By BILL KOSS
Florida Gators Basketball Color Analyst
Walking out of Publix this past Saturday morning, I overheard two couples discussing the shortcomings of the Gators' basketball team and pronouncing them as doomed to a mediocre season because of their poor play on Thursday night at Auburn. Moments later two guys emerged from a nearby coffee shop and stated unequivocally that this was a lousy team that couldn't shoot the ball. Even Billy Donovan on his post game radio show after the Arkansas win told fans not to fall in love with this team because they still had a lot to prove.
What I can't figure out is why people don't think 15 wins out of the first 19 games isn't one heck of a great start! Every single basketball team in the country has limitations, and clearly Florida is not a great shooting team. Okay, maybe they are not even a good shooting team. But there are a few things to consider.
First of all, the Gators play hard every night. The only game during which I would question the overall effort was against Jacksonville before Christmas, and I can't remember many Gator teams ever being mentally ready for the pre-Christmas games. So they play hard. And they play hard almost every night. How many teams in the country do that consistently? Not many.
Second, they are really good young men, and they are part of a program that is a class act. Now I know this sounds like a bunch of malarkey to some who are only interested in winning, but look around the league at some of the issues:
Tennessee has a coach who cheats.
Kentucky has a coach who on national TV runs an x-rated mouth.
Mississippi State has a program where kids have a fist fight with each other in the stands on national television, and the coach kicks off the least productive of the players. Not to mention that a couple of the players have sat out games for taking inappropriate benefits.
John Pelphrey inherited an Arkansas program with a plethora of player issues and has been fighting an uphill battle for four years trying to get it on an even keel.
Florida's players, on the other hand, have for the most part over the last 20 years represented the University with character and integrity while giving fans teams they can be proud of for more than just the championships they have won.
Thirdly, they just happen to be one of the best defensive teams in the country at this point in the season. After beating Arkansas last night, they have held two SEC teams to the fewest points in consecutive games since 1947. That is an amazing number now that we have a shot clock to speed up the number of shot attempts in a game. It is the lowest point total in two consecutive games in SEC play ever for a Billy Donovan coached team.
Fourth, they lead the nation in committing the fewest personal fouls per game. This is not easy to do when you defend as well as the Gators have defended this season. Only Ohio State and Wisconsin in the top 25 hold teams to under 60 points a game and commit less than 16 personal fouls a game. Opponents are only attempting 13.6 free throws a game against the Gators. This is the third fewest of all 344 Division I teams.
So why the doom and gloom? Well it all goes back to expectations. With two national championship teams in the last six years, people expect Florida basketball to win them all. Maybe it is time to start enjoying some of the more intriguing aspects of the season. We can start with Vernon Macklin's steal of an inbound pass by Auburn with less than a minute to go which resulted in an Erving Walker open look for the deciding three point basket to give the Gators their 13th win in the last 14 games against Auburn. How would you like to be an Auburn basketball fan?
Or the 43 points scored last night by Arkansas - the lowest point total by an Arkansas team ever in a loss to an SEC team. Wouldn't be any fun to be wearing one of those hog snouts right now would it?
And what about Tennessee's fans? It must really be fun listening to every commentator in the country talk about Bruce Pearl's suspension.
So then there are the wins and losses. Syracuse has now lost back-to-back Big East games after being ranked third this week in the national polls.
Michigan State and Kansas State were numbers two and three in the pre-season polls and both continue to spiral downward out of control.
Baylor and Cinderella Butler were at one time in the top 20 and both have disappeared.
The point is that it is a long season. Florida is currently in first place in the SEC - the entire SEC and not this east and west nonsense. Even mighty Kentucky already has lost a couple of games in the conference. The Gators have the pleasure of visiting Athens, Georgia this coming Tuesday night where Kentucky left the building on the wrong side of the scoreboard a couple of weeks ago. A Gator win over the BUlldogs would go a long way toward establishing a pretty strong resume in the first third of the conference schedule.
