Orange and Blue Hue » The Gator Boys are (desert noon) Hot!

The Gator Boys are (desert noon) Hot!

At the end of the regular season, it seemed like Florida couldn’t stop losing. Now, they can’t stop getting better. These were the “replacements” to the national champs? Are you kidding me?

But no matter how you slice it, the gang is headed to New York City to take on the UMass Minutemen. They went through something akin to, um, heck, and came out alive. There was no lack of hustle, no drop in intensity, and best of all, no black jerseys.

A few casual observations:

*In the second half, I saw a team that played beyond its years. They were passionate even when things weren’t going well, and that helped carry them.

*Chandler Parsons is starting to step up as a playmaker. The coaching staff has praised him as a rising prospect.

*Ex-Vols’ QB Eric Ainge’s uncle, Danny, was on television. Wait, didn’t he go to BYU?

And that’s not all. New York City has always been kind to UF for some reason. David Lee’s play has been a bright spot for the Knicks even in their bad season. Florida got its 2006 season off to a bang by winning in MSG. And of course, each of the Gators’ 3 Heisman winners accepted their trophies in the Big Apple. The signs are there.

Take that, Florida basketball critics!

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If you had told me beforehand that Parsons would score fifteen, including three of five on treys, I would have said ’sure, hoss - and I bet you have some great beach-front real estate in the Everglades you’re looking to unload too.’

Parsons is the one freshman on this team that has consistently gotten better during the season (Calathes was already a great one from day one). IF he puts on some weight in the offseason, he will be a major force next season.

Can you imagine he and Calathes on the same high school team. That wouldn’t even be fair.

We still lack a couple big men - Tyus ain’t the guy. He gets manhandled down there. Vargas and Kadji can’t get here fast enough!

Go Gators.

It was a fantastic game. Our highest quality win of the season in my view — over a very good Sun Devils team playing on their home court.

It was a thrilling night for Gator basketball.

What’s wrong with the black jerseys???? Those are bad-ass. I wish we’d wear ‘em more often.

They look great… unfortunately we lose every game we play in them.

I cant wait till we beat Ohio State in a championship game again. Although, it would be quite ironic its the NIT.

I guess what really surprised me with Parson’s performance was the three-point shooting. His numbers, both in conventional and advanced stats, are very solid, but of the six guys who have shot a significant number of treys, he and Werner have the lowest percentages by a fair amount. So of course they hit five of eight combined tonight, while Lucas misses both. Sure, small sample size and all - but perhaps Parsons is less inaccurate and more a streaky outside shooter like Brewer. You never knew which Corey was going to show up…

I’d take a Brewer comparison anyday. Parsons is athletic in his own right, but nowhere near Brewer. He was on another planet.

I think Parsons’ comfort level when on the floor has skyrocketed over the past 10 or so games. He could take a giant leap forward form his freshman year to sophomore year ala Noah, Horford, Speights, etc, etc.

I disagree. Both small forwards are athletic, but Parsons is actually *stockier* than Brewer is. (He weighs in at 200 lbs., Brewer at 185)

NBA draft scouts were worried about Brewer’s long but thin frame. If Parsons added 15-20 pounds of muscle over the offseason, he could be even more dangerous, to say nothing of competing with Dan Werner for the spot.

The way you guys are coming on, I’d say you will definitely be a top seed in next year’s NIT.

And judging by UK’s performance, so will they.

The way UK went out, I’d say you will definitely be a top bubble team for next year’s NIT…

yeah - the preseason NIT.

Glad you guys have some basketball to watch in late March.

Regardless of what my brethren wrote above, I would like to congratulate Florida on their current run. Winning at Arizona St. is impressive.

Once again, congratulations and good luck the rest of the way.

Thanks Ken. You’re a class act and represent Kentucky well.

An interesting tidbit from Pomeroy’s site - six of the final eight teams in the NIT were in the youngest third of D-I this year, with four in the youngest tenth.

The one really striking outlier? UMass, at 56th. (And the youngest? Why, UF of course, at 340… of 341.) UMass is also, by an even greater margin, the most consistent of the eight (ASU just beat us to the bottom there.)

Like Arizona State, or any other team with an ounce of pride, really cares about winning in the NIT.

Remember UK’s NIT titles…

Yeah, like you should have pride in your program after a first-round loss to Marquette.

I mean, come on! They didn’t even have Dwayne Wade this time!

But dear Vince, when Kentucky played in the NIT, they chose to. At the time, it was THE tournament, in fact, you could play in both. I think Florida players are showing they have talent, even though fans have said all year long they were too young I never bought it. They had more than enough talent ot at least make the tourney. The question will be can they do it over an entire season. And for the record, I’d take a first round loss in the NCAA’s over a NIT title any day of the week.

