Dan Werner is not big on what if and if only but when he thinks back to the beginning of February, back when the Florida Gators were 18-3 and 5-1 in the Southeastern Conference, he does have to wonder what might have been if only the Gators had been listening to Coach Billy Donovan. Instead of the National Invitation Tournament, he knows the Gators would have made the NCAA Tournament field and if they had played the month of February like they have played the three games they have played in the NIT, who knows what region they would have been sent to and how high they would have been seeded?
Werner knows that when you hear the words what if and if only, an excuse can’t be that far behind but you can’t think back to a regular season and SEC Tournament that saw the Gators fade to 21-11 overall without thinking what happened? And you can’t see how Florida has played the first three games in the NIT without thinking about what might have been.
The Gators (24-11) are heading to New York this week for the Final Four of the NIT and they’ve done it by getting stops on the defensive end. Back when February began, Billy Donovan was lamenting the Gators’ lack of commitment to defense. When the Gators lost to Alabama in the first round of the SEC Tournament, he blew up. Tired of a team that wouldn’t listen to him preach defense, defense, defense, he let them have it, took away their practice facility privileges and gave them a change or else ultimatum.
Obviously, the team has seen the merits in change. In the three games since Donovan laid down the law, the Gators have given up 49, 54 and 57 points, their longest stretch of the season when they’ve held opponents below 60 points a game. Seeing what happens when defense first becomes the team rallying point has caused Werner to question just what might have been. He’s not a what if or if only kind of guy but seeing this turnaround makes him wonder.
“I’ve thought to myself that if we had played like this from the beginning, who knows where we could be right now?” Werner said Friday afternoon. “That’s part of learning and growing up. We didn’t so we have no one to blame for ourselves, but right now we’re getting better and that’s what matters.”
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Some people call the NIT the Nobody’s Interested Tournament. Unlike the NCAA, where they play the regionals in football stadiums and draw crowds of 30,000 or more, the NIT is played in the home team arenas the first three rounds and the Final Four teams go to New York for a chance to say “We’re number 65!” Yeah, there is a play-in game in the NCAA Tournament but that’s not an NCAA Tournament game. That’s a one-shot deal for two bad teams to work their way into the field.
There are three ways to approach the NIT. For a few teams that felt slighted because they weren’t in the NCAA Tournament, it’s either we’ll show the NCAA just how dumb they were to exclude us or else a chance to show their disappointment by tanking in the first round. Another approach is this is the NIT and the N stands for Nottabigdeal so those teams go through the motions. The third approach is the one the Florida Gators chose to take: this isn’t where we intended to be but it’s where we are so let’s make the best of a rather embarrassing situation.
Yes, it was embarrassing. Listen to what Nick Calathes said about it Friday afternoon when asked if he was embarrassed when the Gators failed to make the NCAA field after nine straight years of the big dance and winning it all the last two years.
“I think it was kind of embarrassing to our team but we learned from it,” he said. “We started listening and getting more prepared for practices and things like that.”
If the NIT is what it took to get their attention and get them to buy into what Billy Donovan had been preaching all season long, then this is a good thing that we’re seeing. We’ve seen three straight games in which the Gators have cut down on the turnovers and taking ill-advised shots on the offensive end. On the defensive end, we’ve seen them rotating, helping out and blocking out when the ball goes up.
The result has been three very nice wins over three pretty good ball clubs. San Diego State, Creighton and Arizona State have all provided different challenges for the Gators but they’ve adapted the defense while playing under control offensively. Florida has shot 50 percent or better all three games while holding their opponents in the 40s.
“To look at how well we’re playing right now and how hard we’re practicing, it seems like man, why weren’t we going like this when we had a chance to be in the NCAA Tournament?” said Chandler Parsons. “This is where we are now so we’re trying to make the best of the opportunity.”
If there is a poster child for making the best of the opportunity, it is Parsons. A gifted offensive player, he has the kind of shot and skills that could earn a hefty paycheck someday in the pros. Defensively, he’s been an adventure most of the season and that might be a kind way of putting it.
After Donovan took his team to task after the Alabama game, Parsons watched film of the way he had played defense all season. Call it a sobering experience.
“I saw me getting blown by,” Parsons admitted. “I saw me not getting on the floor. I saw me not blocking out my guy and them getting long rebounds … all the little things that really add up that you don’t think are a really big deal, but one possession can win or lose a game.”
One possession wins or loses. What a concept. Think about it. The Gators lost by two at Ole Miss. They lost by three at Vanderbilt and by three at home against Tennessee. One defensive stop could have made the difference. One extra pass instead of an off-balance shot when there’s nobody in position to rebound could have won any one of those three games.
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Walter Hodge understood what Donovan was saying. He knew all about making every single possession count. As Florida’s first backcourt reserve off the bench on two straight NCAA championship teams, Hodge knew all about the hard work and intensity it takes to win big games.
As the only junior and only experienced player on the team, he did his best to lead but like Donovan, some of the things he tried to do went right over the heads of the collection of three sophomores and five freshmen that make up the scholarship core of the team.
When the Gators lost to Alabama in the SEC Tournament, Hodge felt a personal letdown. The Gators had won the last three SEC Tournament championships and it was embarrassing to him to depart after one game. It especially hurt him to see teammates thinking Alabama was going to be a pushover since the Gators already had a win over the Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa earlier in the year.
“I think they were like, we beat them already so I don’t think there was the focus,” said Hodge. “I don’t understand why. I understood [the need for focus] and I don’t know how we got to that point, but that’s gone. That happened already. We’re just focusing on what’s going on right now.”
What’s going on right now is a Florida team figuring out that they are in a building process. They finally understand that it takes as much or more effort on the defensive end of the floor as it does on offense. They are starting to understand that they have to worry as much about what goes on in the first possession of the game as the last. Everybody looks at the Tennessee game or the Vandy game and thinks that if the Gators had just hit that last shot, things could have been different.
But what if the Gators had gotten two extra stops in the first half? What if they hadn’t thrown the ball away five minutes into the second half when they had an advantage on the offensive end? What if they had played with intensity from start to finish.
Yes, we’re talking about what if and if only. But there are no excuses. We’re talking about the things the Gators did or didn’t do and this is precisely why this NIT opportunity has been a good thing for the Gators. They’re finally understanding that the game is played one possession at a time and that they can’t simply have a don’t worry about it we’ll outscore them mentality.
Calathes said the attitude six weeks ago was we can always outscore them.
“I think about six weeks ago it was we can score and go back and forth,” said Calathes, who has 38 points, 24 rebounds and 25 assists in three NIT games. “If they make a shot, we’ll make a shot.”
It is obvious that the attitudes have changed. The last three games have been a testament that hard work on defense pays off and while the effort has been vastly improved, nobody is getting calloused from too many pats on the back.
“We’re playing better defense,” said Werner. “We haven’t given up 60 points yet in the NIT. We can get better. We haven’t played a perfect game on defense.”
So although the NIT isn’t where the Gators wanted to be, it has provided the perfect learning lab for a young team that is starting to understand just what it takes to win the right way.
Hodge is accustomed to cutting down the nets on the very last night of the college basketball season in front of 50,000 fans in a huge arena with millions watching on CBS. Now, he hopes the Gators will cut down the nets in Madison Square Garden Thursday night.
This isn’t exactly where he wanted to be, but he sees the big picture and knows that to win a championship would be another good step in the growing up process.
“It was a letdown [the NIT], but we’re here for a purpose and this is the way we have to go to grow and develop,” said Hodge, who is coming off an 18-point, seven-assist game against Arizona State that was his best of the season. “We’re going to try to win a championship and let these guys work for what they have to do.”
