Finney-Smith suspended indefinitely, will miss Vandy game (likely more)
Wednesday, February 18, 2015 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- The Florida Gators' ride along the rocky road of adversity this season just hit another bump.
Junior forward Dorian Finney-Smith has been suspended indefinitely from the team for violating team rules and will miss Wednesday night's Southeastern Conference home game against Vanderbilt and likely more games, according to Coach Billy Donovan.
Donovan said he would address the issue after the game between the Gators and Commodores
This is the second time in Finney-Smith's two seasons that he has been suspended. He started the 2013-14 regular season inactive before joining the Gators three games in and went on to be named SEC Sixth Man of the Year.
Finney-Smith was the team's No. 2 scorer at 12.9 points per game and leading rebounder at 5.8 per game. That means a UF offense that already was missing its scoring leader in Michael Frazier II -- the guard and wing forward suffered a sprained ankle Feb. 7 against Kentucky and missed the last two games (both one-point losses) -- is even further handicap. For context, after Frazier and Finney-Smith, the rest of the Gators are making a collective 25.3 percent from 3-point range.
Now, without the 6-foot-8 Finney-Smith, Florida will have to lean even more on the likes of 6-9 freshman forward Devin Robinson. If that sounds familiar, it's because Robinson replaced Frazier in the starting lineup the last two games, but now he'll have to provide minutes at both the small and power forward spots. And he'll have to rebound at a better clip than his SEC average of two per game.
It also means more minutes for 6-8 junior Alex Murphy, who's averaging 4.7 points and only two rebounds in 16 minutes per game. Murphy, who could be in the starting lineup, figures to bounce around at all three frontcourt spots and the Gators also will play heavy a lot of their three-guard lineup of Kasey Hill, Eli Carter and freshman Chris Chiozza.
