GREG: Despite what the recent win-loss record suggests, Florida is entering the NCAA Tournament on a high note.
To simply say that the Gators have lost six of their last 10 games vastly understates all that’s happened during the past five weeks.
UF suffered its worst loss of the season Feb. 7 at Kentucky, played its best game of the year Feb. 18 against Arkansas, lost Will Yeguete for the season Feb. 21 and has been working to establish continuity since.
Those efforts culminated in Saturday’s 74-71 loss to Kentucky, a game in which UF scored 1.169 points per possession. It was the best offensive performance anyone has had against UK this year, according to KenPom.com, and helped UF stand toe-to-toe with No. 1.
Billy Donovan said his team has been playing well and that the Gators have gotten comfortable working without Yeguete, so why shouldn’t expectations follow suit?
This was a top-10 group in the preseason and is playing perhaps its best basketball of the year. Anything short of the Final Four should be a disappointment.
MATT: Sure, Florida is riding high after nearly dethroning college basketball royalty, but that doesn’t mean that people should expect these Gators to reach just the program’s fifth Final Four in its history.
The injury to Florida’s first and best reserve was big, but not as much as some have made it out to be. When Yeguete went down, the team most definitely lost a key piece, but it also gained a crutch — and that’s not a pun on the Frenchman’s foot injury. Most are actually using the injury to downplay the downward spiral of the season.
The truth is this team was never as good on the court as it was on paper back in November, and that’s not going to change before Friday.
Patric Young isn’t going to start magically coming up with rebounds he has been missing all season. Erving Walker isn’t going to stop making silly decisions in crucial moments. Erik Murphy isn’t putting on 20 pounds of muscle and a lion’s share of courage.
This team is what it is — a free-wheeling, deep-shooting, no-defense-playing enigma that is fun to watch but doesn’t have the backbone to go all the way.
GREG: Listen, I’m as pessimistic about Florida’s Final Four chances as anybody.
Teams that shoot as many threes as UF does haven’t usually made deep runs, and I don’t think this year will be any different. But the rest of the college basketball world — fans and analysts alike — seem to be willing to look past that, and those people should at the very least expect the Elite Eight.
Brad Beal, Kenny Boynton and Murphy have all exceeded preseason expectations, with Young and Walker taking a step up from 2010-11 as well. And they have a coach who knows what it takes to win it all.
With that talent playing near its best at the perfect time, why would you expect less than you did before the year?
MATT: To expect that level of success from this team is foolhardy.
This year’s Gators are a reincarnation of sorts of the 2007-08 team, which started 18-3 before losing seven of its last 10 games and ending up getting stood up for The Big Dance, and the only real difference is that this year’s team actually made the tournament.
Both teams had unquestionable talent — Marreese Speights and Chandler Parsons are both playing in the NBA, like Young and Beal will, and Nick Calathes and Kenny Boynton are very similar players. But both teams had severe questions about maturity, questions about toughness and questions about whether they were capable of beating quality opponents.
Donovan even made this comparison a couple of weeks ago, saying this team needed to make a turnaround to have a chance at fulfilling the expectations we’re dedicating this edition of The Rally to discussing. Instead, inside the locker room after a game at the SEC Tournament last week, Young was still talking about the team trying to grow up.
GREG: If Saturday’s performance in front of 20,000 Kentucky fans didn’t show you toughness and maturity, I don’t know what will.
Despite having to shuffle roles and lineups to compensate for Yeguete’s absence, the Gators have figured it out and are back in top form. That’s the type of resiliency the 2007-08 team was missing.
The only time a loss should be expected now is when the opponent is legitimately more talented than Florida. For a team with two first-round draft picks and an experienced backcourt, that shouldn’t be any time soon.
MATT: I see what you did there, but again, you’re just wrong.
Like one astute Kentucky writer pointed out to Young following Saturday’s loss, Florida didn’t actually win the game. Why should I be excited about a loss? Why should the fans believe the Gators will finally win a game against a good team in the tournament when they haven’t proven capable of that all season?
Just like the 2007-08 team, which lost at the end of the regular season to that year’s SEC powerhouse and No. 2 seed Tennessee (31-5, No. 5 final ranking) by the same three-point margin, this year’s team will be remembered more for what could have been than what it accomplished when it mattered most.
Contact Greg Luca at gluca@alligator.org and Matt Watts at mwatts@alligator.org.
