Message Delivered: Jackson's Faith In Team Rewarded With SEC Tournament Title
Monday, April 25, 2011 | Men's Tennis, Scott Carter
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The bleachers at Linder Stadium were still filling up early Sunday afternoon, but the doubles point was already on the board for the UF men's tennis team in the SEC Tournament final against Kentucky.
It was a good start on a hot Easter for the Gators, looking for their first SEC Tournament title in six years and fourth in school history. But to get there, the Gators had to win at least three singles matches against the No. 3-seed Wildcats, who handed the Gators a 4-3 home loss on April 1.
Close losses proved a common theme during Florida's 2011 season. The Gators lost at home three times – almost unheard of around these parts – all by 4-3 scores. They were just 4-6 overall in matches decided by a 4-3 outcome.
Close but no cigar was a mantra getting very old to the Gators. Once singles play started Sunday, four UF players lost in the first set. A good story threatened to go sour.
The momentum then started to shift back Florida's way as the afternoon sun turned up the heat on and off the court. Florida's Alexandre Lacroix rebounded to win the second set against Eric Quigley. Billy Federhofer and Spencer Newman followed suit. So did Nassim Slilam. Each win energized a home crowd that came out in full force with the SEC Tournament in town for the first time in 12 years.
When Gators sophomore Bob van Overbeek defeated Alberto Gonzalez in straight sets at No. 4 singles – in an efficient 1 hour, 22 minutes – the Gators needed only two more points. Sekou Bangoura Jr.'s 6-4, 6-4 victory over Alex Musialek soon reduced Florida's magic number to one.
By then, it was as if each time a Gator swung his racket he was trying to knock out some of the frustration of a season that featured more losses (eight) than expected for a program usually in the SEC title hunt. With the final four matches all in the third set, Slilam clinched the tournament title for the Gators with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory over Brad Cox at No. 3 singles.
The rest of the Gators soon mobbed Slilam to celebrate what looks like an easy 4-0 win over the Wildcats. But in reality, it was anything but. The Gators worked for every point and every game in the kind of match they had come up short in so many times lately.
“We knew this tournament was kind of like a practice to see if we learned from our mistakes,'' Slilam said. “We improved a lot and showed we could beat good teams.''
Shortly after he lifted the tournament trophy above his head on the court with his teammates, Slalim recalled what Gators coach Andy Jackson told him prior to the match.
“If we want to beat Kentucky, you have to beat Cox,'' he said. “I knew I had to push him and make him work throughout the whole match.''
That was the same attitude every Florida player took into their match Sunday. Even after the Wildcats took an early advantage in singles play, the Gators didn't stop pushing.
That's all the No. 5-seed Gators (18-8) did for four straight days, becoming the first team without a first-round bye to win the SEC Tournament in 15 years. That was a team Jackson knew pretty well since it was his 1996 Mississippi State squad – also a No. 5 seed – that won the tournament at Arkansas, knocking off Florida along the way in the quarterfinals.
Jackson's message had remained the same through all the ups and downs this season. He knew the Gators were better than their national No. 17 ranking coming into the SEC Tournament, and he told them that. He knew they had players one through sixth who could beat anybody in the country and that eventually, a close match would go the Gators' way.
He told them that, too.
Jackson pounded the Gators with the message that all the hard work would eventually pay off in a close match. The message finally came to fruition on Easter Sunday. Actually, everything came together Thursday, Friday and Saturday, too.
To get to Sunday's championship, the Gators had to knock off No. 1-seed Tennessee on Saturday in the semifinals, helping ease some of the frustration of perhaps the season's low point – a 7-0 loss to the Vols on April 10.
Florida opened the tournament on Thursday with a win over Arkansas, and followed that up with a victory over Mississippi State on Friday.
Despite a large number of 4-3 matches during the regular season, none of the Gators' SEC Tournament wins were 4-3. The Gators won their four matches by a collective 16-4 score, playing with a renewed sense of energy and determination that seemed to grow with each point.
They hope this is just the start and not the highlight of the season.
“We said a long time ago when we started taking punches to the stomach that we wanted out team's season defined at the NCAA,'' Jackson said. “We're proud to be SEC Tournament champions.
“We want our season defined at the NCAAs.''
After the past four days, it's hard to say what might be in store for this bunch of racket swingers.
“It feels great,'' Bangoura Jr. said. “It feels like all the hard work we've been putting in is coming together now. We wanted it so badly. I'm looking forward to going to NCAAs with some confidence.''
By winning the SEC Tournament, the Gators put themselves in very good position to host an NCAA Regional starting the weekend of May 13. If they win that, it will be on to the NCAA Finals.
They still have trophies they hope to raise and goals they hope to achieve. Those will have to wait for now. After leaving the Ring Tennis Complex on Sunday, Slalim said he planned to celebrate by going home to take a final exam online.
Lacroix, a scrappy Frenchman and UF's only senior, said his father was in town for just the second time in his four years in Gainesville. He planned to spend a little time with his father, who is scheduled to return to Paris on Monday, to talk about Sunday. But not for long because Lacroix said he has a final exam on Monday that he needed to study for.
The Gators won't know their grades on finals until later in the week. But on Sunday, they passed their biggest test of the season on the court.
