A terrible week for the Gators basketball team has gotten even worse.
Coach Mike White announced on Friday that center Jason Jitoboh had eye surgery and is out for the rest of the season. Jitoboh started the last four games and averaged 9.3 points and five rebounds in three full games. He left the Gators’ eventual loss to Tennessee on Wednesday night after getting poked in the eye while jumping for a rebound late in the first half.
Meanwhile, normal starting center Colin Castleton will be doubtful for Saturday’s game with Oklahoma State as he continues to recover from a left shoulder injury. White said that the medical staff still hasn’t given him a prognosis on Castleton, and Castleton wasn’t even in the training complex on Friday as he dealt with an illness.
Reserve forward CJ Felder is still trying to get himself back into top shape after he missed a game and played less than three minutes against Tennessee because of an illness of his own.
Oh, and the Gators have serious work to do as far as building their NCAA Tournament resume.
White doesn’t know what the quality of play will look like from his team or some of the exact schematic decisions that he and his staff will make, but he does believe that this team will continue to fight, starting on Saturday against the Cowboys (10-9, 3-5 Big 12). He doesn’t anticipate them abandoning all hope and mailing it in.
“These guys are sick for Jason right now,” White said. “Sick for him. What this kid has overcome to put himself in a position to step in to replace the best big in our league, and now he’s got it rolling a little bit. And they’re really close with Jason, and now he’s out. It’s over for him this season.
“You can’t make up the adversity that these guys have had to overcome and will continue to overcome. Toon Gatkek’s got a chance to potentially log a lot of minutes [Saturday], potentially even start. CJ’s coming off some practices where he’s missed and games that he’s missed for a long time. Barely making it up the court from a wind standpoint [Friday]. I don’t know how we’ll look [Saturday]. I can tell you one thing – we’ll fight. These guys are ultra-competitive.”
With Castleton and Jitoboh out and Felder limited, the Gators (12-9, 3-5 SEC) will only have two forwards available for a large workload on Saturday: Anthony Duruji and Gatkek. They’ll both probably have to play 25 or more minutes, and the Gators will also have to make extensive use of some four-guard lineups. Heck, if Jitoboh or Gatkek gets in foul trouble, they may even have to play five guards at once.
Neither Duruji nor Gatkek are much of a low-post scoring threat. So, White said that they’ll have to make perimeter shots at a high rate, beat some excellent defenders off of the dribble and take care of the ball.
The Gators haven’t done any of those three things consistently well this season, as they rank 13th in the SEC in three-point shooting (29.7 percent) and eighth in turnovers (13.2 per game). Their guards are on the smaller end of the spectrum, which makes getting into the paint and finishing a challenge.
Still, that’s the hand that the Gators have been dealt. They’ll need to do those things much better if they want to make something of this season.
“We’ve got to be better cutting,” White said. “We’ve got to be elite with spacing it. We’ve got to make good decisions. And whether that means 30 threes or 18 threes, depending on how you’re being guarded, whether or not you’re attacking close-outs and getting downhill, whether or not we can actually get by elite defenders because we’re not just a great driving team. At times, we’ve probably overdone it in some of our big turnover games.”
The Gators just haven’t been able to catch a break over the past couple of weeks. Even after they won three consecutive games to climb back to .500 in the league, they dropped a pair of road games that were within reach and lost what little frontcourt depth they had left.
And, of course, the best player on their roster, 2020-21 SEC Preseason Player of the Year Keyontae Johnson, hasn’t played since his on-court collapse at Florida State in December 2020.
And yet, Gator Nation’s expectations won’t change. Fairly or unfairly, the fans’ ire toward White will only intensify with each loss.
White isn’t concerned about the outside noise. He’s just trying to make the best out of the situation that’s in front of him.
“I’m not worried about exterior expectations,” he said. “My expectation for this team is to max out. That’s what we’re trying to do on a daily basis. Keyontae is sitting over there by us, obviously. He’s the best player in our league. Colin might be the best big in our league, sitting over there by us, wishes he could be there. Team continues to fight.
“These guys are without a couple of their brothers, and they laid it on the line the other night in Knoxville in an incredibly hostile environment, had a chance to win, steal one on the road against one of the best teams in the country.”
White is going to enjoy coaching this team – whatever’s left of it, anyway.
“It’s got to be extremely tough on these guys,” White said. “From an overall perspective, how we deal with the day-to-day grind of practice and focus and work ethic and coming back the next day and swinging again at being the best team we can be, these guys have been great. Great. We’ve had like three issues off the court this year with two minutes late to a film session, one guy missed a class. I mean, these guys have been fantastic. Love hanging out with these guys. Love being a part of this group. They love each other.”
That love is about to be tested even more.