I’m glad that’s your view Daniel, because I see alot of first round losses in the tourney in UK’s future.

I think the reason y’all are so bitter is that there are 2 schools in the Sweet 16 from the great Commonwealth of Kentucky and neither of them hails from Lexington. How does it feel to be the third best team in your state??!?!?!

I agree with Vince up above on Parsons’ future next season if he adds 15-20 lbs, except the point that he would compete with Werner for that spot - he would fly by Werner for that spot and would become one of the premier forwards in the conference.

Winning the NIT may only allow you to claim to be the 66th best team, but a first round NCAA loss only allows you to say you were one of the best 65 in the nation. There really isn’t much difference there except one comes with a trip to NYC and a trophy.

Let’s rephrase it this way - I would MUCH rather be an NIT finalist with NO seniors than a first round NCAA loser led by 2 seniors.

Let’s all try to focus on the Gators from this point and just ignore info about other teams who have long since packed up their sneakers for the season!!!

I’m still not getting any good excuses for losing to Marquette. There wasn’t any help besides Bradley and Crawford.

Need proof that quality is important in NCAA tourney trips? Ask Duke.

Marquette was a better team than us, simply put. A top 25 school that should have beat Stanford. We still played them within a possesion until it was foul time. I think Bradley played with great heart this year but we’ll be better with a true point. losing Crawford will hurt, but I think a healthy Jody Meeks will take care of that.
Just like you guys getting on UK all year for losing to San Diego. Then they beat Uconn and nearly Western to go to the sweet 16. Didn’t see too many retractions then.
I equate Florida’s NIT run to their preseason schedule. For the most part, beating up on a bunch of nobodies and then believing that will lead to great things. If you can shoot fish in a bucket, does that make you a great hunter? To say we have nothing coming back is just pretty stupid.

Don’t give me that crap, Daniel. ASU, in particular, was not a “nobody” - and only an idiot (or you, but perhaps I repeat myself) would try to claim that they didn’t care.

You’d have to be an idiot to come on a Gator blog by yourself and talk smack when your team was beaten out by Marquette in the first round in the only sport your university is halfway decent at. Let is go, you sucked this year. The Gators also sucked this year, but at least we’re still playing…for a title. You should be using this extra time to get ahead on your praying for just a 2-score loss in football to UF.

What a douche…

Touched on a soft spot did I? I know the truth hurts, hey, maybe the committee will let you guys use one of these big NIT wins for your SOS next year, since it will probably be down in the 100s again. Arizona State, decent team, didn’t looked much like to me that they cared. What kind of pregame speech do you think the coach gave? Come on guys, you will show them we belong in the NIT…BTW, it looks like Florida is back to being decent at only one sport to. Last two years were just a phase, we all know it. Billy D just ain’t got it, he learned what he could at UK but not enough. Speaking of two touchdown losses, you mean like what Michigan and Georgia did to you guys last year?

And if Florida just happened to win a third championship in basketball by the end of the decade anyway?

What’s done is done (meaning UK’s latest disappointing basketball season) - we’re talking about the current - Gators in NYC.

I just hope that your history makes you a “quality” opponent next season, because I am predicting 2 wins right there.

You are right about Coach-D, what a disappointment only winning 24+ games with no returning starters. You can keep talking if you want - all we hear is mumbling with all those marbles in your mouth!

By the way, if you consider 41-35 (Michigan game) a “two touchdwon loss” then no wonder your views of sports are so out of whack…

You can keep criticizing the Gators during rebuilding years, but it sounds awfully silly. Let’s see how we do in 2008 in football and basketball - then we’ll talk.

With the way football and basketball will play next season, I think they’ll have the spirit of a certain gang of baseball-playing Native American warriors up in Georgia.

A third championship, not including the NIT, would provide affirmation. But if I’m supposed to believe smurf Lucas, balding Calathes and Benny Parsons Jr. are going to sweep away the SEC next year, sorry, but I seriously doubt it. I think a tougher, more physical and much more discliplined UK team could sweep next year’s series.

It’s a neverending discussion, really… Daniel will pick on us for fielding a team which was NIT-bound this year, and fair enough — we did, and Kentucky, despite their historic losses this season and almost all of their production coming from their two outgoing seniors, did make the tournament.

Good for them. They earned it. Not much we can say about that.

What we CAN talk about is the fact that Kentucky struggled in what shouldn’t have been a rebuilding year. Look, getting a new coach in basketball isn’t like it is in football — a good coach can take a good team and be effective right away.

