NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Friday’s game between Florida and Kentucky was one of dueling legacies — yes, average teams leave legacies too.
And while I fully expect the ‘Cats to be cutting down nets three Mondays from now, this year’s Florida team has a mark left on college basketball just like its big bad blue big brothers do.
I’m just not quite sure what it is.
The easy thing to do is to see the colossal failure it is to go from the fringe of a national championship to the fringe of the National Invitational Tournament. I’m not exactly taking a bold stance by saying that the talent on this team should have gelled enough to at least have this team in the tournament, and not sweating out the NIT bubble late Sunday night.
The legacy of 40-0 is even easier to decipher. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell you if Kentucky can win out it will go down as one of the greatest teams to ever play, but this Florida team won’t have its true impact felt until years down the road, and that depends on other players as much as it does the ones that laced it up to fall to UK for a third time this year and the second time in six days.
Will this season be a turning point for Chris Walker personally? The sophomore phenom whose legend grew the more he didn’t play last season can barely stay on the court for more than 15 minutes.
Walker could spurn Florida for greener pastures and a greener wallet and go to the NBA, and I wouldn’t blame him. His potential will entice some enterprising general manager to take a chance on him in June’s draft.
Or he could return to school and continue to grow under Billy Donovan’s tutelage, the long play, if he wants to work bad enough.
Dorian Finney-Smith has a similar choice to make. With his ceiling as a college player more or less reached, he too could leave for the association.
Both were undecided after Friday’s game. Finney-Smith says he isn’t thinking about leaving right now, just trying to get better. Walker is “weighing my options.”
Next season Florida will bring four-star recruits KeVaughn Allen and Noah Dickerson into the fold along with three-stars Kevarrius Hayes and Keith Stone.
Will those who return next season push them to be better, with the knowledge of just how far south things can get if complacency sets in? Will big man John Egbunu give the Gators the boost they so sorely lacked inside? Can Brandone Francis stay on the right side of an optimal grade point average long enough to contribute?
Billy Donovan talked so much about this team not knowing how to win, and now that the players have experienced not doing so, I wonder what it will do for them.
That’s the legacy of this team is the staying power of feeling like they’ve failed to measure up to the standards of what Donovan has built in Gainesville, dare I say it, the legacy started by Williams, Miller, Nelson, Dupay and Bonner. Continued by Walsh, Roberson and Lee. Elevated by Noah, Horford, Green and Humphrey.
Maintained by Young, Wilbekin, Yeguete and Prather.
If laurels are rested on again and failure doesn’t motivate than the experience of this season means nothing. Billy Donovan wasted his time trying to get this team ready to play night in and night out and talent that was seen at one time as very promising will have been flushed down the drain.
Follow Richard Johnson on Twitter @RagjUF
Florida head coach Billy Donovan speaks with Florida guard Chris Chiozza (11) during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game in the quarter final round of the Southeastern Conference tournament against the Kentucky, Friday, March 13, 2015, in Nashville, Tenn.
