on the bench cannot be overstated.
More often than not Alex can be seen standing in front of the bench, almost the requisite amount of space to the coach’s box. Even when he was still hobbling in a boot, he found the strength to stand so as to better project his voice as he started coaching his teammates. Then with each timeout he would collapse back onto his seat having spent what energy he had saved up during the last possession.
This is something Mike White has noticed and now sees a future in it for Murphy.
“He’s tremendous,” states White.
“Alex has got, if he wants to coach, he’s got a future in it.”
For now though, the key to him being a good coach is the fact that he’s also a teammate.
“We preach…ownership,” continues White.
“I could tell one of the guys on our team the same thing ten times but if their teammates are telling them that same thing it’s just as good, sometimes it’s even more valuable. And Alex, he’s very vocal and he’s a coach amongst the players. He’s really good with understanding what we’re looking for and he’s been valuable throughout this transition.”
This isn’t some super secret coaching tactic either. It’s a fact that the Florida Gators basketball players are well aware off. Maybe it’s some sort of harken back to childhood when you know Mom is telling you to do something as an order and thus it looses all of it’s allure. But then when a friend or sibling suggest the same thing, all of a sudden it’s a choice and much more appealing.
The same can be said for how the Gators react to coaching from Murphy. They know it’s the same thing White is coaching them, but they also know that Murphy can see things from their point of view on the court as well and can therefore translate.
“Second to Coach White and all the assistants is Alex Murphy. He’s one of our peers. We play with him. We listen to him also. He knows how to get under our skin and he knows how to get us going because he’s our teammate. Coach White is our coach, so he’s supposed to know. But our teammate he knows a little bit more inside.”
This wasn’t always the case.
White has stated many times that communication is noticeably better when Alex Murphy is on the court. No one ever wants to be injured but according to teammates, White can thank Murphy’s injury for that level of communication.
“Before he got injured he wasn’t as vocal,” explains Robinson.
“But when he sat out he told us, he’s like it really opened his eyes to what he sees out there so he became more vocal. And now that he’s back he knows what he saw and he’s trying to adjust it when he’s in there.”
This all circles back to one thing, according to White; Alex Murphy’s sole purpose in every word he speaks on that court in practice and in the Stephen C. O’Connell Center.
“He’s as good a teammate as I’ve ever been around, and we’ve got three or four guys like that are just big givers. He’s a big giver and a real positive guy. Whether he gets in the game Saturday or not, whether he scores 20 or 0, he’s about Florida winning and he’s always doing his best to help his teammates.”
“He gets people talking,” adds Robinson, “he gets people going. He encourages people and that’s what we need.”
Murphy will get a shot to [possibly] bring this experience and attitude to the court when the Florida Gators basketball team takes on Oklahoma State on Saturday December 19 at 8pm in Sunrise, Florida.
Even if he’s not in uniform on the hardwood though, his teammates can be confident in the fact that he’s seeing things from their perspective and ready to coach in whatever way they need.