Instead, Billy Gillispie crashed and burned in the preseason, then led his team on a remarkable SEC run — but it so happened that the SEC is about as bad as it’s ever been in 2008, and while Kentucky’s conference record was pretty good, they only made the NCAAs by the skin of their teeth. Hell, it was an 11-seed for them. Kentucky inched by in several games against very average teams and could easily have lost several additional games this year, just as Florida could have won several more.

And then, they were promptly bounced out of the tournament, just as everyone expected.

What can they take from that, vs. what Florida takes from their N.I.T. run?

Well, they can say they didn’t break their current NCAA appearance streak.

Other than that, not much.

Would any Gator fan have traded the NIT for the NCAAs? Of course, probably to a man, we would. For pride’s sake. As fans, yes, we would probably take it. But our team might have gotten a hell of a lot more out of this tournament than we ever expected. Let there be no doubt about it, beating Arizona State on their home court was a damn good win, Florida’s best of the season, and it’s highly unlikely Kentucky could have managed such a feat. Kentucky is too one-dimensional offensively to do that.

And you look at what Kentucky has coming back and you wonder how they’re going to make the tourney again next year. Yes, P-Pat is a good player, Jodie Meeks has the potential to be very good also. Derrick Jasper is good enough to play in the SEC, but not quite at the level of the first two. The rest of them? Marginal at best, especially players like Coury, Porter, and Harris. Stevenson stepped it up late and maybe he’ll be better, but he’s damn thin to play against the best bigs in the SEC.

The bottom line: Florida’s getting a lot more out of the N.I.T. than Kentucky got out of its first-round bounce from the NCAAs.

From a time perspective, Florida is playing in a lower-quality tournament, but they’re getting experience in the postseason that will manifest itself later.

UK made the Big Dance, but that’s it. They didn’t make it past the first weekend.

Meanwhile, elaborating on what Ski said, Florida’s on the brink of a 25-win season. With this team, that’s purty darn impressive.

I agree with most of that, except that this year was not a rebuilding year. If Billy G does not come and bring Patterson with him what would UK have had? SMith wouldn’t have won ten games with this year’s team. Yes, we had two seniors. One of which basically sucked until this year, the other, marginal at best. We had no juniors contributing, our two best sophomores, Jody Meeks and Derrick Jasper, out most of the year due to injuries. Do you think Billy D would have got that team to the tourney? No way.
Next year, we have Liggins coming in, who is a true point, 6′5 and physical. We have a juco player coming in who is also long, lanky and physical and known for his defense. He chose us over Memphis. Then we have Mr. Kentucky Darius Miller from Chris Lofton’s school of Mason County coming in. The guy is a little rough around the edges, but he can fill it up and is very athletic. Plus, Scotty Hopson is chomping at the bit to come to UK. He’s a top ten recruit in the nation. If Billy G doesn’t take him, then he will probably take another JUCO, a guy who signed with OK ST originally and is a bonified scorer. Meeks, Jasper and Patterson can all play in the league. Florida has no answer for Patterson, nor meeks, who is too quick for Calathes. Stevenson will be a good, complimentary big inside and Jasper will fill in with rebounds and great defense on the wing. Throw in Liggins, who could be a real jewel, and our lineup could be the best defensive one in the nation. Then, off the bench we’d have guys who got great experience this year like Porter, Harris and even Coury to go along with Miller and at least two other newcomers. If Hopson, comes, he will likely start. We beat UT this year, Vandy this year, Florida this year, with out much, within two years, we’ll be back in the final four and you guys know it. Florida? I don’t know, talent has never been a question as Billy D has had top recruits every year he has been in Florida. But I don’t think Billy D understands the neccesity for great defense, and many of his teams have been total flops. Maybe not next year, we’ll see.

You sure do talk a great game of hoops, Dan.

But Florida is bringing in some athletes as well.

Also, the ‘08 Gators will have some positive traits that the ‘08 Wildcats won’t.

1: Everybody is coming back. Everybody. The guys already know each other very well, while you guys are losing two senior leaders in Crawford and Bradley. Meanwhile, Nick Calathes has stepped up as a leader both on and off the floor. The ‘Cats will be clawing and scratching to find that player. Maybe it’s Patterson, but he wasn’t there for the postseason.

2: Experience from the NIT. It’s a lower-quality tournament, but the same principles apply as in the Big Dance. These guys will have experienced one season of going deep into a bracket and will have a fairly good idea of what to expect. The ‘Cats have not had a lot of success in the big Dance as of late, with a first-round exit this year and a second-round exit last year. Not to mention, they haven’t been to a Final Four since Tubby was coach.

