The grueling portion of Florida’s early season schedule has taken its toll.
Coming off a stretch of eight games in 19 days, UF coach Billy Donovan said Monday that guard Ray Shipman and center Kenny Kadji suffered injuries that could keep them out of Thursday’s game against Syracuse in Tampa.
Kadji is dealing with a lower back problem, while Shipman has been diagnosed with a mid-foot sprain.
“We’re hoping that’s all it is,” Donovan said of Shipman’s injury. “Having basically 10 guys, we’re down to eight right now. How do you manage to be productive in practice and those kinds of things?”
The No. 10 Gators (8-0) have nearly a week off between their last game Friday at Jacksonville and the upcoming top-10 showdown with the No. 7 Orange (8-0), but the potential loss of Shipman could be particularly devastating given Florida’s lack of depth in the backcourt.
Kadji did not play for the first time all season against Jacksonville, and he has seemingly been replaced as the backup center by freshman Erik Murphy.
After the Gators’ win over the Dolphins, Donovan said his players were finally showing signs of fatigue, and that has made it hard to get a feel for exactly where his team stands at this point of the season.
“I still don’t have a great pulse on our team because there is a factor of a lack of depth in our backcourt and how emotionally and mentally drained our team was playing eight games in 19 days,” Donovan said.
In addition to recovering from the physical and emotional strain caused by the recent run of games, Donovan hopes his team can use the time off to improve some of the sloppy play it occasionally showed against the Dolphins. UF abandoned the tough defensive identity it had built through the season’s opening games against JU, and Donovan said part of that could be attributed to the team’s fatigue and lack of practice time.
“We have sorely missed out on practice, and I have seen the last week to 10 days, a lot of slippage in where we were at defensively to start the season,” Donovan said. “That’s always a concern when you’re creating those habits, those habits start slipping, now you’re trying to deal with having to balance practice time, scouting, short period of time in between, injuries, guys being knocked up here a little bit.”
Sophomore point guard Erving Walker, who is averaging more than 31 minutes per game so far this season, said the much-needed break will give the Gators time to get their legs back.
“The break is good. We get a chance to rest,” Walker said. “Without conditioning, it’s really hard to compete to the best of our abilities, so the conditioning’s really helping us.”
Donovan said the team will spend some of its time off working on improving its rebounding, as Florida is only grabbing 3.5 more boards per game than its opponents so far this season — another area in which Donovan said his team has gotten progressively worse the more it played.
“We’ve got to try to find a way to improve and not lose out on some of the progress that we had made in a positive direction,” Donovan said.
