Last season, Florida finished its regular season and SEC tournament schedule with 21 wins. End result: NIT.

In the midst of a two-game losing streak, this season’s total remains at 21.

For all practical, rational purposes, even a two-game winning streak probably won’t get UF back into the Big Dance. The Vols were the best practical shot at a marquee conference win. Mississippi State isn’t exactly the road win the tournament crowd will be seeking. Even Kentucky stands at 8-6 in the conference.

The only thing that will stop a second consecutive trip to the NIT: winning the SEC tournament and the automatic bid that comes with it.

Even then, the Gators will likely have to go through LSU to do that - not a sure thing given that the Tigers have gone 13-1 in the conference while South Carolina, the next best squad, is just 9-5.

And it could be a long offseason as well. Nick Calathes may very well decide to use his outstanding individual season as leverage to declare for the NBA. Walter Hodge, the last remnant of both national championship squads, is graduating. The impending senior leader is known for shooting a lot of bricks.

And, as scary a thought as it sounds, Billy Donovan could very well begin to feel just a tiny bit of warmth in his seat. Going to the NIT once with an entirely different squad is understandable.

Going twice in a row with ten of twelve players being sophomores or freshman is excusable.

Going three times, with a transfer center expected to contribute, with a top prospect in the backcourt headed to Gainesville, with a candidate for SEC Player of the Year who could likely return, and with a conference in a downswing, is unacceptable.

It’s going to be a long, long offseason. Luckily, spring practice for football begins on March 25.

Billy Donovan:

“These guys are giving me everything they have.”

And that was enough on Wednesday night. Hurray for beating bad teams. Florida reaches the 20-win mark while the Gottliebless Tide fall to 13-12 and 3-8 in conference play. The final tally was 83-74, but it was close, requiring free throws — made this time — down the stretch to hold the Tide at bay.

More Donovan:

“I understand all their flaws and all their flaws can be seen but sometimes we get a little bit fatigued and we get tired and they’re young and they’re thinner and they’re not quite as old as some of these teams and they get pushed around.”

Hurray for keen coaching observations. Actually, it is somewhat heartening to realize that Donovan gets it, that he understands the place and time and circumstances and that he’s not thrilled about where his program stands at the moment. It puts things into perspective. And the head coach knows where accountability has to start and stop.

“This group of Chandler and Nick, and even Dan to an extent, and Alex Tyus, have been thrust into a situation that to be quite honest is really unfair and I probably hold myself more responsible in terms of not having more pieces around those guys so they can do what they can do and be complemented more.”

Donovan has always been great with the media and fans, and has always been willing to share his thoughts and reasoning when it comes to Gator hoops. Hearing these words from Donovan offers some insight, offers some relief for Gator Nation that, hey, things are going to be okay. We might not have a contender this year, and our problems might not be fully solved even in 2010. But they will be solved, and Florida basketball will be back.

Two relatively even teams match up tonight in Kentucky’s Rupp Arena.

In one corner, Billy D and his well-coached, but unbalanced team wait for a chance to get a 3-game lead over Kentucky in the race for the SEC East. In the other, the ‘Cats field two phenomenal players in Jodie Meeks and Patrick Patterson, but feature a coach who seems so hard-nosed about doing it ‘his way’ that he’ll happily lose to the beat of his own drummer as often as the situation dictates. He’s just weird like that.

Both teams have a good chance to win. Being that the game will be played in Lexington, the ‘Cats are favored, as it should be when two equal teams meet. Both squads shine in individual areas, but neither are serious players on the national stage this season. This one’s about bragging rights and the chance to win a conference championship.

Billy Donovan hopes that his squad can out-shoot the ‘Cats and perhaps upgrade their level of defensive intensity such that their defensive rebounding improves a notch. No doubt he’s also hoping that Billy Gillispie sticks with the same gameplan that cost him a 3-game losing streak; that is, to run the Wildcat offense exclusively through Meeks and Patterson. Mississippi State, South Carolina, and Ole Miss have all dealt Kentucky losses by forcing the remainder of Kentucky’s players to take shots.

Billy Gillispie is not what one would call an imaginative coach, so the odds of seeing more of the same from the ‘Cats is fairly strong. If that happens, Florida has an excellent chance to win the game, being that Donovan and his coaching staff have had the chance to evaluate game film for the past week and install an offensive and defensive strategy which will spell doom for Kentucky.

