After injuring his hand in the first three minutes of No. 7 Florida’s 68-45 season-opener win over William & Mary on Friday, coach Billy Donovan confirmed Sunday that starting redshirt junior forward Dorian Finney-Smith has hairline fractures in his middle and index fingers of his left hand.
Donovan said Finney-Smith is cleared to play when Florida (1-0) plays Miami (1-0) tonight at 7. Finney-Smith is still listed as a projected starter, but Donovan is not expecting much from him tonight because he will be wearing a brace.
Finney-Smith was in significant pain, but he played through the injury on Friday to score a game-high-tying 15 points.
"We were all shocked," point guard Kasey Hill said, "but he was playing through it so, I mean we really didn’t think it will be that bad because he kept playing through it, but afterwards we were shocked."
But Finney-Smith’s injury isn’t the the only hit Florida is taking.
Redshirt sophomore guard Dillon Graham will transfer from the University of Florida after the fall semester and he will stop competing and practicing with the Gators immediately, Donovan said.
Graham played in the final three minutes of Florida’s victory against the Tribe on Friday. Donovan said Graham approached him last week and alluded to leaving the team.
"I spoke to him and I could sense in the middle of the week that this was something he was giving consideration," Donovan said. "He never said to me he wanted to leave. He just felt like emotionally he was not invested and couldn’t understand why and he wanted to figure that out."
On Saturday morning, Graham confirmed to Donovan that he would be leaving the team.
"The last few weeks I could see him a little bit unhappy," Donovan said.
"I think it got to the place like a lot of guys do where they start to grow and become a young man, is this really what I want, is this really what I want to do."
Nothing has been said as to where Graham will transfer.
"My guess is he’ll go somewhere and try to play," Donovan said. "Where that is I don’t even think he’s at that place right now."
Donovan broke the news to the team during Saturday’s practice.
"He (Donovan) just said he respected his decision, that it would make him happy and everybody else respected it too," Hill said. "He (Graham) hasn’t reached out to me, I don’t know about anybody else but I haven’t talked to him yet, but I’m sure he will."
With two players out and Chris Walker still finishing his three-game suspension, Florida’s matchup against Miami at home tonight just got a little tougher.
Miami returns only five players from last season while adding nine new names to this year’s roster. Three of Miami’s transfers are eligible to play this season: Sheldon McClellan of Texas, Angel Rodriguez of Kansas State and Joe Thomas of Niagara. All three are projected starts against Florida.
"Well they’re going to keep getting better, I think Jim’s (Larranaga) teams have always gotten better," Donovan said.
"But they’re probably a lot like us. We lost four starters and we’re kind of working on gelling and meshing and playing together. They had a whole new group of guys with McClellan sitting out and Rodriguez so they’ll figure out as well. Hopefully the game is a game for both teams that it’s going to move us both forward to becoming better."
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Dorian Finney-Smith dunks during Florida's win against William & Mary on Friday in the O'Connell Center
