Mike White cautioned his team Friday to be ready for a serious challenge from the visiting Bulldogs.
Gators Need to Maintain 'Edge' vs Bulldogs
Friday, January 13, 2017 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
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Georgia hasn't won in Gainesville since 2002.
By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — After the huge win Tuesday at Alabama, reserve forward Keith Stone, one of the heroes of the night, was representing the Florida basketball for the small gathering of media outside the Gators' locker room. A question was put to him about the club's confidence level.
"I won't get too high or too low … ," Stone began, before being interrupted.
The question was about the team, Stone was told. He didn't need to rethink his answer.
"Same thing. We won't get too high or too low," he shot back. "We'll just stay on an even keel."
An ongoing theme for this UF program in the second year under Coach Mike White has been its maturation and willingness to think beyond individual goals. The coaches have stated as much. So have the players. That team-wide approach is at the heart of a six-game winning streak and a big reason why the 23rd-ranked Gators (13-3, 4-0) are unbeaten in early Southeastern Conference play. And it absolutely needs to remain so Saturday when UF takes on Georgia (11-5, 3-1) in a high-noon showdown at the sold-out Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center.
Call it a "Human Nature Check."
[Read senior writer Chris Harry's UF-Georgia 'Pre-Game stuff preview here]
Florida has every right to feel pretty good about itself after navigate a crazy non-conference schedule with just one home game, with its three defeats coming against opponents currently ranked in the top 10, a solid start to SEC play, including a couple road wins, and now a sellout crowd waiting to roar its approval against the Bulldogs.
Which is exactly why White and his assistant coaches are antsy.
"We need to be on edge," White said.
The Florida coaches are. They told the team as much after practice Friday.
Rest assured, though, Georgia will be, also.
The Bulldogs have two of the best upperclassmen in the league in 6-foot-8, 240-pound junior Yante Maten (19.8 points, 8.6 rebounds per game) and senior point guard J.J. Frazier (16.1 ppg, 4.2 arg). If allowed, those two are good enough to come into the O'Dome, dictate action and hit the home team upside the head. The Gators got a little dose of that from Tennessee last week, but they responded, though it took arguably the best second half of the season for them to eventually pull away. They had the crowd all along, but it seemed as if (at least from the beginning first) they kind of thought that would be enough.
If UF waits until the second half to take the fight to Georgia, it likely will be too late.
"It's not about, 'Hey, we're 4-0 and we're at home, we can take a deep breath.' If that's our mentality, we're going to take an 'L,' " White said. "We've got to handle this thing with maturity. This is a very good team going up against us, and we need to use our home-court advantage as an advantage, not as a disadvantage."
Manten, who is near the top of the league statistical leaders in scoring, rebounding and field-goal percentage, will be a candidate for SEC Player of the Year. Frazier is a 1,200-point career scorer and one of the most dangerous 3-point shooting threats in the conference. Neither player has ever won in Gainesville. In fact, the Bulldogs haven't won here since 2002, a run of 13 straight games.
More reasons to feel confident, right?
Kasey HIll is averaging 9.5 points, 3.5 rebounds, 5.5 assists and 3.3 steals per game in SEC play.
Woven into Florida's aforementioned maturity has been a leadership factor that's kept the team level-headed and on a steady trend upward. Take a bow, Kasey Hill.
Hill, the senior point guard, not only is playing the best basketball of his career, but he's taken the additional step of being the loudest voice (though not the lone one) on the floor and in the locker room. This is a guy who's played in 117 games the last four season, including five in the NCAA Tournament as a freshman, a season that ended in the Final Four. Hill wants to go back to the tournament and considering not one of his UF teammates have ever been there, it's a quest that is shared by the entire roster.
So Hill and senior forward Justin Leon, junior forward Devin Robinson and backup wing Canyon Barry, to name a few, figure to join the UF coaches on "edge." Or at least push the Gators in that direction.
Just not over it.
"We control that," said Hill, referencing the 11 games in eight different venues during the pre-SEC slate. "Those road games helped us get to where we don't have to feed off the crowd. We know we have to do it ourselves, so I think that's going to help us Saturday."
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