Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — First things first. 

Tre Mann looks terrific. 

Mann, the sophomore combo guard, is now rocking a 6-foot-5 1/2-inch, 186-pound body that is nearly two inches taller and 15 pounds heavier than when he arrived at UF as a heralded freshman with McDonald's All-America credentials a year ago. Since returning for voluntary workouts, he's received rave reviews in both the weight room and on the court, where NCAA rules allow voluntary shooting sessions with (masked and gloved) managers and four 30-minute individual instruction blocks per week with a (masked/gloved) member of the coaching staff. Given the unsatisfying taste left behind by the 2019-20 season, the humongous hole left by point guard Andrew Nembhard's transfer, plus Coach Mike White's public pledge to play a more up-tempo brand of basketball this season, Mann clearly did his part in putting himself in the best position to help the Gators in 2020-21. 

"Totally transformed his body and looks like a whole new person," assistant coach Jordan Mincy said. "He's shooting it extremely well and showing a level of confidence, I think, that is going to allow him to make a big jump, as long as his mental approach stays the same." 

Encouraging stuff, to be sure. Yet, to best understand where Mann is now, some context of where he's been over the last 12 months is helpful. Especially, the last two. 

Breaking: Mann tested positive for COVID-19 in June.  "I had almost all the symptoms. The cough, the fever. Lost taste smell. Everything except shortness of breath," said Mann, who fell ill while at his parents' home in The Villages, came to Gainesville to be tested, then returned home for 10 days of quarantine. "I was so scared for myself, as much as I was thinking about my family. We did OK, though. We got through it." 

Not before Mann's weight dropped all the way to 160, which makes the rally to his current and cut-up physique all the more impressive. Now it's time for his contributions on the floor to match. 

Mann's freshman season wasn't particularly memorable —he averaged just 5.3 points, 1.9 rebounds and 17.8 minutes over his 29 games — and yet in April he made the eyebrow-raising decision to enter the NBA draft underclassmen process. He stayed in until the second week of July. 

"I really just wanted to get feedback from teams," Mann said. "They told me what they needed to see from me this year." 

They wanted bigger numbers, obviously, but also more instances of Mann coming off ball screens, showing more explosiveness, more consistency and hitting some of those wide-open shots that didn't fall last season. And to get bigger, quicker and stronger. 

Clearly, Mann took note. 

"He's been grinding. You can tell when he walks in the gym that he's super focused," said sophomore guard Scottie Lewis. "The Tre Mann we need this year is the Tre Mann we're going to get." 

The version the Gators got last year proved something of an enigma. Ask any UF coach and he'll tell you Mann was the team's best and most versatile offensive player throughout the preseason, which was why it was Mann — and not Lewis, a fellow McDonald's All-American and the first top-10 nation prospect to sign with UF in six years — who started the first four games of the season. Everyone had high expectations for the kid who grew up in Gainesville. 

But Mann, like the Gators, didn't wow anyone those first four games, with UF falling to both power conference opponents it faced; at home in lopsided fashion against Florida State and on the road at Connecticut. In the latter, Mann suffered a concussion in the second half and did not start again the rest of the season. Through those four games, he went 9-for-28 (32 percent) from the floor and 2-for-12 from the 3-point line (16.7 percent). 

Mann only missed two games while in concussion protocol, but it took him a while to regain his comfort level in the system and the confidence in himself. 

"It messed with me," he said.  Mann went on to shoot just 35.6 percent overall, 27.5 from distance and 65.5 from the free-throw line. Along the way, he had his moments, like career highs of 13 points in a win against Providence in Brooklyn and again in hard-fought defeat at Kentucky, as well as a trio of 3-pointers in the second half of the Gators' historic 22-point comeback home win against Georgia. But there also was an 0-for-6 afternoon in a loss at Ole Miss, four turnovers in just eight minutes against Alabama, and that missed first-half dunk at home against Kentucky, a game that not only ended with a one-point loss — after leading by 18 with less than 12 minutes to go — but turned out to be the final game of the season, with COVID shutting down college basketball down five days later. 

"I think about that game a lot," Mann said. "That missed dunk is the first thing I think about."

If that's what fueled Mann to do countless sets of push-ups while watching TV during the pandemic, so be it. If that's what got him the key to an empty Villages gym to shoot buckets with a buddy, all the better. If that's what drove him to drive to Orlando three days a week for private strength training sessions post-COVID, then maybe a missed dunk image should be plastered on his apartment wall. 

But what Mann's coaches hope inspires him most is remembering what put him in position to play his best basketball in the latter stages of the season. 

A recommitment to the process. 

"They told me I needed a better routine," Mann said. 

He found one. 

"Tre was playing really well late in the season," White said. "He was figuring some things out, and it started with what he was doing in practice." 

And in the coaches' offices, where he spent a considerable amount reviewing and evaluating his performance in both practices and games. Mann let White and his staff be the voices he listened to most. 

"He did a great job of quieting the noise around him," Mincy said. "Social media noise. Family noise. Ex-coaches, trainers and friends noise. Those are things that aren't important to the game or your team. By starting to filter out all those distractions, he started to flourish. He listened, he asked questions and said, 'I'm going to do this!' "

Florida fans likely recall a late-season loss at Tennessee, when the Gators scored just 17 points in the first and trailed by 19 with 12 minutes to go, then went a furious 25-7 run to make it a one-point game inside three minutes, eventually losing by five. They probably don't recall that it was Mann, who played the bulk of the minutes at point guard during that comeback — Nembhard was on the bench in foul trouble — and showed a combination of defensive intensity and poise under pressure the Gators believe can be honed and groomed as he competes with fourth-year junior Tyree Appleby, the transfer from Cleveland State, and returning classmate Ques Glover for reps at the "1" spot. 

The Gators will be a perimeter-heavy team, but a more diverse and athletic one with an array of scorers, shooters, slashers and full-court dashers. Mann projects into each of those categories. 

"I think the biggest thing for Tre is self-confidence," Lewis said. "He had so much coming out of high school, but the struggles we all went through as freshmen, it can break down your inner-confidence. All summer he's been talking about getting back and relying on that year of experience and what he learned." 

Among those lessons?  "Adversity. Maturity. Growth. I learned a lot last year," Mann said. "I have something to prove to myself. I want to show I can play at this level and do the things I'm used to doing. I feel like I let myself down last year, and I let my teammates down. I know I can play. I know I can be a dominant player at this level." 

His teammates and coaches know it, too. They're believers. And as long as Mann builds on that late-season discipline and continues to enter the building laser-focused the old noise he desperately needed to block out last year has a chance to be replaced by resounding Rowdy Reptile roars on his behalf. 

"Tre is still young, and still reverts back to some old habits at times, but his mindset is different," Mincy said. "He listens. He wants to be great, but we're going to keep telling him not to put too much pressure on himself and just go out and play. He does that, he'll be fine. More than fine."