Listening to sophomore Patric Young talk about Florida’s season-ending loss in March at the NCAA Tournament, it’s clear he hasn’t put the game behind him.
Despite contributing solid minutes as a freshman and being eyed as a potential selection in the NBA draft, Young said losing 74-71 to Butler in overtime at the Elite Eight motivated him to come back and improve.
“We felt we shouldn’t have lost that game,” he said recently while being interviewed regarding his invitation to the U-19 USA Basketball camp.
“I’m going to avenge myself from last season, (from) that last game that we lost,” he said. “We’re going to come back and we’re going to work together as a team. I want to be the guy that can push my teammates and help us get to that point to make it to a national championship this year.”
But the team that was three wins away from a title is no more. Southeastern Conference Player of the Year Chandler Parsons, Vernon Macklin and Alex Tyus are gone, and the path for Young is wide open.
If the 6-foot-9 sophomore is to make good on his goals, it will be with a completely different lineup and larger personal role — something Young said he is comfortable with.
“There’s a role to be filled in the big man position,” he said. “I have been working on my game to develop my offensive game, so when that time comes for me to step into that role, I’ll be ready and prepared.”
With the statuses of forwards Erik Murphy and Cody Larson still up in the air, Young and little-used Will Yeguete may be the only two returning players in Florida’s frontcourt. Incoming freshman three-star recruit Walter Pitchford is raw and will need time to develop before contributing major minutes.
Florida will depend heavily on its guards in 2011-12, a position of serious strength. The team’s top two scorers, guards Kenny Boynton (14.2 ppg) and Erving Walker (14.6), are slated to return, as are Casey Prather and Scottie Wilbekin.
Redshirt junior Mike Rosario, who Wilbekin said might be the team’s best shooter, will also see significant minutes after sitting out last season due to NCAA transfer rules. Plus, the Gators inked one of the nation’s top prospects in McDonald’s All-American Brad Beal.
“There’s going to be a lot of great guards here next year,” said Wilbekin, who will join Young at the USA Basketball camp.
Wilbekin, who turned 18 days after the loss to Butler, said he has been working on his shooting and ball handling in the offseason, and added that he thought too much was made of his age last season.
“I knew what I could do inside, but I just felt like I had to go out there and prove it to everybody else,” Wilbekin said.
Now, the sophomore will be fighting for playing time in an extremely crowded backcourt likely to utilize a lot of three-guard, and potentially even some four-guard, lineups.
“With this team, we have so many guards we’re possibly going to have one of the top backcourts in the league or in the country,” Young said.
How coach Billy Donovan decides to use that talent remains to be seen, but one thing is certain, and Young knows it as well as anybody else.
“It’s going to be completely different from the team last year,” he said. “I’ll tell you that.”