3: Swagger. Florida could be coming off an NIT championship hungry and looking for more. UK could come out only looking to have a better season than last year and make the Sweet 16.

These are things tradition and highly-rated recruits don’t always provide. It’s like adding apples and oranges.

Note: Yeah, from a quality standpoint, we’re competing to be #66. But is there really that much of a difference between #66 and #60, say? Besides, Big Dance invitees are fragile. Cornell got in (Ivy League champ), while Arizona State got snubbed. But is Cornell better than ASU? I think even you can see that it’s not.

I wouldn’t take that bet, Vince. But I would like to see Daniel go on the ASU boards and tell them that they shouldn’t mind losing in the NIT because it’s a tournament of nobodies and their team didn’t care if it won.

Give me the site and I will, as long as you promise the cyber gangsters won’t get me…ask yourselves a question and answer it truthfully, how many NIT champs can you name over the past five years? You probably spent some time looking that up recently, but before that, you probably knew few. That’s because most of the time, NIT champs don’t exactly light it up the next year. WV is having a good year, but of course, they have a new coach to.

http://arizonastate.rivals.com/

is a good one. They have message boards over there.

You might also get something on:

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/asu/

I wouldn’t guarantee you that the cyber gangsters would play “keep away”

They are called the Sun Devils for a reason.

PS: Why not have some fun with Barry Bonds?

I can name West Virginia, South Carolina, and South Carolina as the three past NIT champs.

Hopefully this will give you a good bone since you didn’t take the bait with Tim Tebow.

www.tebowzone.com is now requiring registration. My work there is done.

Arizonastate.scout.com, perhaps - I saw quite a few Gators posting congrats there after the game, so it isn’t restricted to ASU fans. I can’t guarantee what they will or will not do to you, however. Hehe.

Now, as to the question of a knock-on effect from the NIT. Of the 32 teams that reached the semis of the NIT between 2000 and 2007, in the following season :
- 10 missed the post-season
- 7 returned to the NIT, including two that won it
- 15 went to the NCAAs, with most making it to at least the second round, and Syracuse winning the national championship in 2003

You are forgetting that Liggins is no Calathes. Freshmen do not come in and run the point effectively in college. It take time to learn a game that is 3 times as fast as the high school games they are used to. Calathes is the rare exception. Imagine what he will do next season - he will break the SEC career assist record…..

I think deep down, you know that what this year’s Gator team sorely lacks is size and depth. We lost 6 guys (4 of them 6-8 or better) - our starting 5 and the first off the bench. That help is coming next season in Kadji and Vargas.

I do not know if a national championship is a realistic goal next season, but I do believe an SEC championship is a possibility. If we finsihed 8-8 this season, return 100% of the team and are adding new top players, you have to acknowledge that.

I also believe that the biggest competition will come from UT, not UK.

Finally, you are out of your mind and know nothing about basketball if you think Tubby wouldn’t win 10 games anywhere with any lineup. Look what he did at UGA ! He went to Minnesota this season and inherited an awful team that won 9 games last season and STILL won 20 games. You can make an argument about his recruiting, but not his coaching.

Tubby, nice guy, bad coach. Who exactly did Minn. beat? Michigan, give me a break. Talk about losing players, imagine what UK would have done this year with Rando and Morris, and our regular players healthy? You hear us belly aching? Without a defender like Brewer, Florida will be what they always have been again next year. Impressive when they make the shots, horrible when they don’t because their defense won’t keep them in games.

I’ll give you Rondo and Morris, we’ll take the ’04s as seniors and spot you 20. I’ll even throw in Nazi Mohammed and Gimel Martinez because I’m a sport.

UF had won 3 consecutive SEC tourneys - the first was when Brewer was a freshman and didn’t play. I guess somehow he shut down the opponents while sitting on the bench?

Tubby took TULSA to the Sweet 16 in back to back years, then took UGA to the Sweet 16 the next year. That’s 2 bad programs in the Sweet 16.

“Nice guy, bad coach?” You are an idiot.
These are facts:

Over his 17 seasons as a head coach, Smith has had 15 twenty-win seasons, making the NCAA Tournament each of those years. In 2005, he joined Roy Williams, Nolan Richardson, Denny Crum and Jim Boeheim as the only head coaches to win 365 games in 15 seasons or less. Entering the 2007 season, Smith’s career record was 387-145 and his .733 winning percentage was eighth among active coaches

Smith led Kentucky to one National Championship in 1998, a perfect 16-0 regular season conference record in 2003, five SEC regular season championships (1998, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005) and five SEC Tournament titles (1998, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004), with six Sweet Sixteen finishes and four Elite Eight finishes (1998, 1999, 2003, 2005) in his nine seasons. He totaled 100 wins quicker than any other Wildcat coach except Hall of Famer Adolph Rupp, reaching the plateau in 130 games.