On the flip side, if Kentucky switches things up, the Gators might face a difficult challenge.

Florida will need to show defensive hustle and intensity, improve their rebounding and most importantly make their treys if they hope to defeat the ‘Cats for the 8th time in the last 9 meetings.

I’d put the odds of a Gator win right at 50%. This one could go either way. Let there be no doubting the fact that this is a crucial game in Florida’s quest for the 2009 SEC Championship.

The audience has spoken. Amidst the most dominating tear in the football team’s 102-year history, the hoops squad has been quiet, practically unnoticed.

At first glance, it doesn’t look as if the 08’s have made any progression toward Big Dance form, if anything, taking a step back with nonstop attrition.

As before, Florida finished a somewhat wanting pre-SEC slate with two losses. Highly promising big man Mo Speights spurned Hogtown for the City of Brotherly Love (For those wondering, he’s averaging 7.6 and 3.6 in 15 minutes of NBA action per game.)

Jai Lucas, unhappy with playing time, transferred to Texas.

Eloy Vargas and Kenny Kadjii? Hampered by injuries and conditioning issues.

But deep within the exterior of a team that, to some, seems doomed to repeat its NIT history, bright spots await. And they begin with the team’s star point guard.
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When Lon Kruger left the University of Florida the program faced a defining moment.  Arguably the best coach the Gators had ever hired had just jumped north to a better job.  Was Florida going to become a stepping stone position?  Were the benefits and notoriety of the 1994 Final Four run already squandered?  Florida decided to hire an up and coming coach who brought with him a frenetic style of basketball and, following a couple years of adjustment, Billy Donovan built Florida into one of the top basketball programs in the country.
 
What started with a couple of dynamic recruiting classes has continued to this day.  Florida is now a recruiting power picking the top prospects in the country on a yearly basis.  But what began with a bang and is now the norm was not always the case in the half decade in between.  There was a time when Florida looked to be slipping from its early recruiting success.  A time when Florida came in second or third for it’s top targets a little too often.
 
The year that changed the future of Florida basketball was 1999.  That’s the year when a group of freshmen took Gator basketball to new heights.  Mike Miller, Teddy Dupay, Udonis Haslem and Ladarius Halton brought a new level of talent and athleticism to Gainesville basketball.  Although Halton would eventually succumb to a degenerative knee injury, this core of players combined with the 2000 class of Brett Nelson, Justin Hamilton, Matt Bonner and Donnell Harvey quickly put the Gators in elite company in terms of skill and ability.  It didn’t take long for this group to stamp their mark on the basketball scene reaching the NCAA Championship Game in 2000.
 
While the skills of Dupay, Miller and Nelson were the more visible focus for fans of the team the heart of that squad was in a frontcourt rotation of Brent Wright (a 6′8″ Forward from the 1998 recruiting class), Udonis Haslem, Donnell Harvey and Matt Bonner.  Unfortunately after the 2000 season Harvey would declare for the NBA while Brent Wright would suffer a heel injury in his senior season that eventually caused him to miss much of the year and the postseason.  Once this dominant frontcourt broke up Florida would not get past the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the next 5 years. (more…)

While the Gridiron Gators are faster, their basketball counterparts are stronger.

One of the worst-kept secrets in Gainesville this offseason has centered on the formerly top-ranked freshman class. Nick Calathes weighed in at almost 200 pounds before going to Greece, and wants to gain at least five more. Jai Lucas gained 12 pounds to go to 160, even more pronounced given the 8% increase in mass. Alex Tyus and Adam Allen have also reported growth. Alas, no one has gained more than Chandler Parsons, who could enter his sophomore season 20 pounds heavier and 1 inch taller at a Lamar Odom-esque 6-10 and 225. Not to mention, he’s got all of the tools for a very good sophomore season.

And that gives Billy Donovan a delightful problem.

You see, incoming freshman Eloy Vargas is currently recorded at 6-10 and 210. He’s also one of the top power forwards from the high school class of 2008. And he’s been viewed by most of the Gator faithful as one-half of the solution to Florida’s paint problem.

So if the coach goes with a backcourt of Jai Lucas, Walter Hodge, and Nick Calathes, who starts at 4 and 5? Kenny Kadjii, whose frame resembles Speights’s, is almost a no brainer, which leaves Vargas and Parsons potentially battling over a start. But if he gives Nick Calathes the keys to the point guard spot full time, and starts Walter Hodge at shooting guard, how does he handle the frontcourt? A trio of Parsons, Vargas, and Kadjii would be long, but still potentially vulnerable to thick bruisers. Alex Tyus is a power forward in a small forward’s body. Oh yeah, don’t forget about Dan Werner.

