By David Parker
What a game and what a tournament! Who saw this coming? After the Gators won the Charleston Classic, by ramping up against St. Joe’s, beating the ever-loving snot out of hated in-state rival Miami, and outright pushing around ranked tournament favorite Xavier before shutting it down and banking the “W”, noted college basketball enthusiast Samuel Langhorne Clemens told Gator Country beat writers that the reports of the Gator program’s death are greatly exaggerated.
I mentioned last week on the forums that it looked like the expectation that head coach Mike White could just put together this group of players and instantly be elite was a “tad” optimistic, and instead was going to take a while to gel. That comment, like most like it, quickly drowned to the bottom of the cauldron of posts questioning whether Mike White should remain the Florida coach.
(pause for slow shaking of the head)
Looks like that progress has really been turbo charged.
And despite the complaints of those making the posts questioning Coach White’s bona fides, I couldn’t give a mile-high pile of expletives how the game ended. When we went up 17 points in the second half of the championship game and Xavier took a timeout, our players were celebrating like they just advanced to the Final Four. With all the freshman new to this, and all the older guys new to winning games like this (or new to Florida, period), there was no doubt they were going to struggle to close this game out against a great team like Xavier.
And despite how much complaining there has been about how we had blank possessions trying to run out the clock…it worked! As planned. It did exactly what it was supposed to do. In that position, it’s far more important to eat the clock than to score. You’ll take a shot clock violation over a 3-second possession ending with a bucket every. Single. Time.
The complaint lingers that we almost lost, and we might lose in that same position next time. So it could have been a disaster. No. What would have been a disaster would be if we didn’t try to shorten the game, and given up a bunch of easy, very fast points to Xavier by keeping our “foot on the gas” and pressing the basket early in the shot clock. That could very easily have led to a loss. By shortening the game, and limiting Xavier’s possessions in the last 7 minutes or so, they forced Xavier to play absolutely perfectly on offense, and near perfectly on defense, to have any chance to win. They came pretty darn close to doing just that, but they made a few errors, including the last shot they had to tie the game, but they finally fired an errant 3-point attempt. That miss was factored in. Sure it would have been nice if they had missed a few before that, to keep our comfort zone thick, but no matter.
We won. By design. Don’t question it. Enjoy it. Revel in it. Get rid of the old narratives. Look at how well we played, and how well that forecasts for the rest of the season.
The BIG Transfer
I want to talk a little bit about the importance of getting Kerry Blackshear Jr. to transfer to Florida. Ever the pessimists, I’ve heard and read many Gators lament that his impact will be muted because he will only be here for one year. That frown has been turned even further down after witnessing a slow start out of the gate, and believe it or not, the term “wasted year” has been used a time or two to describe KB’s impact in 2019-2020.
But let’s look long game, here. Forgetting for a minute how the season apparently went from, “Another worthless year with no championships” to, “Wait, we might be a Final Four team,” in one quick trip to South Carolina. Let’s consider Kerry’s long-term impact here. And to do that, let’s try some commentary cross-pollination with the football team.
Specifically, the transfer in – for just one year – of defensive lineman Jonathan Greenard. He was going to be the huge missing piece we needed to beat one or both of LSU and Georgia and push us to the next level, push us to Atlanta and a chance of the college football playoffs, probably a solid two years ahead of schedule. Well, who knew that he would get injured and basically miss both of those games, as would our other all-everything defensive lineman, their absence being the biggest personnel-related reason we came up just short in both of those games, and made this to some fans, just “another worthless year with no championships”.
BUT…there was a silver lining here. When he was healthy, he showed all those eleventy-billion-star defensive line recruits across the country a showcase of how they could ball out in the Gators’ defense next year. The same refrain is in place for the next one-year defensive line transfer, Brenton Cox, who is already on campus and has been practicing with the team all year. So, even though Greenard missed a lot of the season, including the two toughest games (what some Dan Mullen critics have been calling “the only two games that mattered”), the value of his 1-year transfer is fully appreciated for its long-term impact on the program.
Well, why shouldn’t Kerry Blackshear’s 1-year rent-a-stud stint in the orange and blue be seen the same way? And the basketball team needs this a lot more than the football team does. After all, it’s not like the Gators have had a dearth of dominant defensive linemen with all-star flash and impact for years, almost every year. But when was the last time the basketball team had a big man with a dominating inside game who could also play great outside the paint AND drain a 3-pointer as easily as a slam dunk? We haven’t had that kind of player since Al Horford. That was twelve years ago. Every big since then (and before then) have had limitations that stood out more than their strengths. Never a complete player like this. When we have come close, like say, Marreese Speights or Dorian Finney-Smith, the impact on the program was limited and/or very short due to injuries, titanic shooting slumps and/or early departures.
