The Gators need to start stringing some wins together (a bunch of them), if they have any shot to play in the NCAA Tournament for a third straight year.
Only So Many Opportunities Left for Gators
Wednesday, February 13, 2019 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
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By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — They are student-athletes at Florida, but most of the 18- to 23-year-olds who take the field, the floor, or whatever the venue as Gators more than likely are blissfully unaware of history as it pertains to their teams. Oh, there's rudimentary knowledge. Noah Locke surely knows that Bradley Beal wore a Florida uniform only a few years ago. KeVaughn Allen walks past those back-to-back NCAA Tournament trophies every day. Kevarrius Hayes played just up the road at Live Oak Suwannee while the Gators were winning 30 in a row on the way to the 2014 Final Four.
Beyond some of the baseline stuff, though, probably not much.
History lesson; It's been 22 years since a UF basketball team has lost as often through 23 games as the current one. It's been the same 22 years since a Gators team has lost as many as the current one through 10 Southeastern Conference games. The last to do so was the reclamation project Coach Billy Donovan inherited for the 1996-97 season. Any comparisons between the two teams, though, aren't exactly relevant, as the 2018-19 squad is much more talented, competing in a far better version of the SEC and playing one of the program's most ambitious schedules ever.
But these Gators don't need history to put the season into context, especially relative to just how long they want it to last. Fifth-year senior Jalen Hudson admitted the subject of postseason possibilities has been talked about in the locker room.
To what extent?
"Just that we're in a spot right now where there's a lot of uncertainty, so we have to pick things up. And in order to do that we have to start with today," Hudson said Tuesday. "All we can control is what we can control today, so that's what we're trying to handle. We're trying to get some wins, make a run so we can get in a comfortable spot and get into the NCAA tournament."
They're going to need more than "some wins" to get there, and if it indeed starts with "today" that means the Gators (12-11, 4-6) need to take care of business at home Wednesday night against SEC cellar-dweller Vanderbilt (9-14, 0-10) at Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center.
[Read senior writer Chris Harry's comprehensive "Pregame Stuff" setup here]
Jalen Hudson equaled his season-high with 15 points in Saturday's loss at Tennessee.
After blowing an 11-point lead to No. 7 Kentucky at home, turning the ball over 17 times on the road at Auburn, then putting up a game fight before losing Saturday at No. 1 Tennessee, the Gators had Sunday off and returned to the practice court Monday for what Coach Mike White described as the team's best all-around workout in a month.
"The energy level, intensity level, attention to detail, ownership, the communication among one another, more leadership from older guys," White said, ticking off the reasons that made that session different. "Some guys that aren't playing much came to work and not to sulk. They came to get better and help their teammates get better. And we had several guys who had a good practice. That's what we you have to have every day — and we've had a lot of practices where one or two guys had a good day, or three or four guys were banged up, and one guy has a good day, or four or five guys act entitled, as if, 'Well, I'm not playing a lot, so whoa is me.' A lot of teams have. That's college basketball in 2019. We can't afford to have that. We're not good enough to have that. Our culture has to be better and I have to find ways to get back to where it was last year and year before."
Last year, UF went 20-12, including 11-7 in league play, and made the NCAA Tournament. The year before, UF went 24-8, including 14-4 in league play, and made the NCAA Tournament.
This year, a case can be made that the Gators have been in every game, save a season-opening blowout loss at Florida State. They're 0-6 against ranked opponents, with four of those defeats coming against top-10 teams. The NCAA Tournament does not take teams hovering around break-even records, unless they win their way in via postseason conference tourneys.
Florida still has shot (yes, it's a long one), but the Gators — probably needing 18 wins — have reduced their margin for error to next to nothing. And they won't get to 18 without getting to 13 and that probably needs to happen Wednesday.
Maybe that's why the team had a second spirited and highly competitive practice in as many days Tuesday. Hudson, dealing with an offensive nightmare of a senior campaign, hit a bunch of shots again. Backups Deaundrae Ballard and Mike Okauru, whose production has been negligible in league play (like the UF bench most of the season), had some bounce to their work. There was talking. There was effort. Who knows? Maybe there was desperation.
There needs to be.
"It's kind of like a newfound energy," said Hudson, who equaled his season-high of 15 points in the loss at UT. "We kind of went through a rough patch here the last couple weeks. I would say, more so the last week-and-a-half. We're just really not happy with where we're at right now as a team, so we just want to be able to control what we can control, and one of those thing is energy. We wanted to bring that yesterday, just start something new, see how that works."
It's three-quarters into the season and UF's players decided to bring something new: energy. It's going to take that ... and more.
