HOOVER, Ala. — Seventh in a series previewing SEC basketball teams
Florida Coach Billy Donovan isn’t complaining that his Gators are the preseason pick to win the SEC championship.
“I think you want that,” Donovan said at SEC media day. “Certainly I wouldn’t want to be sitting here picked to finish last.”
But Donovan also is quick to note the Gators return five starters from a team that made the program’s f irst NCAA Tournament appearance in three years and lost in the first round to BYU.
These aren’t the Gators that Donovan led to back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007.
“Our guys have got to understand the difference between perception and reality,” Donovan said. “And the reality is we finished fourth in the SEC East last year, we won one SEC Tournament game, and we didn’t win an NCAA Tournament game.
“So our team has a lot it has to do to get better.”
The Gators were 21-13 last season, including victories at North Carolina State and over South Carolina - both thanks to last-second three-pointers by Chandler Parsons.
Donovan said the the Gators weren’t far from being in the NIT for a third consecutive season.
“Then the line of questioning here would be: Three straight years of not getting to the NCAA Tournament, do you think these guys can get back? Are your players feeling the pressure?” Donovan said. “The mood would be totally different. But because we got into the tournament, the theme here is: Five starters returning, you should be really good.”
Parsons, a 6-10 senior who averaged 12.4 points and 6.9 rebounds per game last season, returns, along with sophomore guard Kenny Boynton (14 points, 2.7 assists), junior point guard Erving Walker (12.6 points, 4.9 assists) and senior forwards Alex Tyus (11.8 points, 6.9 rebounds) and Vernon Macklin (10.6 points, 5.5 rebounds).
BYU beat Florida 99-92 in double overtime last season to make the Gators’ NCAA Tournament appearance a short one.
“We’re not satisfied with just getting there,” Parsons said. “We want to make some noise, and we want to win as many games as possible, but we know how hard we’ve got to work to make that happen. You can’t let expectations get to your head.”
Donovan said he believes that last season the Gators “got consumed with getting into” the NCAA Tournament after not making it the previous two years.
“They wanted to get into the tournament, and I understood that,” he said. “But they weren’t looking at the big picture of how we need to focus on becoming the best team we can be, and it shouldn’t be just about getting into the tournament.”
Donovan said the Gators also face the challenge of meshing five freshmen with a team full of returning starters.
“We’ve got to find a way to develop roles for some guys who have never been here before,” he said.
There figures to be a big role for Patric Young, a 6-9 freshman from Jacksonville (Fla.) Providence who was a McDonald’s All-American.
Young can be the kind of inside force the Gators have been lacking since Joakim Noah and Al Horford played for their NCAA title teams.
“I think Patric’s offensive game has a lot of room to grow, but he is physical, hard-driving and comes right at you with an incredible energy level,” Donovan said. “He enjoys physical confrontation. ... That’s just the way he plays. But right now he has a chance to play maybe five minutes before getting five fouls.”
Donovan said all of the freshmen are helping create more competitive practices.
“It’s been good because it’s not that competitiveness where it creates team dissension,” Donovan said. “It’s a competitiveness where I think they understand, ‘I’m going to make you better, you’re going to make me better.’ ”
Next: Alabama
Florida at a glance COACH Billy Donovan (331-139 in 14 seasons at Florida, 366-159 in 16 seasons overall) LAST SEASON 21-13, 9-7 SEC KEY LOSS F Dan Werner KEY RETURNEES G Kenny Boynton, G Erving Walker, F Chandler Parsons, F Alex Tyus, F Vernon Macklin KEY NEWCOMERS F Patric Young, F Casey Prather PROJECTED FINISH First in SEC East
Sports, Pages 25 on 10/29/2010