The Gators had a full winter break as they tackled their final four non-conference games of the season. Florida (7-6) saw mixed results with two losses and two wins over the past three weeks.
Florida defeated Jacksonville 79-34 in Gainesville on Dec. 14 and Wake Forest 63-50 in Sunrise at the Orange Bowl Classic on Dec. 20, but the victories ended there.
Florida fell to Florida State 65-63 in Tallahassee at the buzzer on Dec. 30. The Gators returned to Gainesville only to lose to UConn 63-59 on Saturday.
Coach Billy Donovan is preaching moving past the struggles the Gators faced over winter break and in their non-conference schedule.
"This is a consistency issue in my opinion," Donovan said. "It’s an issue of when things are not going your way or you are not playing like you need to play or want to play can you actually move past that and not become so self-absorbed with yourself and how it’s impacting you in a lot of ways. Can you move past that?"
Redshirt junior forward Alex Murphy has a few things to move past after just making his Florida debut against Wake Forest. In the 60 minutes he’s spent on the court this season, the 6-foot-8 forward is averaging 5.3 points with a .417 field goal percentage and a .545 mark at the charity stripe. Murphy missed two free throws against UConn on Saturday that could have given Florida the lead and the win.
Senior forward Jacob Kurtz is in a similar situation after tipping in a Florida State basket during the final seconds of the game. In an attempt to secure a rebound, he instead secured a win for the Seminoles. Donovan questioned if the walk-on could move past the play, but he said he believes Kurtz has rebounded from the rebound-gone-wrong.
"I have a totally different view because I think you can get so caught up into the result and we all want to have the same result but at the same point, they’ve got to have the correct, competitive disposition. We don’t have that. We don’t," Donovan said. "We need to be more connected. We need to help each other more. We need to get out of ourselves. We need to start making each other better. We need to start helping. Those are the things I’m more concerned about."
The Gators hit the road for their first Southeastern Conference matchup against South Carolina (9-3) on Wednesday.
"In a lot of ways, to me, our conference schedule started right when he came out of that three-game home stand. It started to me when we played Wake Forest in Sunrise. It started when we played UConn on Saturday," Donovan said. "So we’ve kind of being in it with the teams we’ve played against. We are starting in terms of we’re playing for something now."
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Alex Murphy attempts a free throw during Florida's loss to Connecticut on Saturday
