TAMPA - It has become a tired cliche: UF must win but comes up short.
The specifics are no longer even all that important.
Sure, UF's 61-58 loss to Auburn in the Southeastern Conference Tournament Quarterfinals will provide game tape for Billy Donovan to break down for his team.
The Gators will focus on missed rebounds and loose balls.
There is a bigger trend here, though, and Donovan doesn't deny it.
"They need to learn how to win," said a man who knows a little bit about winning after bringing back-to-back national championships to Gainesville. "Just because you're a year older doesn't mean you're a year better."
Don't misunderstand his point. This is not Donovan berating his team like a year ago.
The 2008-09 Gators are better than their 2007-08 edition, if only for their heart.
Lack of effort did not make this team stumble.
In fact, a glance at the stat sheet does not immediately reveal the difference in Friday's game. The biggest disparity would be shooting - The Tigers made 44 percent of their shots while the Gators only connected on 36 percent.
But this goes deeper. The Gators lost 10 games this season, and eight of those were decided by 6 points or less.
That is remarkably uplifting and heartbreakingly disappointing all at the same time.
It gives hope, because if UF can figure out how to win half of those, it would not face a must-win against a hot Auburn team that didn't have to play the night prior.
Let this be a warning, however. Clutch play cannot be taught. The best plays in the world can be drawn up, but players either have a knack to excel at the end of the game or they do not.
This is not a slight against Erving Walker, whose 3-pointer was blocked in the waning seconds Friday night. The freshman supersub has made many a big shot this season.
What continues to be disappointing is the disappearance of Nick Calathes down the stretch. Here is when the Gators need their star point guard most, and he has played four straight subpar games.
All the pieces were there for a necessary win against Auburn.
Alex Tyus (21 points, 11 rebounds) brought his A-game against an undersized Tigers squad. Walker had another solid performance off the bench, going for 14 points. Veterans Walter Hodge and Dan Werner chipped in 8 points apiece.
Then there was Calathes, who finished with 7 points on 3-of-13 shooting. Sure, the sophomore did the other things, adding 11 rebounds and five assists. But Calathes hasn't received the recognition he has for being a distributor or a Werner-like fill-in-the-stat-categories role player.
"The one thing that's been very challenging for me is getting them to really identify what goes into winning," Donovan said. "It's not really their personality. When I say personality, I don't mean that they don't want to win.
"There's things that they have to do to find a way to overcome things."
Therein lies the answer.
While the Gators have had a certain number of shortcomings every night, it hasn't always been the same thing that did them in.
Maybe it's a missed defensive assignment like the one that allowed South Carolina to steal a game earlier in the season or those that allowed Auburn to get key open 3-pointers. It could be the second opportunities or a loose ball not gathered. Or a bad night for Calathes. Possibly it's a night where Calathes shows up and no one else does.
Hodge will graduate as the winningest player in UF history, but it seems not even he has been able to pass on the most wanted trait in a player.
Being a winner.
