Whenever Billy Donovan hears a dead-ball whistle, he expects at least one of his players to come alive and reign in the rest of his teammates.
There doesn’t need to be any high-fives in the huddle or chest bumps when a timeout is called. Yelling and screaming aren’t necessarily the prerequisites Donovan is looking for in a vocal leader.
Instead, a simple fire and passion for playing are needed. Two important characteristics that have been sorely lacking from the Gators during their two-game slide in Southeastern Conference play, featuring a 20-point drubbing on national TV and a home loss to a 13-12 team.
Ahead of No. 14 Florida’s (19-6, 7-3 SEC) road trip to Alabama (16-8, 5-5 SEC) tonight at 7, Donovan said he can’t be the sole voice of inspiration for the Gators.
Veteran guards Kenny Boynton and Erving Walker — UF’s lone senior — will need to carry some of the load and lead by more than just example, even if it’s not in their nature.
“Erving is not a very, very vocal, demonstrative kind of player, and I’m probably putting him in situations that are making him uncomfortable,” Donovan said. “But I think our team needs to see more fire, more energy, more passion out of him. That would help us.”
While Donovan was pleased with the progress Boynton made in UF’s five-point loss to Tennessee last Saturday, getting more from Florida’s soft-spoken point guard has proven difficult.
In his last two games, the 5-foot-8 Walker has four turnovers to just three assists, bumping him to second in the overall SEC assist standings. During Florida’s seven-game win streak — when Walker still led in the category — he was averaging 5.3 assists and 1.6 turnovers per outing.
Donovan said a big reason for the inconsistency lately at the point has been the lack of a second ball handler for Walker to rely on.
Last season, the Gators leaned heavily on Chandler Parsons, the SEC’s Player of the Year, to refocus the team when Walker lost control.
“Chandler Parsons was a great outlet for Erving Walker because when Erving got into maybe taking some quick, ill-advised shots, over-penetrating, (we could) put it in Chandler’s hands and kind of facilitate offense through him a little bit and get Erv off the ball,” Donovan said.
Though Florida’s replacement for the 6-foot-9 Parsons this season, freshman Brad Beal, can at times match the former Gator’s rebounding numbers, Donovan said he isn’t willing to place even more responsibility on the first-year guard’s shoulders by asking him to run the offense.
Beal leads Florida with 54 turnovers — two more than Walker. Against Tennessee, Beal had three giveaways.
“We didn’t compete at all really,” Beal said. “We weren’t really focused. We weren’t getting any offense at all. We were just jacking up shots. Our mentality throughout the whole game — we just weren’t focused at all.”
Beal blamed much of the team’s struggles after the loss on poor practices. Boynton echoed that sentiment and said it only takes a single player to throw Florida off its rhythm on both sides of the ball.
“If one person is having a bad game, then he might be down for some reason, and it’s messing us up defensively, not rotating or something,” Boynton said.
“So I think one person having a bad game or something like that, I think he just needs to put that behind his head and focus on the team.”
Contact John Boothe at jboothe@alligator.org.
Florida guard Erving Walker has four turnovers to just three assists in the Gators’ last two games. UF lost both games.
