'I Feel Like We're Ready to Turn it Around'

NEWARK, N.J. — After giving up 116 points and being handed a 42-point loss, the coach of Gardner-Webb, a 16-year veteran in the profession, proclaimed he'd never seen a team as electric in transition offense as the Florida Gators. Three nights later, the North Florida coach, beaten by 40, declared the Gators a potential Final Four team.

In Oregon over the Thanksgiving holiday, UF won an exhausting, double-overtime marathon shootout against Gonzaga, the NCAA runner-up last season, prompting the team's most valuable player, senior point guard Chris Chiozza, to praise his squad's overall toughness in one of the most memorable regular-season wins in school history. Two night's later, no less an authority than Duke coach Mike Kzyzewski stated Florida would be the best team his Blue Devils, then ranked No. 1, would face this season after he escaped with a three-point win in the PK80 Invitational at Portland, Ore.

My how perceptions have changed.

In just two games, no less.

UF, after ascending to the nation's No. 5 ranking, was trounced Monday night by Florida State, then gutted Wednesday by mid-major Loyola Chicago, both losses coming at home. As they left the floor at Exactech Arena, the Gators wore dazed looks of semi-consciousness. In the locker room, they buried those faces in their hands.

The players, collectively, were in shock.

The coaches, however, were not.

"This is who we are," UF coach Mike White said.

Basketball, for all its X's and O's, sets and strategies, can be reduced to a very simple reality: If you don't make shots and don't prevent the other team from making shots, you're not going to win. End of story.

The Gators didn't make shots against FSU and got destroyed on the boards by the Seminoles in losing 83-66. Though UF came out with considerably more fight against Loyola, the Gators repeated their stone-cold shooting ways (both inside and out), while allowing the Ramblers to execute for easy buckets.

So, now the Gators (5-3), for the moment (and only that) still ranked fifth in the country, find themselves in a pivotal place as they look to Saturday night's game against and No. 17 Cincinnati (7-1) and its pack-of-wolves mentality in the Never Forget Tribute at Prudential Center. Similar shooting and defensive displays against the Bearcats won't just yield similar results, but likely even uglier ones. If that's possible.

[Read senior writer Chris Harry's 'Pregame Stuff' preview here]

That's why, when UF went back to work Thursday, the team had a lengthy review of film (normal), a spirited practice (also normal), then adjourned for some serious heart-to-heart discussions about where this team is headed (not so normal, but oh so needed).

Coaches spoke, support staff spoke, players spoke. And after the meeting was wrapped, the players spoke some more among themselves. Ownership and leadership were prominent topics of the discussion. The direction the Gators are headed was the focus.

Sometimes, rock bottom can be a powerful ally.

"We want to be a great team. We want to be remembered as one of the best teams Florida has ever had," Chiozza said after practice Friday. "We can do that, but to get there we have to have no regrets this season. The last two games we've gone out with regrets. The rest of our games, we're going to make sure we don't."

The Gators know what they're capable of. Ask Gonzaga and Duke. They're not going to shoot the ball lights-out like they did in Portland every night, which emphasizes the need to play unselfishly when 3-pointers aren't falling and, above all else, play more committed and collaboratively on the defensive end.

"We talked about it all," Chiozza said. "I feel like we're ready to turn it around."

That would seem like progress compared to the blank stares and post-game shoulder shrugs that served as answers to questions about what was ailing the team.

As White has said many times, players and teams can't control whether the ball goes in the basket. They can, however, control effort and selflessness. After those high-flying couple weeks and high-profile weekend in Oregon, a lot of glowing things were said and written about the Gators. In the wake of all that praise, maybe they needed a jolt of reality.

Or two.

"We've lost two basketball games. We've got to grow up and get better. We've got to make a shot. We've got to get some stops," White said. "We've played eight games. We are guaranteed, I think, 24 [more]. That's 25 percent of the season. We could win the next 24, we could go 10-14, I don't know. But I'm going to try to get better [this week] and challenge our guys. 'Who's built for this?' This is a grind. Again, none of it's been shocking. We're just a very average defensive and rebounding team, and when we're not making shots, it's hard to beat anybody."

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