Florida's headed for a hard fall in hoops
Oh, who are we kidding? Florida is not trying to win three in a row. Florida is trying to survive. The Gators enter the season with no seniors, because the class of 2008 wisely determined 2007 would be the right time to depart campus. There is no one who has averaged even a half-dozen points in a college season. There are no proven rebounders. There is no firm answer at point guard. There is only one player who was a big part of the two championships: junior Walter Hodge, who was ideally suited to the third guard spot but will almost certainly be fitted for a larger role as a junior. However, the guys who will take the places of Taurean Green, Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Corey Brewer and Lee Humphrey are being told, in the words of assistant coach Lewis Preston, "Nobody is going to have pity on you." There'll be plenty of time for the Gators to build up an attractive record and ease some of the pressure of following their accomplished predecessors. They play nine of their first 10 at home and don't leave the state of Florida until Dec. 22, when they visit Ohio State. Eventually, though, Florida will have to contend with what appears to be an extremely deep Southeastern Conference -- and will do so with what appears to be an extremely thin bench. There are only nine scholarship players, plus a couple of freshman walk-ons who've been with the program all summer. The staff will look for more as practice approaches. Associate head coach Larry Shyatt points out the lack of numbers makes it more difficult to practice. "If we had 13 or 12 ... you could just smash each other," he said. "And whatever's left, at least you've developed the toughness." It's hard to know exactly where this will end up, but we know it won't end on the final Monday of the season. The Gators will be long gone by then, happy if they've been any part of the NCAA Tournament. "I'm sure we'll have some people who will want to run over us with a glass-bottom truck," Shyatt said. What Florida faces is more or less inevitable in the current college hoops landscape. Nearly every team that has won the NCAA championship in recent years eventually has been caught in the cycle of losing players prematurely to the NBA and experiencing a severe dip: 2000: Michigan State. By 2002, the Spartans were 19-12, fifth in the Big Ten and a first-round NCAA Tournament victim. 2001: Duke. The Blue Devils kept their program moving forward until the vacancies created by Shaun Livingston (never enrolled) and Luol Deng (one year) helped drop them to 22-11, seventh in the ACC and a first-round NCAA victim in 2007. 2002: Maryland. Missed the tournament in 2005 and 2006. 2003: Syracuse. Squeezed into the 2006 NCAAs with an improbable rampage through the Big East Tournament, missed the tournament in 2007. 2004: Connecticut. Missed the tournament in 2007. North Carolina, which won in 2005, appeared to be poised for a 2006 collapse, but Roy Williams' extraordinary coaching job and Tyler Hansbrough's relentless physicality kept the North Carolina Tar Heels a contender in the ACC. But they did become an early victim in George Mason's romp to the Final Four. This is what could consume Florida Gators sooner rather than later. There were some on the NBA side of things who posited that Billy Donovan reneged on his acceptance of the Orlando Magic job because he realized he couldn't hack it in The League. In fact, what he's facing at Florida is a much greater challenge. With the Magic, he'd have had Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis. With the Gators, he's got Marreese Speights and Alex Tyus. The pro guys might think college coaches don't know basketball well enough to make it in their league, but even the guy in the last row could see which of those situations would be harder to manage.
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