Unselfish and Uncomplicated, Yeguete Giving Gators What they Need Entering Showdown at Syracuse (7 p.m., ESPN)
Friday, December 2, 2011 | Men's Basketball
By Chris Harry
GatorZone.com Contributing Writer
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Two winters ago, Aubin Goporo brought his Florida Air Academy basketball team to Fort Lauderdale for a game against South Florida powerhouse Pine Crest High. The junior varsity was playing when the team arrived, which gave one of Goporo's players a moment to marvel at the crowd in the bleachers.
It wasn't the number of people watching the game that amazed senior center Will Yeguete, but the people doing the watching. Namely, coaches from Duke, Kentucky, Indiana, Connecticut, Illinois ... well ... you get the idea. At the time, a Pine Crest point guard by the name of Brandon Knight was drawing quite the audience.
“Coach!” Yeguete said to Goporo. “All of them here for Brandon Knight? You serious?”
“Yes.”
Yeguete nodded.
“That's it,” he said. “I'm guarding him.”
At the end of the first quarter, Florida Air was leading 26-4.
Now, the record will show that Knight, who starred last year as a freshman at Kentucky and after one season became a lottery pick by the Detroit Pistons, finished that game with 42 points. It also will show that Knight went 10 of 34 from the floor and just 4-for-17 from the 3-point line. He did go to the free-throw line 20 times, but you better believe Yeguete roughed him up along the way.
Oh, and Florida Air won 63-62.
“He blocked shots, he yelled at people, he was pushing guys and getting them fired up. I mean, Will went crazy that night,” Goporo recalled. “I share that story with my players all the time because it says something about mental toughness; about going against the best and daring yourself to see just where you are. Will refused to be intimidated and did not back down to a challenge. ... He'll never back down to challenge.”
That's good news because Yeguete and the team he plays for now have a gargantuan challenge on their hands Friday night when the 10th-ranked Florida Gators (5-1) face fourth-ranked and unbeaten Syracuse (7-0) in a nationally televised ESPN whopper at the Carrier Dome.
Yeguete, the 6-foot-7, 222-pound sophomore forward from France, will make the third start of his UF career, replacing injured junior Erik Murphy (knee) in the lineup. Yeguete (pronounced “YA-get”) is averaging 6.2 points and 6.8 rebounds per game, and Monday night in Orlando posted his first double-double (10 points, 11 rebounds) in a win over Stetson.
This just in: Syracuse is not Stetson.
“We know what Syracuse is. They're a big team from a great conference that plays great zone defense, and we'll have to be smart and patient and find the open person to take the shot,” Yeguete, in his elegant French accent, said of UF's second game against a top-five team in 17 days, following an 81-74 loss Nov. 15 at Ohio State. “For me, this is an opportunity and a great challenge that I will accept as I continue to try and improve on what I'm doing.”
What Yeguete does is not very complicated. With the bevy of perimeter shooters the Gators have, it doesn't need to be.
Yeguete is a very good athlete, but also a thinking-man's player. He is smart on his feet (light on them, too) and knows how to compensate against taller front lines. He will be undersized against most Southeastern Conference opponents, so he might as well get the gauge out against the bigger, bulkier, Big East Orange and see how he measures versus one of the best.
Florida's coaches are confident he'll do just fine. So confident, they believe he can defend any of the five positions on the floor.
“Everybody talks about versatility on offense, but Will Yeguete gives us versatility on defense,” Gators assistant John Pelphrey said. “With Will out there, we can play pick-and-rolls differently. We can defend the low-post differently. We can put him on the front of the press. A player like that can be a game-changer. And his willingness to do it all makes him a coach's dream.”
So does his unselfishness.
Yeguete doesn't care if he scores, which makes him a BFF for Kenny Boynton, Bradley Beal, Erving Walker and the Florida's shooters who take the court locked and loaded.
“He provides energy for our team,” Boynton said.
That energy manifests itself through Yeguete's defense and work on the glass, the combination of which offset his offensive limitations. Against Stetson, he missed some easy second-chance put-back tries, but he never stopped fighting.
“We gotta work on the layups,” Coach Billy Donovan said.
“I think I'm rushing too much,” Yeguete said.
Most coaches are OK with mistakes of aggression. And high effort play is the only kind Yeguete has known.
After moving from Ivory Coast to France, Yeguete wanted to play soccer as a young boy, but took to basketball because his father played. He inherited his dad's physicality and competitiveness and eventually looked to take his game to the next level by coming to America to attend school.
