When February rolls around, Will Yeguete isn’t feeling the love.
Last year on Feb. 21, Yeguete limped off the court with 11:11 left against Auburn. The Gators went on to beat the Tigers 63-47, but the good news ended there.
Yeguete missed the final nine games of the 2011-12 season due to a broken left foot.
The junior forward’s luck hasn’t improved much this year.
Yeguete has been battling tendinitis in his right knee since Florida’s 77-44 win against Georgia on Jan. 9.
He spent the next seven games playing through the injury, but during Tuesday’s 80-69 loss against Arkansas, the pain became too much. Yeguete came off the bench with 16:44 left in the first half and exited the game for good 52 seconds later.
On Thursday, coach Billy Donovan announced that Yeguete will undergo arthroscopic surgery today to clean out bone chips in his right knee. The surgery will sideline Yeguete for 4-6 weeks.
“He’s had some significant swelling over the last couple of weeks,” Donovan said.
“He’s got some floating chips and cartilage in there which we knew beforehand. … But I think because those chips are floating around, they probably got into different parts of his knee.”
Losing Yeguete hurts. No doubt.
Yeguete is second on the team behind center Patric Young in rebounding with 6.3 per game despite averaging 5 fewer minutes per contest.
Yeguete is also constantly receiving praise from Donovan as Florida’s first player off the bench.
“It’s so hard to find players that are really interested in doing all the dirty work, things that don’t necessarily show up in a stat sheet, and you don’t get a lot of attention for them,” Donovan said on Jan. 14.
“He’s a great defender. He’s a really good pick-and-roll defender. He’s really, really good at rebounding the basketball. He’s a great high-deflection guy. I tell him all the time how much … I appreciate a guy like him, because the last thing I want him to feel is unappreciated.”
Still, UF doesn’t have to worry about Yeguete sitting out the rest of the regular season.
Yes, the Gators will lose more games now. Hell, they lost four of the next five after Yeguete suffered the fracture in his foot last year. They had Cody Larson and a healthy Casey Prather then, too.
But, that doesn’t matter.
Teams don’t get remembered for how many wins they have in the regular season. They get remembered for postseason runs and winning national titles.
Nobody remembers that the Gators finished 35-5 in 2006-07 or that they were 33-6 in 2005-06. The only thing people remember is if they won it all.
Yeguete’s knee will be reevaluated before the Southeastern Conference Tournament begins on March 13. Barring any setbacks, he should be good to go for the postseason.
If Yeguete can’t return for the SEC Tournament, Florida will still be fine.
With a weak conference, the Gators should take the title without Yeguete. Even if they don’t win the SEC, all is not lost.
Kentucky did just fine despite losing the SEC tourney final to Vanderbilt last year.
In 2012, a worse Florida team made it to the Elite Eight without Yeguete.
As long as Yeguete returns to the court in time for the NCAA Tournament, the No. 2 Gators still have a shot at their third national title.
UF needs Yeguete, just not right now.
Contact Katie Agostin at kagostin@alligator.org.