So let’s consider just how big an impact it could be that the best big man recruits in the next couple years are watching what someone with this skill set can do in a Gator uniform. The fact that he is such a great interview and great ambassador for the program – and that he came to Florida instead of all the other elite programs he could have chosen – is just icing on the cake. It may seem in the Gator bubble like this kind of player is as rare as integrity at FSU, but for the elite blue blood programs – the Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, North Carolina, etc., set – this kind of player is not that rare at all. Those programs get this caliber big man every few years, and for some short stretches, every year. Florida needs to be one of those programs as well if we want to have a bigger chance at elite status every year.
Because of the immediate impact and lightning-fast turnover in elite college basketball players, great teams can be fleeting. Far more than in other sports where the great players need a lot more development and by the very rules of the game stay at least three years every time, and not the one-and-done revolving door of basketball. So the importance of getting this sort of player again…and again and again and again…and again is very important. Florida under Billy Donovan and Mike White (and for a much shorter time, Lon Kruger before them) have achieved and maintained a high level of success (even the empirically best program in the nation for a decade, as was the case in the ‘00s) by making the best of whatever pieces they had. The pieces were usually really good, but other than the 2-straight national title years, none of the blue blood elite programs would ever have traded rosters with us. Heart and effort and elite coaching have driven the Gator bus far more often than pure talent.
And to cross over to football again, most pigskin fans will tell you that you don’t need 5-star players all over the field to win championships, but it usually makes it easier. Sometimes a lot easier.
And every time Kerry Blackshear takes the court and balls out in a Florida uniform, the ability to sign another Kerry Blackshear improves. Florida has never had any problem signing great guards. Elite guard play has been on display at Florida for a long time, and the circular current of recruiting to that strength has been going strong for what seems to be forever. But the “knock” of never having great big men at Florida has dogged the program in recruiting for just as long. Never mind that the Gators have signed a TON of really good big men over the last couple decades – the perception is there. And as I pointed out, having really good big men is not the same as having a Kerry Blackshear or an Al Horford. Not the same as having a big who can literally do everything, and do it consistently.
So, yes, when the season is finished, we will all feel like the Kerry Blackshear era is over before it really began. But when we look at the Kerry Blackshear era as an existential legacy of how big men are perceived at Florida, his era is not going to end in March or April of 2020.
And until then, just enjoy watching the kid. And the team. It only gets better from here.
Chomps from the GC Staff & Columnists —
ANDREW SPIVEY
Florida’s recruiting efforts have struggled some but things are starting to look better for the Gators at several different positions including running back where the Gators will get the last visit for Mississippi State running back Joquavious Marks on December 13th. That visit will be just days before Marks signs early with a school and the Gators are trending up.
Defensive tackle has been an issue in the past but now the Gators are trending up for Alabama commit Tim Smith, UNC commit Clyde Pinder and recent LSU decommit Jalen Lee. The Gators will host all three of these guys on official visits on December 13th, again just days before they sign early. Florida would love to add those three with Gervon Dexter to make one of the best defensive tackle classes in the nation.
The one biggest question is where the Gators will go on the offensive line now. Marcus Dumervil is trending heavily to LSU and the Gators really don’t have a second option for a tackle in the class after him. That will have to change either by recruiting someone or getting a transfer in the class.
NICK DE LA TORRE
This is a huge week for the Gators and this senior class.
I really can’t say enough about the senior class that will play their last game in the Swamp this weekend. They were recruited to do a couple of things but the hardest thing they were recruited and asked to do is help change the culture at Florida. The football program had fallen farther than I ever thought it would and these guys signed up to help correct that and get Florida back to being Florida. They won’t finish with a SEC Championship or National Championship but they’ve done a tremendous job nonetheless.
A couple of injury notes. I’m told that this is as healthy has Jabari Zuniga has been since he originally hurt his ankle on the third play of the third game of the season. I think a healthy Zuniga on senior day against this FSU line is going to be a show. Amari Burney’s also had an injury-riddled season but he will be healthy and available to play Saturday.
A win Saturday would also make Dan Mullen the first UF head coach to win 10 games in each of his first two seasons. It would make Florida undefeated at home for the 14th time since 1990 and the first time since 2010.
DAVID WUNDERLICH
Being a Gator born in the mid-80s, FSU is the rivalry that means the most to me. I grew up on Spurrier football, but about the only downside of Spurrier football was that it couldn’t beat the Seminoles consistently.
Rivalries require give-and-take. If both sides don’t win regularly, they lose their meaning and may even cease to have that status. Just look at the other great rival of my youth, Tennessee. Florida has won so much in the last decade and a half that the game brings about annual columns questioning whether UF-UT is even still a rivalry at all.
FSU took a dip as the Bowden era disintegrated, but otherwise, it has been a top program for all of my lifetime. That is, until the past several years. Now FSU is a shadow of itself, once a bastion of coaching continuity but now searching for a new head coach two years after it hired its last one.
You know what? I’m all right with that. I do want FSU to find its way back to keep the rivalry a real rivalry, but they can be down for a while. Florida is emerging from a lost near-decade right now. If FSU is still just starting one of its own, I can live with it.
That’s all, folks!
All the best,
Your friends at Gator Country
…where it’s GREAT to be a FLORIDA GATOR!