There is an inherent risk one runs when handing a Southerner a ball that’s not pointed at either end. Such was the scene this week at the Georgia Dome, where only a single team arrives at the SEC men’s basketball tournament ranked among the nation’s Top 25.
Thus, that lordly conference enters the postseason on equal footing with the likes of the Missouri Valley, Mountain West and Atlantic 10.
But that single SEC elite is a significant one, a team that has the attention of bracketologists everywhere. Billy Donovan, once known as The Kid, now 18 seasons at Florida, has the top-ranked Gators back in the mood to win it all.
Winning a little of it comes first. Florida will get around to playing at the SEC tournament at 1 p.m. Friday, after two days of prelims. The headliner barely appears on the same week as the warm-up acts.
Victory can be an inconvenient thing. Donovan suggested this week that it is a hardship for a team to play in a conference tournament final on a Sunday then get shipped to a NCAA site where play begins on a Thursday rather than a Friday. That’s exactly what could befall the Gators, who seem destined for Orlando, Fla., and the earlier start date.
But, the coach insists, that doesn’t mean they will tank it in the building where they won their second of two consecutive national titles in 2007.
“Of course we (want to make it to Sunday),” Donovan said. “I think our guys will be excited about playing.”
His guys expect to be there to the last dribble and have packed their net-cutting scissors.
“Just bring the same mentality we’ve had all year long — play our offense, play our defense, stay connected, be the better team, stay in the moment. If we do those things, I don’t see anyone stopping us,” center Patric Young said.
A season that began fretfully — with suspensions to their point guard and leading rebounder, an eligibility question hanging over a McDonald’s All-American freshman, a couple of injuries — has turned profoundly significant. In the bigger picture, conference titles are now appetizers.
Once more Donovan is putting to lie the thought that basketball can’t flourish on a football-centric campus. Tell the 300 or so students who camped out overnight for tickets to Saturday’s regular-season finale against Kentucky that they don’t care enough about the indoor game.
In fact basketball now is the antidote to Florida football. “Without question it makes the football season (4-8 including a loss to Georgia Southern) a little easier to swallow,” one of the campers told the Gainesville Sun.
His team also is bucking the notion that great college teams are the product of stars on loan for one season until the escape hatch opens to the NBA. Four seniors start for the 29-2 Gators. They are good enough to have won their past 23 games, which seems to suit them better than getting garbage minutes against the Bucks or the Pelicans.
“When I first got into this business, you’d see great players play four years then go to the next level. This is a refreshing flashback to how it used to be,” Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley said.
Donovan says he is not trying to make a statement, not attempting to bring back the days of short shorts and Chuck Taylors. He has had plenty of guys leave early.
“But,” Donovan added, “I do think one thing happens inside of our program for the guys who don’t leave early or are not afforded the opportunity to leave early: If they stay the course with the process you have to go through, they get better.”
“The NBA’s not going anywhere,” Young, the senior center with the action-figure build, said. “This team is never going to be together again the same way. I want to make the most of the opportunity.”
“We’re trying to leave our mark here. I think we have a special connection. Hopefully we can carry that out to the end of the season,” senior forward Will Yeguete said.
Winning all those consecutive games does inspire a chorus of happy talk around a program. There is ample supporting evidence of better basketball through team chemistry: The Gators have no individual among the top 10 in the SEC in scoring, yet have four players who average in double figures. They rank fifth in the country in scoring defense. Everyone gets their share — their top five shot-takers are all within 50 field-goal attempts of one another.
When the Gators won their first NCAA title in 2005-06, it was on the backs of sophomores. That core was enticed back for an encore the next season, then left early for the NBA.
There are some superficial similarities between that class and this. Both had canny point guards (Scottie Wilbekin now, Taurean Green then), well-constructed centers (Young/Al Horford) and even power forwards of French ancestry (Yeguete/Joakim Noah).
One big difference: Three of the first nine picks in the ’07 NBA draft were Gators. No such show of faith is predicted for the current group.
And another: “We were never able to run the table like they did. Give big credit to them for that,” Horford said. While the current team was 18-0 in the conference, both the ’06 and ’07 Gators actually stumbled at the end, losing three of their last five regular-season games.
Rehabbing his torn pectoral muscle, the Hawks’ Horford has found these Gators to be something of an elixir. If you have to watch rather than play, might as well enjoy a team that seems to do it right.
“They are an athletic group like we were. Only they press a lot more than we used to — and they’re good at it,” he said.
Inevitably the comparisons to past glories will fall on the heads of these Gators.
Donovan will try to temper them: “What these guys have done in the regular season has been really, really remarkable. I would hate to have that accomplishment all the sudden be compared to something else, because what they did has been, in my opinion, unique and special.”
The extra-special part of the season begins about now. For here is a team expected to keep Gators fans amused right up to the doorstep of the Orange and Blue spring game.
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