The challenge for Coach Mike White and the Gators will be to focus on the task at hand, as opposed to the surroundings and circumstances of a date Tuesday night against powerful Duke in the Jimmy V Classic at Madison Square Garden.
On Broadway: Gators Get Duke in Jimmy V Classic
Tuesday, December 6, 2016 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
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UF is back at Madison Square Garden for the first time in three years.
By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
NEW YORK — The quote fit the circumstances perfectly. Wasn't anything deep from, say, Confucius or Aristotle. More like dime-store philosophy, actually, courtesy of that wise, ol' sage and University of Florida forward Devin Robinson.
"Another day, another game, another gym."
Nineteen days ago, the Gators played a basketball game at the Lakeland Center, home to the state's high school championship. Fifteen days ago, they played at a hockey arena in Tampa. Over Thanksgiving holiday, it was three games in a mostly empty field house at Disney World. Five days ago, the Gators played at a 5,800-seat box at the University of North Florida.
So, of course, the next logical step is Tuesday night's date in the so-called Mecca of sports forums, better known as Madison Square Garden, where the No. 21 Gators (7-1) will take on fifth-ranked Duke (8-1), which has a "Mecca" kind of connotation as the so-called gold standard of college basketball. The two teams will square off in the nightcap of the Jimmy V Classic on ESPN, with Dick Vitale on the mic, dozens of NBA scouts in the house and "Hamilton" playing about 12 blocks up Times Square.
"Being 100 percent honest, we both know that it's a bigger game. It's Madison Square Garden and it's Duke," UF senior forward Canyon Barry said. "Growing up as a kid, you see Duke constantly, so to have the opportunity to go out there and play on the huge stage and against a great team is awesome. That being said, it's important that we kind of maintain our composure and our poise and go about it like another game."
Therein lies the challenge for Florida coach Mike White, who is fighting his own pre-game storyline demons, what with his father, Kevin White, in his eighth season as athletic director at Duke. That connection, plus a first time going up against Blue Devils coach Mike Kzyzewski, were the first two items put to White during his Monday gathering with the local media.
"I knew these questions were coming," he said.
He answered them politely and all, but White understood that advancing the obvious pre-game narrative — at least from the Gators' side of things — won't do much good as far as keeping things on an even keel; as even as can be expected, mind you, when the Empire State Building is out every player's window.
After bouncing around the state of Florida, busing to five different venues without playing a home game while the Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center renovation wraps, how do you take a game against one of the nation's storied programs and iconic coaches — in the most famous arena in the world — and go about things with a level of normalcy?
The fact is, you can't.
Madison Square Garden
But the hype can be managed, and that will be the challenge the UF staff puts to one of the program's most veteran and experienced teams in years against a Blue Devils squad armed with an army of McDonald's All-Americans — (eight, to be exact), including four of the top freshmen prospects in the country — who were here in the Garden just three weeks ago for a game against fellow basketball blueblood Kansas.
"I'm not going to lie. Our guys are going to be jacked up," White said. "I'd be very, very surprised if we don't come out and play really, really hard and be excited about the challenge and the opportunity. I'm [less] concerned with how we handle the stage and the bright lights in Madison Square Garden than playing Duke and handling the runs that [Duke will] go on and playing with maturity, playing with poise and defending at a high level of intensity without fouling. More the mental side with this scouting report than the 10 plays that we need to memorize or the four new plays we'll put in or things like that. I think our mentality is as important as anything else."
Senior point guard Kasey Hill is the lone Gator to play in the Garden. He was a freshman on the team that came here for the 2013 Jimmy V Classic and defeated Memphis 77-75. Hill played 22 minutes that night, scored five points, grabbed two rebounds and dished three assists, the totality of which doesn't exactly make him an expert. Hill, though, knows his team and teammates; and he knows the best way to conquer the circumstances is to make things more about the game versus. the aura of the surroundings.
"Focus on the challenge, focus on our job," Hill said. "When we do that, we're a really good team."
Some examples:
* Preventing guard Grayson Allen from getting to the rim and selling all those fouls with flops to the floor.
* Keeping forward Luke Kennard, an early candidate for NCAA Player of the Year, from getting in a shooting rhythm.
* Locating sharp-shooting freshman guard Frank Jackson at the 3-point line in transition.
* Matching the intensity of high-motor forward Amile Jefferson.
* Withstanding the adversity that, no doubt, is coming in a showdown with arguably the most talented team in the country.
And we haven't even mentioned forward Harry Giles, the 6-foot-10, 240-pound freshman projected to be the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft, who could make his collegiate debut Tuesday night after sitting out his entire senior year of high school with a knee injury.
In other words, there's plenty to worry about.
But it also means, as Hill said, the Gators doing their respective jobs and not getting caught up in the bright Broadway lights by hunting shots or trying to force highlight-reel or SportsCenter Top 10-worthy plays against a marquee foe because Mom and Dad or the AAU coach or the boys back home are watching.
There's a bigger picture to a game in the Big Apple.
"We just have to stick together and do the things we do every day in practice and not listen to the outside noise — what parents, [former] coaches and media are saying — and just pay attention to what coaches say and stick to the scouting report. That's it," Robinson said. "If we keep that perspective, stay level-headed and do our jobs, we'll be fine."