The family chose Florida Air Academy, which offered one of the best EASL (English as a Second Language) programs in the country. When Yeguete arrived in Melbourne, his english was broken at best, but his communications skills improved commensurate to his basketball skills.
Goporo remembers Yeguete screaming during a game at a teammate who at the time was the leading scorer in Brevard County. Yeguete's beef? The kid wasn't shooting enough, which cut down on Yeguete's chances to work on his offensive rebounding.
“Most kids would yell because you're not throwing them the ball,” Goporo said. “Will worried about rebounding and defending.”
Those traits got the attention of then-UF assistant Rob Lanier, who attended the game against Knight at Pine Crest. Lanier, now with Texas, called Donovan. Goporo was on the phone with the Gators coach on the bus trip back to Melbourne that same night.
Yeguete eventually chose the UF over Indiana and Georgia Tech.
“He makes hustle plays,” Donovan said. “We need that.”
They'll really need it (especially Gators center Patric Young, the lone true low-post presence on the UF roster) against the Orange. Badly.
“I have to be quicker and try to use my skill and speed and my effort with rebounding and defense. Those are things I can actually control,” said Yeguete, who played on the Under-20 French team that finished third in the FIBA European championships last summer. “I cannot control my shots that do not go in, but I can control being physical and active and determined on defense.”
It's worked thus far, so don't expect Yeguete to alter that approach for the biggest start of his young career. And don't expect him to be daunted by the bright lights and large banging bodies at the Carrier Dome, either.
Goporo laughed at such a notion.
“That is not going to happen,” Goporo said. “I will tell you right now, he loves the challenge and will not be intimidated.”
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GATORS GAMEBOX
No. 9 Florida at Syracuse
Tip-off: 7 p.m. (Carrier Dome, Syracuse, N.Y.)
Records: Florida 5-1; Syracuse 7-0
TV: ESPN (w/Mike Tirico and Jay Bilas)
Radio: Gator Radio Network (w/Mick Hubert and Mark Wise) -- Click here for affiliates) / Sirius 220/XM 199
Game notes: Florida notes; Syracuse notes
Need to know: The 10th-Gators and fourth-ranked Orangemen meet for fourth time, but only the third time according to the NCAA. Their first matchup came in the 1987 NCAA Tournament, an 87-81 victory for Syracuse in the round of 16, but the game later was vacated due to rules infractions in the UF program. In the three meetings that are on the books, SU holds a 2-1 advantage, with Florida's lone win a 75-70 decision coming in the '05 Coaches vs. Cancer Classic. The Orangemen defeated the Gators in the '08 CBE Classic at Kansas City, Mo., and in the SEC/Big East Challenge at Tampa in 2009. ... UF is 16-8 against the Big East Conference under Coach Billy Donovan, including 7-2 since the 2005-06 season, with both losses coming to Syracuse. The Gators are 42-30 all-time vs. the Big East. ... The game will mark Florida's first visit to the Carrier Dome since the 2000 NCAA East Region, where the Gators upset No. 1-seeded and top-ranked Duke in the Sweet 16, then beat Oklahoma State to advance to the second Final Four in school history; the first under Donovan. ... Florida has four starters, plus one reserve, averaging in double-figures, led by junior G Kenny Boynton (18.5 ppg, 4 apg), freshman G Bradley Beal (17 ppg, 6.5 rpg) and senior PG Erving Walker (13.7 ppg, 5.3 apg). ... The Gators have out-rebounded all six opponents this season, with the closest margin being the plus-6 in Monday night's 96-70 win over Stetson at Orlando. Syracuse, however, will be a far greater challenge for C Patric Young (10.2 ppg, 7.2 rpg), who must contend with 7-foot C Fab Melo (5.9 ppg, 5.1 ppg), 6-9 PF Rakeem Christmas (4.3 ppg, 3.9 rpg) and 6-7 F Kris Joseph (14.7, 5.7 rpg). ... The Orangemen lead the nation in forced turnovers (22.6 pg), but they've yet to face a ranked opponent. ... SU coach Jim Boeheim is No. 5 all-time in NCAA men's history with 863 wins. He needs 14 to move past Adolph Rupp into fourth place and 17 to supplant Dean Smith at No. 3. ... The Gators have made at least 10 3-point shots in every game this season and are hitting 42.9 percent from the arc as a team, led by Boynton and backup G Mike Rosario (12 ppg), both at nearly 49 percent. ... Florida is the first team this season to face two top 10 teams, having already played Ohio State on the road.
