Upgraded: Matured 'Sky' Walker Set to Take Flight
Friday, November 21, 2014 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Chris Walker was in the Florida locker room Monday night, alongside a couple team UF managers, and glued to a television as the Gators battled Miami. He was there three nights earlier when the Gators opened the season against William & Mary. And eight days before that for an exhibition game against Barry University, also.
Call it Billy Donovan's “timeout” spot for players.
It was there that Walker, serving a three-game suspension for violating team rules, watched UM wipe out a 15-point second-half lead for the Gators behind a diminutive point guard more than a foot shorter than Walker but hotter than the far side of the sun. Angel Rodriguez actually missed a 3-point shot with Florida up by two and only 38 seconds to play, but the ball caromed high to the free-throw line, where Hurricanes guard Sheldon McClellan grabbed the offensive rebound and Miami, with another chance, called timeout.
Sixteen seconds later, Rodriguez hit a dagger 3-pointer that proved to be the game-winner.
Take that Gators.
And take that big man in the sweats watching it all on TV.
“Sometimes, your dreams can become your nightmares," Walker said. “I thought to myself, what if I'd been playing? Maybe I would have grabbed that rebound and helped us win the game. I was disappointed in myself, but really more disappointed for my teammates. I made a poor choice and paid a price for it, but it also impacted my team. My brothers. I could have been out there. I could have helped.”
Instead, Walker was helpless.
Until now.
Walker, the 6-foot-10, 220-pound enigma in a UF basketball uniform, has served his time and Friday night will make his 2014-15 season debut when the No. 8 Gators (1-1) face Louisiana-Monroe (2-0) at the O'Dome. For all the hype and hope that accompanied Walker -- the 2013 McDonald's America Game slam-dunk champion -- upon his Florida arrival in midseason last year after battling academics and the NCAA Clearinghouse, he's done very little to warrant the center-ring attention. That hasn't necessarily been his fault. Many of those expectations have been external. Internally, meanwhile, the system Donovan runs on both ends is complicated. It takes time to learn; even more time to master.
Now, after a full offseason of strength training and conditioning, a bevy of individual instruction sessions, a full preseason of practice and meetings and all that those encompass, Chris “Sky” Walker will play the first game of his UF career in which the Gators will be counting on him for long stretches of contributions -- and yes, the occasional high-flying highlight play -- at a time.
“My thing for him [Friday] is just to go out there and to have both feet in the circle and do the things we need him to do, to help us be a better team,” Donovan said. “That's what I would say.”
Sounds pretty simple, but in this player's case that's really all there is to it.
You see, Walker is not going to face up a defender, break him down off the dribble and drive. He's not going to rain in a bunch of 3-point shots. And, right now, he's not a particularly reliable post-up option.
That's not to suggest, however, he can't be a major factor on both ends of the floor.
“If Chris plays with a motor, just running the floor and chasing balls, his game is going to show up. Period,” said UF assistant coach Matt McCall, who recruited Walker out of Bonifay (Fla.) Holmes County High, where he averaged 32 points, 17 rebounds and seven blocks while leading his team to the Class 1A state championship. “At this level he is an elite athlete, especially at his size. Absolutely elite. He may be the fastest 5-man in the country, and if he just plays hard -- runs and chases balls -- he's going to get things into the game that change our team.”
The UF staff believes Walker has taken strides in coming to terms with his role and the best way to use his length and athleticism. How much he's on the floor, though, will depend on his ability to be in the right spot and make the right play.
Last year at Vanderbilt, in just the seventh game after he joined the team, Walker entered the game and Commodores coach Kevin Stallings, a master tactician, ran a baseline out-of-bounds play right at Walker. He never saw the screen coming and Vandy got an easy layup.
At the other end, Walker committed a foul.
Donovan yanked Walker after 40 seconds and did not put him back in.
“You remember stuff like that and try to grow from it,” Walker said. “Now, I'm going to know what to do and be in the right spot and have trust that my teammates are going to have the help.”
It's astounding, frankly, that Walker has been on the UF campus for more than 11 months, taken part in close to 130 practices and has just 87 minutes over 18 games to show for it. Granted, he parachuted in -- with all the fanfare of a prospect tabbed as a one-and-done -- on a senior-laden team that was just one game into what became an historic 30-game winning streak en route to the Southeastern Conference and Final Four. The Gators, suffice to say, would have been just fine without Walker and his 1.9 points and 1.3 rebounds per game.
But along the way, Walker flashed some moments; the two alley-oop dunks against Missouri in his debut; six rebounds against LSU; five points and two rebounds in just three minutes against Kentucky in a one-point win in the SEC Tournament title game; seven points and three rebounds against UCLA in the Sweet 16.
At 4.8 minutes per game, anything Walker did last season was just a snapshot of his potential.
Even with statistics that rivaled those of walk-on forward Jake Kurtz (1.3 points, 1.3 rebounds per game), Walker still had to weigh the option of putting his name in the NBA Draft, where scouts projected him -- and that elite athleticism -- as a second-round pick.
“I felt I needed another year to get my defense down, add some strength and get a better feel for the game, but also to mature more as a man,” said Walker, who's now showing up in 2015 mock drafts as a first-rounder and border lottery selection. “I'm way different now. When I first got here, I didn't know anything about basketball, but I've learned about pick-and-roll defense and downing [screens] and corralling [pick and rolls] and X-ing and all the stuff that goes into it.”
The key now is applying that "stuff" and marrying it to his ridiculous wingspan, skill set and stride that can take a full-gaiting Walker from foul line to foul line in about five steps.
But he must to do it all in the framework of the system.
“I talked to him about it,” said Kurtz, the senior who made his first career start Monday but likely will acquiesce that spot to Walker. “He can't go out and try to do too much. I know with all this hype, obviously, he's going to be very excited to play, but he has to stick to what his job is.”
Said Donovan: “He's done a better job handling the expectations that are out there on him. Sometimes, when there are expectations on a player, they can weigh on a player and he can think, 'There's no way I can reach what's expected of me.' I think Chris may have been wrapped up in those things at one point, but I've seen some growth and maturity there.”
It's been a long, winding and often rocky road for the kid-- academics, NCAA issues, the humbling of sitting on the bench, plus a suspension to start the season -- just to get to this point. Finally, it seems, it's time for “Sky” to take flight.
For more than one or two minutes at a time, no less.
“The Chris Walker now knows a lot more than the Chris Walker of last year,” Walker said. “This is going to be fun.”
