Gators Head to Vanderbilt Searching for Leaders
Tuesday, February 28, 2012 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
Gainesville, Fla. -- There's an old saying about leaders. They're not picked, but rather they pick themselves.
Or something like that.
Well, Florida coach Billy Donovan is taking on conventional wisdom -- and Vince Lombardi or Knute Rockne or Ben Franklin or whoever first coined that phrase -- because his basketball team needs a voice other than his right now, and after 136 games in his career, Donovan doesn't expect it to come from Erving Walker, the team's lone senior.
In fact, Donovan used another clich?` Monday to make that very point.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result,” Donovan said of his season-long efforts to make Walker more assertive on the floor. “He has to just worry about himself playing with energy and passion and emotion, and I think I've got to stop putting him into a situation where he's trying to [lead].”
Donovan is known as a great recruiter and now he's going to try to recruit some leadership from sophomore center Patric Young and freshman swingman Bradley Beal, and even from backup sophomore guard Scottie Wilbekin. They've been seen as the guys who will be an extension of their coach on the floor.
So it's like this: Three days removed from that eyesore road loss against a struggling Georgia squad, the way the 16th-ranked Gators (22-7, 10-4) react during dead balls Tuesday night in a key game at Vanderbilt (20-9, 9-5) may be as tell-tale a sign as how they react during live-ball action. At least that's what the UF coaches are hoping for as the Gators head into the final week of the regular season looking for something to spark them into the postseason.
“Coach addressed it,” Beal said of the need for vocal leadership with this group of players. “I told him, I'm more than willing to do that.”
Donovan, it seems, isn't asking for much.
A huddle, for example.
Nearly 30 games into the season and the Gators don't come together after fouls are called or other appropriate stoppages of play -- something you see virtually every team (good and bad) in the country do -- be it to confirm what defense they're in, who's guarding who, what offensive set is working or just for players to encourage or even get on each other.
Florida had that quarterback-like guy last season in Chandler Parsons, who happened to be the 2011 SEC Player of the Year.
“I was very, very difficult on him during his career, but Chandler was always an out-spoken guy. He wanted to be a leader. He wanted that role,” Donovan said Parsons, now a starting forward with the Houston Rockets. “When Erving is really locked in as your point guard and as a senior -- and he's playing with energy and passion -- it affects the entire team, regardless of whether he says a word or not.”
But Walker's stoic demeanor works the other way, too.
“When it's not going well and he's not talking, it's almost like we get -- and I'm not placing it all on him, everybody's got to be responsible for themselve -- but we don't have somebody grabbing somebody by the shirt and pulling guys in here and having one clear voice on the floor all the time,” Donovan said. “When we're playing well, it all flows together, but when we're not -- when we're in those battles and those struggles and those challenges -- we need somebody.”
Beal is a college rookie, but the former McDonald's American from St. Louis has grown into Florida's best all-round player; second in the team in scoring and first in rebounding. But he's not a guy who displays a lot of outward emotion on the floor.
The same can be said about Wilbekin, the heady backup point guard from Gainesville and son of a coach. He does his job, on both ends, in limited minutes and with limited reaction.
Young, however, is different.
The 6-foot-9, 255-pounder does get fired out there -- especially when he's playing well (and dunking a lot) -- and as the team's biggest presence on the court and centerpiece of the frontcourt would seem a natural for leadership responsibilities.
Young, though, had a very telling and refreshingly honest take on the subject.
“I definitely would love to eventually come into that role,” Young said. “But I think I need to learn how to lead myself, as far as moving on to the next play and not being frustrated and staying focused in on what the team is trying to do.”
The best thing for the Gators would be for Young to apply that great perspective to the here and now, and take that intangible jump. Now.
“We have to get more connected mentally,” Donovan said. “I think what happens, just like anything else, everyone deals with competitive situations differently. Some guys get really, really introverted and they become quiet; some guys get more outspoken. It doesn't mean that it's bad or it's good, but the one thing we don't have is really an outspoken person to hold everyone accountable. It doesn't need to be berating or yelling or telling the guy what he's doing wrong, but encouraging. To encourage, I think that's important.”
