UF-UM Tonight, but Non-Conference Home Games Will Take Next Fall Off
Monday, November 17, 2014 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- So here it is, the second game of the 2014-15 basketball season, and the Miami Hurricanes (1-0) are rolling into the O'Connell Center for a juicy non-conference home game for the Florida Gators (1-0).
Make that four straight years, the UF schedule has pitted the Gators against a formidable foe in Game No. 2, with home-and-home dates against Wisconsin each of the last two seasons, and one such series with Ohio State the two before that.
Now come the Hurricanes, just two years removed from their eye-popping run to both the Atlantic Coast Conference regular season and postseason tournament championships. This is the first half of a home-and-home contract with the UM, the other half to be returned next season.
“It's going to be a great game,” said sophomore point guard Kasey Hill, whose team is coming off a 68-45 win over William & Mary in Friday night's season opener. “We're going to see where we are and go from there.”
The back end of the quote from Hill is interesting, but only when applied in an entirely different context.
If this were one year from now, such a remark -- “We're going to see where we are and go from there” -- just might be a UF player's stock line. In the fall 2016, it may be all the Gators can do to know, physically, where they are.
Confused? Just wait.
Enjoy this game, folks, and the five non-league games after that -- including that Jan. 3 showdown with reigning national champion Connecticut -- because pre-Southeastern Conference normalcy takes a year off next fall while the O'Dome is undergoing its $45 million renovation. The massive gutting project is set to begin about a week after the final regulation-season game of 2014-15, and force the '15-16 Gators into a nomadic existence in the run-up to the SEC season.
“We're going to be all over the place,” UF coach Billy Donovan said.
Without the O'Dome to call home, the Gators will barnstorm the state and play to UF fans in Jacksonville, Tampa, Miami and either Orlando or another South Florida location while construction is being completed.
So this seemed like an opportune time to remind anyone headed to the UF-UM game tonight (and as of Friday less than 800 tickets remained) to keep in mind that the next time Florida will embark on a normal, regular non-conference season -- in the fall of 2016 -- a new President of the United States will have been elected.
A year out from what figures to be a shell-game kind of start to the season, a plan is well underway, said Mike Hill, UF's executive associate athletics director for external affairs.
“We're actually pretty far along,” Hill said.
Here's how far.
*The Gators are expected to open the season with a pair of games at the Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville. Playing two games in three days there will cut down on travel.
* UF then will play two games at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Tipoff at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn., a tournament field that will include Purdue, St. Joseph's and Old Dominion.
After that, details still need to be ironed out, but the schedule to look something like this:
* Another one of those two-games-in-three-days swing, this one through Tampa.
* The return game of the home-and-home series with the Hurricanes at Coral Gables.
* A true road date at a yet-to-be-determined marquee opponent (possibly from the Big Ten) to start a two-year home-and-home with that team.
* A single game in Orlando or somewhere in South Florida.
* The annual visit to the Orange Bowl Classic in Sunrise, Fla., just before Christmas.
The goal is for the O'Connell Center to be ready not just for the first SEC game, but hopefully for a single non-conference game to serve as a grand opening. Wouldn't it be cool if that game could be against Florida State? It's UF's turn to host the annual rivalry game next season, so it has to be wedged in somewhere.
And if you're wondering about the Big 12/SEC Challenge that has pitted Florida against Kansas the last two seasons, that event has been moved to late-January '16, with ESPN committing to a full day of wire-to-wire coverage, including “Game Day” crews on several sites. The Gators will be the host school for one of those games, possibly Texas or Oklahoma.
It sounds crazy, but it'll be nothing if not unique.
“We're going to play 10 games away from Gainesville in places with lots and lots of Gator fans,” Hill said. “It'll be a great chance for fans who don't get an opportunity to see our teams play to get out there; in some cases, twice. We'll definitely have homecourt advantages.”
But back to Monday night against Canes. Should be a good one for a UF home crowd that still recognizes UM -- despite just seven meetings the last 30 years and no more annual football game -- as something of a rival.
On Sunday, Donovan spoke of how a quality non-conference opponent this time of year will make for a nice opportunity for his players to gauge themselves; even with sophomore center Chris Walker (suspended one more game) and junior forward Alex Murphy (mid-season transfer, eligible in mid-December) still unable to play.
“Besides being at home, which is good, we're playing against a high-level team -- and we're going to play some more high-level teams in November and December and we're going to play them without having a full complement of our players” said Donovan, whose club still has games with Georgetown, Kansas, Wake Forest and Florida State, and may even face the likes of UCLA or North Carolina in the Battle 4 Atlantis next week. “We're going to have different look with our team in January, but for the guys who are going to play now, this will be good.”
If you don't get to a lot of sexy non-conference games in the O'Dome you may want to savor this one.
Your next may not be for a while.
