All season, Billy Donovan has preached the virtues of keeping things in perspective.
After starting off the Southeastern Conference season on a two-game losing streak, Donovan is looking to keep his team grounded during its three-game winning streak, capped off by Chandler Parsons’ buzzer-beater Saturday.
The last few years, the Gators have struggled after finding success. Even this season, they dropped three consecutive games — two of which came to unranked Richmond and South Alabama — after climbing into the top 10 after an 8-0 start.
Florida (14-5, 3-2 SEC) will look to avoid a similar letdown against Georgia (9-8, 1-3 SEC) tonight at 7 in the O’Connell Center.
“The one thing I love about competition is that there are absolutely no prejudices involved,” Donovan said. “The minute the ball goes up, we don’t start the game against Georgia with a couple extra points because Chandler made that three. We don’t start the game against LSU (on Jan. 16) down by five because we lost two games before that.”
Although Georgia has struggled throughout the year, dropping games to the likes of Wofford early in the season, the Bulldogs caught the Gators’ attention last weekend by upsetting No. 14 Tennessee 78-63 on Saturday.
“It’s huge, especially when you see what they just did to Tennessee,” Parsons said. “They’re capable of beating anybody. In this league, anything can happen any night. Definitely here, Wednesday night, at our place, we’ve got to protect our home court.”
From the way the Gators spoke about Wednesday’s game, they are following Donovan’s advice about keeping things in perspective.
But they’ve been down this road before. While Donovan cautioned his team earlier this season about staying humble and his players said all the right things, it didn’t show on the court.
So, what makes this time around any different? It depends on who’s answering that question, but Parsons and guards Kenny Boynton and Erving Walker all mentioned one word: focus.
Boynton noted the team’s focus in the late-game situations it faced at Arkansas and against South Carolina last week. That made the Gators more prepared to handle their recent success.
Walker pointed to UF’s focus on the rest of the season, instead of its past accomplishments, as reason to believe the team can build on what it has done the last few weeks.
“We just beat three good teams, but there’s a long way to go — 11 more conference games and Xavier,” Walker said. “We’re just getting into the thick of it.”
Parsons said the team’s focus in practice has been better than it was in the past. Donovan’s decision to implement a break in practices has paid dividends for Florida coming out after halftime lately.
The Gators’ rebounding has also improved. Parsons and junior power forward Alex Tyus have combined for 55 total rebounds over the last three games, a span where the Gators have outrebounded their opponents en route to three-straight SEC wins.
“After the 0-2 start, coach wrote on the board that we weren’t doing the physical plays like getting loose balls, stepping up and taking charges, getting rebounds,” Parsons said. “Me and Alex are just two guys who have been through it before, have been outrebounded our whole career. We just wanted to step it up in that category to help our team.”
