There was that moment two years ago when Billy Donovan saw his team decide enough was enough. After a loss to Alabama, Florida’s third in a row in February, the Gators stood 8-6 in the Southeastern Conference and were on the verge of a good season going bad. It took a team meeting that bordered on hostile at times to clear the air, but when the Gators left that room that day, they had decided they were capable of doing whatever was necessary to win. Five weeks later they were NCAA champions.
Now, nobody is predicting a national championship for this year’s Florida team, which has lost the last three games and is on the verge of a second straight trip to the National Invitation Tournament. The Gators (21-9, 8-7 SEC East) don’t have the horses to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament, but they are capable of righting the ship enough to get into the NCAA although getting there will require a win over Kentucky (19-11, 8-7 SEC East) Saturday and a couple of wins in the SEC Tournament next week in Tampa.
“It took three straight losses and being 8-6 in 2006 with those guys that they finally said, ‘I’m getting this corrected right now. This is not going to go on and we’re going to do the things we have to do’ and for whatever reason, whether it was something I said or did or their individual makeup or their ability to be self-reflective, they were able to correct that,” Donovan said Thursday afternoon, a day after the Gators had absorbed their third straight loss at Mississippi State by an 80-71 score that might not have been as close as the score might indicate.
The 2006 Gators weren’t lacking for leaders and that’s an area where this 2009 team comes up a bit short. They are young and they are flawed in that they have large holes only more talent can fill, but they have enough firepower and talent that they’ve had a legitimate shot to win all but two or three games.
Their inability to close things out earlier in the year is magnified by their late-season collapse. Now the Gators have to find a way to regroup after three losses and put together some sort of a run in the next 10 days if they intend to avoid the NIT.
“I think that’s our challenge as coaches,” said Donovan. “We’re trying to bring that out in every possible way but really find a way collectively as a group to do it and a lot of it is sometimes guys personal and individual makeup that can be a challenge in itself because they’ve done something a certain way for most of their playing career.”
Old habits can be hard to break and that has contributed to Florida’s inability to close out winnable games. For example, while acknowledging that sophomore point guard Nick Calathes has the kind of talent to score 15-18 points, grab 5-7 rebounds and hand out 5-7 assists every single game, Donovan said it is time for Calathes to understand that he has to get his teammates more involved.
As a McDonald’s All-American in high school, Calathes could turn on the talent late in the game and lift Lake Howell to victory. He could almost will his team to win by taking everything on his own shoulders.
That hasn’t always translated into wins at Florida, however. Calathes has played well enough that he will make first team All-SEC — 18.2 points, 5.3 rebounds and 6.4 assists per game — but Donovan needs Calathes to get teammates even more involved instead of taking on the full burden.
“I think sometimes when you’re perceived to be the best player on the team you feel this enormous responsibility … ‘I gotta go do it’ and he’s not that type of player that he can just athletically go do it,” Donovan said. “But, he is smart enough and he’s got good enough ability to make plays that his focus has to be ‘how do I incorporate and get everybody else involved?’”
Donovan made it a point to say that Calathes isn’t a selfish player, just that he gets so focused in on his own game that he can lose sight of what he needs to do to make his teammates better.
“He [Calathes] works hard and plays hard and wants to be a good player and he’s driven to do that,” Donovan said. “There is also a thing with him that he can sometimes get so focused on what he has to do that he loses sight of the other four guys and how he can do what he needs to do and really try to incorporate that.”
The Florida ship has taken on plenty of water in the last three games, and to stop the listing. Calathes isn’t the only player on the team with flaws in his game and a need to grow up. He’s just one player, albeit one vital to the Gators’ success, but Calathes and all his teammates have to look inward and find whatever it is that stands in the way of becoming focused on what the team can accomplish.
Getting the Gators more focused on the team and less focused on what is or isn’t going right in their own games has been an ongoing task for Donovan and his coaching staff.
“I think when you have young guys that do care they end up worrying about what they have to do instead of really being much more concerned about the whole bigger picture of how do I inject what I can do and how are the five of us connected on the same page?” Donovan said.
The one player that Donovan never has to worry about is senior Walter Hodge, who joined the 1,000-point club at Florida with his 20-point effort against Mississippi State. Hodge is the last remnant of both NCAA championship teams. He played a vital role as a reserve in both 2006 and 2007.
As a starter the last two years, Donovan says that Hodge has given him everything he had, both on and off the court, setting a good example for the rest of his team. That was never more evident than Wednesday night against Mississippi State. Hodge dislocated two fingers on his (left) shooting hand when he had to dive on the court for a loose ball that he tapped forward to Ray Shipman, who finished with a layup.
On the bench after getting his fingers taped, Donovan saw Hodge in tears, not from the pain of the injured fingers but trying to urge his teammates to play harder and make plays that could bring the Gators back from a big deficit.
“There are different points in time when you’re coaching that you see different things that touch you and you remember the rest of your life,” Donovan said. “One of the things I will remember is last night, there was a play by our bench and he dove on a loose ball … it was a good play and I think Ray Shipman made a layup. The guy [Hodge] dislocates his fingers and he’s on the bench crying … like emotionally crying because he wants to win and he’s trying to implore our guys to do it … just tears coming down his face. When you see him care that much, you want that to be a reflection of what you want you program to be about and I think he has been a great reflection to me of what I’m about.”
Donovan and Hodge are on the same page. It is about the winning and about doing whatever it takes to win the game. Now if they could just get the rest of the team on that same page.
“It’s not like they don’t like each other and don’t want to do it,” Donovan said. “I think they do want to do it but that has been something that I’ve seen for over a year now. When I made the comments I made a year ago (“Just because you’re a year older doesn’t mean you’re better”), I thought that was one of the traps that these kids could fall into. I mean you’re older … I’ve got this thing figured out … I’ve been through the SEC. I know what goes into it but that’s not what goes into it and you’re not viewing it the right way. Sometimes it takes people a lot longer.”
Unfortunately for the Gators, they don’t have much longer. If they can’t find a way to beat Kentucky then win a couple of SEC games, they’re back to the NIT.