Seeing some signs of that at Vandy would be ... well ... encouraging.
But so would making some shots and defending.
The Gators, with 22 wins, look to be a lock for the NCAA Tournament -- they'll finish no worse than fourth in the SEC standings and were 19th in RPI as of Monday -- but they're coming off their worst shooting and defensive performances of the season. The combination, not surprisingly, made for a downer of a defeat against a team with the second-worst record in the SEC, following three straight wins.
And nows comes a Senior Night roadie at Vandy. If the 11th-place Bulldogs ran circles around Florida on both ends -- UF struggled to put in mildly in halfcourt defense, particularly in fighting through screens -- what will the third-place and Commodores, the league's best shooting team, do if another emotionless group of Gators shows up for Senior Night at iconic Memorial Gym?
Besides warm things up nicely for a visit Sunday from No. 1 Kentucky.
“It's adversity and we have to move past it,” Beal said of the team's most recent outing and the difficult task over the next five days. “This is the toughest challenge we'll face all season.”
GATORS GAMEBOX
No. 16 Florida at Vanderbilt
Tip-off: 9 p.m. (Memorial Gym, Nashville, Tenn.)
Records: Florida 22-7, 10-4; Vanderbilt 20-9, 9-5
TV: ESPN (w/Brad Nessler, Jimmy Dykes and Shannon Spake)
Radio: Gator IMG Sports Network (w/Mick Hubert and Mark Wise) -- Click here for affiliates) / Sirius 220/XM 199
Game notes: Florida notes; Vanderbilt notes
Need to know: Big game for both teams. The Gators are looking to bounce back from Saturday's dismal upset defeat at Georgia, which sits next to last in the Southeastern Conference standings, while Vanderbilt needs a win to pad its postseason resume and clinch a bye in next week's conference tournament at New Orleans. ... UF, which fell four spots in the Associated Press Top 25 rankings, has won four straight in the series, including the first meeting this season, a 73-65 victory at Gainesville. The Gators got 18 points in that game from junior G Kenny Boyton to go with 16 points and seven rebounds from freshman G Bradley Beal and put the game away late behind some timely 3-pointers and free-throw shooting. That outcome left UF with a 60-63 deficit in the all-time series, but 22-11 under Coach Billy Donovan, including 7-8 at Memorial Gym. ... The Commodores lost Saturday at No. 1 Kentucky, but had won their previous three games. They boast two of the SEC's top three scorers, in G John Jenkins (20 ppg) and F Jeffrey Taylor (17.3 ppg), who poured in 25 against UF last month. ... Vandy is the league's best 3-point shooting team (39.8 percent), with Jenkins and Taylor both at 46 percent for the season. All five Commodores starters are hitting at least 44 percent from the floor, with both Taylor and 6-11, 255-pound C Festus Ezeli at 52.3. ... Before their trip to Athens, the Gators were shooting well of late, but clanged just 36.7 percent vs. the Bulldogs, including a season-low five 3-point field goals on 23 tries (21.7 percent). More troubling for Donovan was watching his team allow the league's worst scoring/shooting team to finish with 76 points (15 above the Georgia average) and defensive season-worst 53 percent from the floor (14 above). ... Boynton leads UF at 17.3 points per game, followed by Beal (14.7 ppg, 6.5 rpg) and senior PG Erving Walker (12.5 ppg, 4.8 rpg). ... Donovan likely will toy with some different rotations, as he looks for a right mix in the wake of losing F Will Yeguete, the team's best low-post defender/rebounder/hustler to a season-ending broken foot. ... The Gators have secured no worse than the No. 4 seed (and accompanying bye) in the SEC Tournament, but would clinch the No. 2 overall seed by beating either Vandy or Kentucky on Sunday.