It is funny that his performance was “not good enough” for UK fans, as he will be known for a long long long time as “the last coach to win a national title at UK”

What a nice guy.

Oh we know, we’ve seen all the facts, and we know SEC schools loved Smith to, because under Smith we didn’t make a final four after 98, with a Pitino recruited squad that came from behind every game of the tourney that year, Rupp became a place anyone could beat us at, Smith’s style made the players hate him, especially Rondo and Crawford, he had teams with tremendous talent that couldn’t do much of anything in the tourney. It was a slow decline, but still a decline. The past three recruiting classes outside of Meeks and Jasper pretty much proved that. Tubby took over a team that had just played in two straight nat’l titles and was senior led. After those seniors left, he was never able to duplicate that success. Kentucky isn’t Florida, we expect to be in the final four at least every five years. If Billy G doesn’t get us there in five years, same thing. Kentucky is college basketball, at least for this side of the country. Doesn’t matter how many titles or games Florida wins, you’ll never have the devotion or attendance we do, even in a year when we are down. Because Kentucky fans know basketball, and we know what success is. Florida fans, for the most part, are bandwagon in basketball. The top high school players always wanted to go to Kentucky, Smith just couldn’t scout out talent. Chris Lofton and your Corey Brewer both wanted to go to UK. Tubby will be good for Minnesota. He’ll probably get them in the tourney a couple of times a decade and that will be all those fans want. We want more

To be honest, I don’t totally disagree with Daniel here, with regards to Tubby. Tubby really did seem to be in a decline and his stats were padded heavily by things that happen 5-10 years before his final year at UK.

As for Daniel’s remarks about Florida, well… he sort of has to say that, doesn’t he? His team is our rival. The amount of hate rises commensurate with status. Despite a down year this season, UF is now an elite basketball program and that spells really bad news for Kentucky. Of course Daniel will try to convince us that it’s all downhill from here. :)

It’s all downhill from here guys and gals…you’re getting sleepy…very sleepy…you’re starting to confuse Dimitri Hill with Joakim Noah…rest now…sleepy…

You’re getting very bitter…bitter…you have to wait for a full year before your college gets noticed for a sport (even though they no longer excel at it)…oh so bitter…

Hey now buddy, I believe our baseball team is predicted to win the SEC this year. not to mention our defending nat’l champion cheerleaders. And when Curtis Pulley shows up Teeball in the Swamp this year…we’ll see who’s got the gator grin then. By the way, don’t you have to get bitter before you can get very bitter?

Oh dear…CHEERLEADERS!

Tubby won SEC championships (either regular season or tourney) in 2001, 2003, 2004 & 2005. UK finished 16-0 in 2003 - with all his own recruits that hated his system I suppose. He also led UK to the Elite 8 in 2003 & 2005. Where is the great steep decline you are talking about?!!?!

Face it - the problem wasn’t Tubby - the problem is that UK fans still think it is 1945 and UK will be int thw Final Four every other year. Sorry my friend, but those days are over. The coaching in the SEC over the past several years has gotten remarkedly better. It will be a war evey year just to win the conference now.

If you expect to go the final four every 5 years, you are going to be a very bitter man for the rest of your life I’m afraid. If you think Billy-G is going to out-coach Tubby, you need to think again.

If the Gators were to lose Billy-D, there is no coach I would rather have.

Oh yeah, I forgot. UK is a top baseball program - but we will still whip you this season just because we want to.

Also, I will give props to UK’s cheerleaders, probably the best in the nation. On more than one occasion, I have paused on ESPN2 to watch the Stay Free Cheerleading Championships. Kentucky is always a contender and their cheerleaders are always hotties.

As I recall, Daniel, UK women’s hoops is doing quite well - in the WNIT.

In fact, they’re in the quarterfinal game right now.

That should be quite an irritating flea on your fur.

FEAR THE CHEER

The whole reason I started going for UK was because of the cheerleaders, come on now. Plus we have an oustanding fencing team.

yeah, but do you have daily Krishna meals in your plaza?!?!

We’ve gotten some really good karma over the past couple of years.

Just watched that “Beyond the Glory” special where Christian Laettner stepped on Justin Timberlake.

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