Basketball Notebook: Chris Walker, Streaks, Al Horford, etc.
Monday, January 19, 2015 | Men's Basketball, Football, Chris Harry
Sophomore center Chris Walker fights to get a shot off in Saturday's loss at Georgia.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Just last week, this story ran on Sports Illustrated's website. It focused on Florida's 6-foot-11 center Chris Walker and included this quote.
“He can run, jump, he has fast-twitch reactions,” an NBA Western Conference general manager said. “He can defend 1-5. He's an NBA athlete.”
Now 17 games into his sophomore season, Walker is averaging 5.3 points and 4.2 rebounds per game. In four Southeastern Conference outings, all starts, he's totaled 10 points and 18 rebounds.
During Saturday's 73-61 loss at Georgia, Walker went 1-for-4 from the floor, grabbed six rebounds and got shoved around by the Bulldogs' veteran and physical frontcourt players.
It's now been eight games since Walker last hit double-digits in scoring, when he had a three-game run -- at Kansas, then home against Yale and Texas Southern -- where things appeared to be coming into focus for him.
They're not. 
“I don't want to say I feel bad for him ... but the expectations are just so high for him that people don't understand where he started,” UF coach Billy Donovan said after the Georgia game. “This is a guy who has been thrust into stuff where we're having to rely on him, and it's hard to do at times, coverage-wise and defensively. But we've had to do it.”
The lack of a low-post presence has been a running theme on this team and will be the rest of the season, unless Walker has that magic moment of illumination that everybody -- his coaches, the NBA scouts and certainly Florida fans -- hope and/or believe is out there for a player whose athleticism is positively elite, but whose basketball skills and feel are far from developed. He didn't need the latter during his days dominating Class 1A basketball in Bonifay, Fla., nor on the AAU circuit, which is basically glorified pick-up ball.
When Walker, a McDonald's All-American and top-10 prospect who won the slam-dunk contagious at the prestigious game, showed up at UF last December he was unknown curiosity backed with accolades that placed expectations in totally unrealistic proportions. The fact that he parachuted into a team on its way to winning 30 straight games and berth in the Final Four actually helped him and should have been a bridge to his development when he opted to forgo a chance to enter the NBA draft pool last year.
But here we are.
If Walker would just do what the coaches tell him to do.
“Play to your identity.”
For Walker, that means being active on defense, chasing balls and blocking shots. On offense, it means working the so-called “red box” -- an imaginary rectangle that stretches 20 feet or so underneath the basket along the baseline -- and letting the offense find him, while mixing in screens, pick-and-rolls and even an occasional jump shot. It means playing hard and running the floor (he's a greyhound in transition) with abandon.
“He can catch and face up and make a 10-foot jump shot,” Donovan said. “But when he gets the ball with his back to the basket and takes a step-back jumper ... no, he can't do that.”
He did it against Georgia for an airball.
The Florida coaches, though, will continue to patiently teach and instruct Walker. The did so Sunday, a couple times stopping practice both to advise him and get his feedback. Walker responded. He wants to do well and the coaching staff wants to keep him from getting discouraged, while guiding him through these tough times with the hope that so-called light comes on and the game (as that very real cliche says) begins to slow down.
At some point, it's up to Walker to punch through and take his game to the next level. Tuesday night against LSU marks his next chance. The Tigers frontline is the second-largest in the SEC behind Kentucky's.
In the meantime, that other next level is waiting. The latest ESPN Top 100 rankings lists Walker as the No. 36 overall prospect for the 2015 NBA Draft, with a lone comment by his name.
“Late first round pick.”
O'DOME SEC STREAK STILL ALIVE
The Gators no longer have a streak for consecutive SEC victories, but they do have a league-best streak that would be nice to keep in tact for a while and that's a proud run of 20 conference home wins in a row.
UF has not lost at the O'Connell Center since March 4, 2012 against Anthony Davis and a Kentucky team that went on to the win the NCAA title that season.
So with those wins over Mississippi State and Auburn last week, Florida is in its third season without an SEC defeat and obviously the Gators would like to see that continue with LSU and Arkansas coming up the rest of the month.
The first home SEC game in February is on the 7th, with a Saturday night prime-time ESPN showdown against the No. 1-ranked Wildcats.
TRIVIA QUESTION
Now that the string of consecutive SEC wins is over, when is the last time the Gators lost back-to-back conference games? And to whom? Answer below in “Free Throws” section. 
FORMER GATOR UPDATE
Al Horford, in his seventh NBA season, recorded the first triple-double of his career last week: 21 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists in a 105-87 defeat of the Philadelphia 76ers. The feat went something under the radar because Horford is a blue-collar guy who does not engender a lot of ESPN hype. He also plays for the Atlanta Hawks, who also don't garner much attention from ESPN folks, but are performing flat-out ridiculously despite a roster dotted with what passes as NBA anonymity.
After rolling into United Center to bouncing the Chicago Bulls Saturday night, the Hawks have won 12 straight and are an astounding 33-8. That's five games better than the next-closest team (Washington) in the Eastern Conference.
Horford, the older brother of current UF center Jon Horford, is averaging 20.6 points on 53.8 percent from the floor to go with 6.6 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game.
Unofficially, he's believed to be just the fourth UF product -- joining Mike Miller, David Lee and Joakim Noah -- to tally a triple-double in the NBA.
TWITTER PATTER
Frazier and Eli in for #Gators.
— Chris Harry (@GatorZoneChris) January 17, 2015
@GatorZoneChris be better if it were Frazier and Ali
— ro for (@sipowit) January 17, 2015
Woah! @BigPatYoung4 #Gators “@GSHoops: Patric Young goes wild! https://t.co/2CU1Vl9Yub”
— Sam Kouvaris (@samsportsline) January 18, 2015
CHARTING THE GATORS 
Junior guard Michael Frazier II hit a pair of 3-pointers in the loss at Georgia, thus extending his streak of games with at least one trey to 39 in a row. That's tied for the longest in school history. He can break the record Tuesday night against LSU.
Games Player When-to-When
39 Lee Humphrey (right) Nov. 4, 2006 to April 2, 2007
Michael Frazier II Jan. 23, 2014 to present
34 Kenny Boynton Feb. 1, 2011 to Jan. 14, 2012
IRREVERENT PHOTO OF A GATOR
FREE THROWS
Donovan mentioned after the win over Auburn how his team was fouling too much. Though the Gators committed some late ones against Georgia, the Bulldogs still took 29 free throws off 19 fouls, compared to UF's 14 free throws and 14 fouls. Last year's team was terrific in its defensive fundamentals in the paint. This one needs a lot of work on that front. ... Of the 10 players in the UF rotation, everyone played at least eight minutes and eight players logged at least 17. That actually speaks to the team's struggles, as Donovan said afterward. He was looking for somebody -- anybody -- to put in the game to play well. No one did. ... Trivia answer: UF dropped its final three SEC games of the 2011-12 season, falling at Georgia and Vanderbilt, then at home on Senior Day to that Kentucky team that went on to win the NCAA title.
