Although his team was just 40 hours removed from a victory over then-No. 6 Kansas State, coach Billy Donovan was legitimately concerned about its matchup with the lowly Jacksonville Dolphins.
It wasn’t anything about JU’s team or personnel that worried Donovan, it was something he’s struggled with many times before: Florida’s ability to handle success.
And, once again, the Gators proved that they weren’t ready for the bright lights and championship expectations, as the Dolphins came in to Gainesville and scored a 71-68 overtime victory.
Now No. 20 Florida will shift its focus to Radford, who it faces Wednesday night in the O’Connell Center as it returns to doing what it does best: dealing with adversity.
“Our guys handle adversity pretty well,” Donovan said. “They really are a resilient group. They bounce back pretty quickly, they fight, they try to get better, they try to improve. But in order to be a great team we have to be able to handle prosperity.”
And, to this point in their careers, the Gators haven’t been up to that challenge.
So far this year Florida has twice shown its inability to deal with winning, as it has followed each of the season’s two biggest wins — Florida State and Kansas State — with upset losses.
“It’s almost like they allow a lot of people to fill up their balloon with a lot of great stuff and they feel good,” Donovan said. “But, in reality, it just doesn’t really mean a whole lot.”
And this isn’t the first time the unit has struggled with accomplishment.
During the 2008-09 season the Gators earned a national ranking following a ten-game winning streak, only to turn around and lose eight of their final 15 regular season games en route to an NIT appearance.
That trend continued in 2009-10, when the Gators won their first eight contests to climb to No. 10 before enduring a three-game losing streak that included an embarrassing home loss to South Alabama a year ago today.
“It feels like the exact same thing all over again,” junior Erving Walker said.
Players and coaches could’ve chosen from a bevy of logical excuses for Monday’s shortcoming—the quick turnaround from a physical and emotional game against KSU, the lack of crowd support due to the Christmas holiday, or even JU’s four-day break leading up to the contest—but they instead opted to shoulder the blame themselves.
Players like Walker and sophomore Kenny Boynton mentioned a lack of focus and intensity, while Donovan noted the coaches’ role in preparation and his team’s overall mentality.
“There are certain guys that are just killers,” Donovan said. “They’re just focused about competing and putting their reputation on the line every single time they play, and that’s the difference.”
Said Donovan: “If you love the game and you’re passionate about it, if you’re a competitor, it doesn’t make a difference who you’re lining up and playing against. And I think our guys are competitive, but can you be competitive when there’s no reason to be competitive?”
For now, that remains to be seen.
All the Gators can do presently is show up and play against Radford, because it’s impossible to handle success without first reaching success.
“It’s got us down at the moment, but there’s always going to be adversity, ups and downs, in basketball,” Walker said. “We can’t let this game beat us twice and lose multiple games off of this. We have to come back ready and prepared to play.”
