In Struggling Gators, Donovan Looks at Bigger Picture
Saturday, February 14, 2015 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- It could have been any other Florida player after any number of games this season. Thursday night, it was Devin Robinson. With each answer, the freshman forward shrugged or shook his head.
Yeah, the guy made a tough shot. Yeah, it was another frustrating finish. Yeah, the Gators played good enough to win. Yeah, there were some breakdowns late. Yeah, another close game that didn't go his team's way.
Heard it before.
“We've got to learn our lesson somehow,” Robinson said after an Ole Miss 25-footer with 2.7 seconds to play was the deflating difference in a 62-61 loss, UF's third straight and the fifth by two points or less “We have to figure out how to finish games.”
For the Gators (12-12, 5-6) the games are running out. Only seven regular-season ones left, starting with Saturday night's road date against the vastly improved Texas A&M Aggies (16-7, 7-4) at Reed Arena.
UF is in danger of its first losing record since the 1997-98 season, which was Year 2 of a Billy Donovan era now in Year 19. That would be quite a cross for this current crop of Gators to bear, but Donovan is nothing if not philosophical about the team's predicament.
Several times in each of the last few seasons, Donovan cited the sometimes crushing circumstances that engulfed the Erving Walkers, Kenny Boyntons, Patric Youngs, Scottie Wilbekins and Casey Prathers in their journeys as Gators as the very layers of toughness that enabled them eventually to claw to Elite Eights and Final Fours.
“To me, life is always about getting to the truth,” Donovan said Friday. “Well, reality is coming down now.”
Donovan uses words like “hardened,” “calloused” and “scarred” to make his point. Guys have to get roughed up to truly understand the true meaning of resiliency.
Given what the '14-15 squad has been through -- and it could get worse before it gets better -- these Gators may look like bloody survivors walking away from a 25-car pileup before they're done.
How they collectively deal with it all ultimately will determine if the program grows from it all.
"Just because you go through these experiences doesn't necessarily mean that you're better from them," Donovan said. "What I've got to do is help them get better from them."
That amazing '13-14 team had a motto: "SWAG." It stood for "Strength When Adversity Grows." Those Gators lived it on the way to 30 straight victories, Southeastern Conference regular season and tournament championships, and the Final Four. A quartet of "hardened, calloused and scarred" seniors were the lifeline that made that phrase come to life.
The '14-15s are nothing like their predecessors when it comes to mental toughness, but there's much more to it. Donovan has acknowledged the program is in a lull as it relates to talent, with a four-year run of inconsistency on the recruiting trail now rearing itself on the roster. There's nothing the UF coaches can do about that now.
So Donovan's focus remains molding them into the best competitors they can be. The often painful lessons being learned on the court and being delivered with tough love on a daily basis at the team's practice facility, are being meshed out with a future payout in mind.
“My job and my responsibility is to teach these guys and help these guys understand what goes into winning,” Donovan said. “In life, we're all chasing something. We're all trying to achieve something or do something. What really happens is when you're chasing something you're changing as a person. And a lot of times under adverse, tough situations we change into what we don't like [whereas] the experience we're all going through, coaches and players, should be teaching resiliency; it should be teaching perseverance; it should be teaching a work ethic; it should be teaching consistency, it should be teaching commitment. Or is it teaching bitterness, anger and frustration?”
The Gators, to a man, may not even be aware of what they're learning. In time, they will. Any big-picture lessons likely won't come Saturday night trying to guard Aggies point guard Alex Caruso in the pick-and-roll -- in which he excels, by the way -- but maybe Robinson or Kasey Hill or Chris Chiozza will experience a moment of clarity that they'll carry with them down the line.
At 12-12, that's what the season has come to.
“I do believe the most important area of your life for growth is through adversity,” Donovan said. “The tougher and harder things are, the more you have a chance to grow as a person, as a player.”
After this season, the ceiling for growth will be high.
