Senior forward Justin Leon gets in a stance at LSU. The Gators' record-setting back-to-back road wins of 30-plus points were both rooted in terrific team defense.
UF Out to 'Meet' Challenge at Home vs Mizzou
Thursday, February 2, 2017 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
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A no-holds-barred team meeting last week helped gear up the Gators for a record-setting two-game road swing.
By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The team meeting.
It can be one of the true cliches of sports. When a team meeting is called, it's usually out of desperation. It's like a Code Red. Things are bad and need to change. Sometimes, the effect is negligible. Sometimes, the right chords are struck and a more harmonious, more productive team emerges.
The early returns on The Meeting that broke out in the Florida basketball locker room early last week have been good. The Gators were coming off a two-game losing skid, with a maddening home defeat against Vanderbilt on the back end. Coach Mike White told his players after that one — a game the Gators gave up 10 3-point field goals when defending the Commodores from 3 was the No. 1 priority of the pre-game scouting report — that they were at a "fork in the road."
Two days later, UF reconvened for a pre-practice film review and The Meeting broke out. More than two hours worth.
The conversation, coaches and players included, got very pointed, very detailed and very real.
"People called each other out, but it wasn't personal. We said we weren't going to be mad about anything anyone said," junior forward Devin Robinson said. "We took it all on the chest. Everybody was humble and humbled in there. No egos. Everybody was checked. And Coach went down the line and checked everybody. It was good."
[Read senior writer Chris Harry's UF-Mizzou 'Pregame Stuff preview here]
The Gators took the content of that meeting on the road and hung back-to-back wins of 30-plus points on LSU and Oklahoma, respectively. Everyone played the right way. Everyone contributed. Everyone was happy.
And now No. 24 Florida (16-5, 6-2) is back home for a two-game stand at Exactech Arena, starting with Thursday night's date against Southeastern Conference cellar-dweller Missouri (5-15, 0-8). It's a game that frightens White for a number of reasons. Being back at the O'Dome brings a built-in comfort level the Gators have not handled well this season — for whatever reasons — with opposing teams shooting 49 percent against the UF defense since the sparkling new doors opened in late-December. Oh, and there's also the matter of that second game just 49 hours later. The one against eighth-ranked and SEC front-leading Kentucky, with the crew of ESPN "Game Day" in the house, that may or may not already be occupying space in his players' minds.
Here's something else to consider: This time last year, the Gators were coming off their biggest win of the season, a 17-point massacre of ninth-ranked West Virginia in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge, and feeling awfully good about themselves with a 14-7 record. UF won just four of its 10 regular-season games, went a dismal 2-3 at home and was banished to the NIT in the postseason.
This is a different cast of characters, obviously, but a lot of those in lead roles remain, including a head coach with a much better pulse of his program than a year ago.
UF coach Mike White (left) talks to his team after Saturday's win over Oklahoma.
"They are not going to overlook Thursday or they are going to be sitting by me," White warned earlier this week. "We're going to find five guys that are really excited to play Missouri. Missouri has been very competitive. I understand that they've struggled in some areas, they've struggled to score at times, to get over the hump at times. [But] they play as hard as anyone in our league. … They fight you on every possession. We're not good enough, period, [to overlook anyone], and even if we were, it wouldn't matter."
The Tigers have lost 12 straight, including 30 in a row on the road dating to two seasons ago. They are last or next-to-last in a half-dozen key offensive statistics (such as scoring, plus field-goal percentage and 3-point percentage), compared to a Gators squad that does mostly good things on defense.
Unless they're at home. Which they are.
And that will be a point of emphasis heading into this game. Kentucky, on the other hand, will not and cannot be a point of emphasis. Florida has demonstrated it does not handle prosperity very well, so looking beyond anyone -- even the last-place and winless Tigers -- would be a big mistake. UF's lack of attention to detail came up in The Meeting. So did the team's default habits of playing to the home crowd, the Rowdies, friends, family and girlfriends. These are things the Gators, individually and collectively, can control. Against Vandy, they did not.
"That's why we lost," Leon said. "In the meeting, everybody kind of laid it all out there, kind of what the problems were and what guys were thinking about. We decided then we were going to focus on the right things. We were going to go back to being a team, a close team. It showed."
On the road, absolutely, it did. The Gators held LSU and OU to combined 35 percent from the floor and 9 percent from the 3-point line. They know they're capable.
"It's mostly focusing on us and making sure we stay true to ourselves, keep doing what we're doing and don't change anything, whether it's the worst team or the best team we're playing against," said sophomore backup center Kevarrius Hayes, who had career highs of 20 points and nine rebounds off the bench at Oklahoma. "Filter out distractions, focus on the person next to you, your teammates, the people on the floor, instead of impressing the crowd."
White will help with that charge. In the road games, if he saw a mistake — especially on defense — he substituted immediately.
"No excuses," he said.
If none were tolerated on the road and produced those outstanding results, the same standard needs to apply at home.
