Losing is already a tough enough thing to deal with, especially for a team that rarely experiences it.
So getting dismantled in back-to-back road games must have a much more troubling effect on a team's psyche.
Except Sha Brooks and Marshae Dotson, UF's team leaders, aren't buying that.
"We're perfectly fine," Dotson said. "We're 22-4. I don't see anything bad about that. We're still having a great year."
Although the No. 15 Gators (22-4, 8-3 Southeastern Conference) were out-toughed, out-hustled and flat-out whooped by Vanderbilt and LSU over the weekend, Brooks and Dotson are not letting those outcomes affect them or their team mentally.
At the same time, it's hard for them to forget what happened.
"You want to, but deep down inside it's still there," Dotson said. "We brought it on ourselves."
Added Brooks: "We're just basically focusing on us right now. Just figuring out what it is that we do best and just trying to get back to the team we were before these two losses. We just pretty much move forward."
It sounds simple enough.
After their first two losses, UF bounced back with a 15-game winning streak and a seven-game SEC winning streak, setting school records both times.
That pattern changed when the Gators turned one loss into two and saw their SEC title hopes shrink in the blink of an eye.
Following the loss to the Tigers on Sunday, UF coach Amanda Butler talked about her team being mentally weak and not playing with the toughness that has been the Gators' trademark all season.
The result: missed free throws and unforced turnovers.
Still, Butler doesn't see a reason to panic because she knows those things are under her team's control.
Instead, she wants to focus on where the Gators have had success this season as opposed to where they've failed.
"As a staff, we've talked a lot - and what we're about to go in here in the locker room and talk about with the team is not what happened in the last two ballgames, but what happened in the 22 wins before those ballgames," Butler said.
"That's what I'm more interested in us being consumed with right now."
She added that she doesn't want her team to beat itself up over what happened in its losses, considering what UF was up against.
"It's two really good ball teams on their home floor," Butler said. "It was a really tough stretch to go Tennessee, to Vandy, to LSU. It's hard, but that's the way this league is."
Butler, Brooks and Dotson know there are no excuses and no one to feel sorry for UF, not even themselves.