The coach will likely have the answer figured out as best as he can by the time the season starts, but there is one factor in Parson’s favor.

In his limited minutes last season, Parsons handled the ball very, very well. If he grows into a power forward’s body but retains his small forward skills, he could create a mismatch for opposing defenses, taking the ball inside, shooting from three-point land, or passing the ball to an open man outside. And that could be good news to a Gator team seeking a star to complement Calathes.

Looking back three years, Florida entered the 2006 season losing its best low-post player, David Lee, to the NBA draft. When it was all said and done, the hoops Gators hoisted their first championship banner.

Might this be a sign?

Okay, so Chandler Parsons probably isn’t the overwhelming force of nature that I make him out to be. However, examining his freshman year as compared to Kyle Singler unveils some surprises.

Through the regular season, Singler posted an 8.5 WS/40 for Duke while Parsons had an 8.3. Singler was more productive on a per-minute basis, but not by much.

Parsons got off to a hot start, posting a blistering 12.2 against Florida’s cream puffs compared to Singler’s 9.6. Singler evened it up in conference play, scoring in at 6.7 while Parsons only had 5.1. And against Ken Pomeroy’s top 100 teams (postseason included), Singler had a 7.0 while Parsons had a 6.4.

That being said, an interesting split took place right after conference tournaments began. In five postseason games, Parsons improved his play, posting a 9.4 WS/40 from Alabama to Massachusetts.

On the other hand, Singler had a monumental collapse with a 2.9. As a result, Parsons avearged an 8.5 while Singler only has 7.8. And while they might be projected as neck-and-neck, there is another side to this story.

Singler, a natural small forward, frequently spent time at power forward and center due to Duke’s lack of a big man down low. Parsons spent most of his time at small forward and was only occasionally a power forward.

As a result, Singler had the chance to skew his numbers favorably by grabbing more rebounds and blocking more shots than normal. Parsons had to make due with Mo Speights and Dan Werner grabbing up the boards and posting naturally higher scores.

Thus, one could even make the argument that Parsons might be slightly better. Between Miles Plumlee, Kenny Kadjii, Olek Czyz, Eloy Vargas, and Allan Cheney. These two look to spend a lot more at 3.

Coach Donovan, are you listening?

Marreese Speights’ career as a Gator? The Fat Lady is singing.

Florida sophomore center Marreese Speights has declined an invitation to compete in next week’s NBA predraft camp in Orlando, his advisor and former AAU coach, Matt Ramker, confirmed Sunday.

“Marreese is just going to focus on getting ready for his (individual) workouts,” Ramker said.

Ramker said Speights’ current projected draft status didn’t play a role in the decision. Some NBA Draft web sites have projected Speights as a mid-to-late first-round pick. An NBA scout, speaking on the condition of anonymity, recently said some NBA executives have projected Speights in the first round as the 12-25th overall pick. (more…)

Despite the offseason, it’s never too early to start thinking about next year.

Thus, I’ll try and project a tentative first glimpse at a starting lineup. This assumes that Mareesse Speights does not return to school.

Point guard: Nick Calathes

Given that Nikos leads the team in points, assists, steals, and yes, turnovers (all ballhandling related statistics), it makes logical sense to put him at point. Despite the fact that Walter Hodge and Dan Werner have more experience and rings on their fingers, Calathes will lead by actions a team where the other nine players are freshmen or sophomores.

I see him getting fewer points and rebounds than last season, but compensating with more assists and better decisions with the ball.

As an added bonus, he can be moved to shooting guard and Jai Lucas at 1 if necessary. In fact, if the latter develops into a playmaker in his own right, a Lucas/Calathes backcourt would create one of the most dangerous tandems in the SEC, if not the country. (more…)

The productivity of Chandler Parsons compared to his predecessor at the small forward is certainly surprising.

When I once suggested that the former might even me MORE dangerous at the 3-spot, Gatorpilot said something to the effect of “Seriously? There’s only one C. Brew, and he was certainly a tenacious defender.”

So let’s consider the production of both over a 40-minute period. We’ll use Spiderman’s stats from last season (As we’ll see later, because he was better that year.)
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