Donovan: "We're trying to take the next step"
Wednesday, November 24, 2010 | Men's Basketball, Scott Carter
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The Florida men's basketball team hasn't reminded anyone of Joakim Noah and Co. in its first five games, but the Gators haven't been the Washington Generals either.
You sense the potential for this team and its five returning starters to do some special things later in the season, but you know they're still at the starting line. At times they can look like a beauty pageant winner who simply hasn't put on her makeup in the morning. At other times they look like a group that has been together three years and hasn't yet won an NCAA Tournament game.
The Gators improved to 4-1 on Tuesday night with a 79-66 victory over Florida Atlantic. It was another ho-hum win that featured far more good than bad.
Kenny Boynton scored a game-high 21 points and Alex Tyus, minus the migraine headaches that have plagued him since suffering a mild concussion a week earlier against Ohio State, looked like his old self with 19 points and seven rebounds. When the Gators opened their lead late in the game, senior Chandler Parsons hit a pair of 3-pointers.
On the flip side, the Owls stayed within striking distance longer than expected. One reason the Gators failed to pull away until the final five minutes was because they committed 13 turnovers while dishing out only 11 assists, not the ratio you want.
In his postgame press conference, FAU coach Mike Jarvis was in a jovial mood in part because his team – which featured Gainesville products Greg Gantt and Dennis Mavin – kept the announced crowd of 8,006 at the O'Connell Center squirming a little for much of the night.
“We need the cash,'' Jarvis said. “Schools pay a lot of money to beat up on you. No matter what the score is, you end up going out of here with a W. In the long run, this game should help us. We competed.''
Meanwhile, Gators coach Billy Donovan was in a different mood. He wasn't mad, but realistic. He wasn't disappointed, just honest.
The stint before Thanksgiving seems like a million miles from March Madness in the college basketball world. The early season games give coaches and teams an opportunity to work out the kinks.
That's exactly what the Gators, who opened the season ranked No. 9 in the AP Top 25 and fell to No. 16 in the latest poll after an 18-point loss to Ohio State, are trying to do.
Tuesday's win over FAU proved that even more in Donovan's view.
“It was a great game for us because there were a lot of mistakes we made in the game – in terms of basketball decisions – that we really need to get better at,'' Donovan said. “The one thing our team is really lacking right now … we just have not practiced.
“We desperately need to get back on the floor.''
That's the plan over the next few days before the Gators travel to Tallahassee to face Florida State on Sunday.
“I feel we're trying to find each other, find ourselves, get used to playing with each other,'' Tyus said. “I think everyone is trying to figure out their role. That will come as the season goes on.''
That's what Donovan hopes happens.
If it does, then maybe the lofty preseason ranking will make more sense to the man who led the Gators to back-to-back national titles and turned the Gators into a national program.
When asked if he was disappointed by his team after five games, Donovan provided a sensible answer for a team that we're still trying to figure out.
“If you're going to look at our team and look at our ranking and compare our team against our ranking, I would say we're very disappointed,'' Donovan said. “But I didn't rank us. So I'm not disappointed in our team at all.''
He does want to see the Gators do some things better. He urged Tyus and senior center Vernon Macklin to be more aggressive on the boards in the second half Tuesday. He plans to show Parsons film of Tuesday's game and point out how the senior leader can play more under control.
Donovan continues to try and fit newcomers such as Will Yeguete and Patric Young into the lineup.
If all the pieces fit the puzzle in March, who knows what kind of team we'll be talking about by then.
For now, Donovan said it best.
“I think we have a long way to go to be considered an elite team,'' he said. “That's who we are. We're trying to take the next step.''
