In terms of volume and quality, Billy Donovan has been the most successful recruiter in the nation the past few years. Good thing. Because the hoop gods are testing his talent to the limit right now, one injury at a time.
And we're not just talking twisted ankles in Gainesville. The Gators have spent more time in the operating room than ER's Eriq LaSalle.
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Gator Bait?
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GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- The bleak reality sank in as soon as Florida hit the practice floor Thursday.
One of the eight remaining healthy Gators has the knees of a 70-year-old. Another is a walk-on who has played 20 minutes in his career. Yet another is a 6-foot-10 freshman who barely weighs 200 pounds.
"Our big challenge is how to approach the guys as a coaching staff the next couple of days, the next couple of weeks," coach
Billy Donovan said. "We've got guys who are extremely young and fragile. They're going to have to step up and play above their heads."
Among the seven scholarship players remaining are tall-and-skinny center Bonell Colas, a highly touted freshman who
had trouble cracking the lineup because Donovan doesn't think he can withstand the pounding of the SEC's big men.
Another is LaDarius Halton, who took a medical redshirt year last year because of a degenerative condition in his knees. He has often sat out of practices this season to save knees Donovan once described as those of a 70-year-old man.
Donovan says he'll have to give walk-on David Kliewer playing time at guard, because he has only two other healthy guards in
Brett Nelson and freshman Orien Greene. Kliewer, a junior, has played 20 minutes and scored four points in his career.
Including two other walk-ons who are ineligible to play, the Gators have a total of 10 players, just barely enough to practice.
Even assistant coach John Pelphrey, a former Kentucky star, had to suit up in case he was needed for Thursday's workout.
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January Surgery No. 3 is on tap for guard Justin Hamilton, who blew a knee Wednesday night in a home loss to Georgia.
As expected, an MRI on Thursday showed a season-ending torn ACL along with two
cartilege tears and bone chips. Hamilton's injury follows forward Brent Wright's broken foot and back surgery for guard Teddy Dupay.
Wright could return in the next two weeks. Dupay won't return any earlier then the end of February and could be lost for the season. But even if they return, Donovan won't expect them to play at the same level as when they left.
Florida is 11-3 and ranked No. 7. But the Gators are being held together by little more than sutures at this point.
"Nobody feels sorry for us," Donovan said. "Everybody who's playing us right now is looking at us and saying, 'Hey, here's a chance to get a win.'
"Mentally, they've been through a lot. But life is not a bed of roses. It's not always easy."
But did he really think it would be this hard?
Consider: The 2000 NCAA Tournament runnerups already were faced with replacing two early entries to the NBA draft, Mike Miller and Donnell Harvey. Miller, a sophomore, was expected to go. Unwise freshman Harvey was a shock. Now subtract the team's No. 2 (Wright) and No. 3 (Dupay) scorers, then take out a guy who started against Michigan State in the title game (Hamilton), and a repeat Final Four run looks nearly impossible.
"All the other SEC teams are smiling right now," said point guard Brett Nelson, who along with center Udonis Haslem must shoulder the scoring burden for the foreseeable future.
"Teams around the SEC are going to look at us like an easy win. So we just have to come out and play hard and
prove we're still a good team. It's tough right now, but we've got to keep our spirits up."
A Georgia team possessing admirable grit was smiling Wednesday night. The Bulldogs have now won consecutive road games against ranked opponents (Mississippi was the other) to go with quality wins over Utah, Indiana State, Pepperdine, Georgia Tech, North Carolina State and Villanova. They're only 10-7, but have played the kind of schedule that will keep them in the hunt for an NCAA bid.
Nevertheless, a healthy Florida wins this game.
Pre-plague, the Gators had sprinted out looking very much like they did last year: running, pressing, scoring a jillion points, winning games, hunkering down in the Top 10. In fact, Florida might even have been a better offensive team this year than last.
Prior to the Georgia game, the Gators led the SEC in scoring, field-goal percentage, 3-point percentage, free-throw percentage and assists. They were second to Arkansas in 3s per game -- 9.3. to 9.2.
"They really know how to play the game," said South Carolina coach Eddie Fogler, no small praise coming from Donovan's mortal enemy.
That was then. This is now.
Subtract Wright's scoring (15.9 ppg) and shooting touch, which saw him hitting 59.1 percent from the field, 61.1 percent from 3-point range and 83.1 percent from the foul line. Take out Dupay (14.1 ppg, 27 treys). And now eliminate Hamilton.
The question now looms: Can a system dependent on bodies -- the better to press, run and substitute opponents into submission -- survive mass personnel losses?
To put it another way: Does Billy D need to call off the dogs, change his style and regroup?
"We've had to change and do some different things," Donovan said before Hamilton's injury. "But to the best of our ability we're going to stay with our style of play. I think it's difficult to say, 'Hey, we're going to totally revamp our system in three or four days.' I don't think we're going to do that.
"Can we play our style full tilt? Probably not. But I think the guys take a tremendous amount of pride in the
style, the pressing."
Instead, Donovan might press a bit more selectively. On Thursday, Donovan said he'll have to try to install a few more offensive sets and zone-style defensive schemes so his team can slow things down a bit. He'll also be looking for more from big man Matt Bonner, who is having a great sophomore season with averages of 13 points and 6.9 rebounds, role players Major Parker and Ladarius Halton, and freshmen Orien Greene and Bonnell Colas.
At least the schedule offers a brief window of mercy. Florida is home for three of its next four, with the lone road trip being at manageable Auburn.
But February looks brutal. Four of the first five on the road, including trips to Kentucky and Tennessee, followed by visits from ranked Ole Miss and Alabama. It's been 60 games since Florida lost back-to-back games, but don't look for that streak to get too much longer.
Even Billy Donovan, the nation's best at stockpiling players, might not have enough to survive that stretch.
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Games of the Week
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Kentucky at Mississippi
Saturday
The Rebels have begun to wobble, losing their last two games to Georgia and Alabama -- not good timing when taking on a red-hot Kentucky team. Look for Ole Miss to play this game as if its season depends on it.
Marquette at Saint Louis
Saturday
Defense will rule the day in what could be a showdown for first place in the C-USA National Division. The Billikens are 22-3 at home under second-year coach Lorenzo Romar.
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Comeback 'Cats
Inserting low-profile freshman guard Gerald Fitch into the starting lineup seven games ago hardly seemed like the panacea for problem-riddled Kentucky and its 3-5 start. But seven victories later, Fitch suddenly looks like the X factor Tubby Smith's team has been missing.
The 6-foot-3, 185-pound Georgian has not only bumped Tayshaun Prince into his ideal position of power forward and Keith Bogans to small forward, he's injected a missing moxie into the lineup.
Take the opening 91 seconds of the Wildcats' 84-74 thumping of Tennessee, for example: Fitch grabbed the game's first rebound, then forced a turnover, then blocked 6-9 Isiah Victor's shot. Then, in the play that set the tone for the game, he ripped a rebound from the mitts of 6-10, 255-pound Charles Hathaway and was fouled. By then Kentucky led 5-0, on its way to a wire-to-wire win.
By the time it was over, Fitch had 10 points, seven rebounds, three steals, two assists, two blocked shots and one standing ovation from what might have been the wildest Rupp Arena crowd in years.
"It takes courage to stick your nose in there and come away with the ball," Tubby Smith said. "He did things that were amazing."
Fitch, who possesses a hunger often missing in recruits of greater renown, was less moved by his performance.
"I think I can get all the balls," he said simply.
Around the South
Don't look now, but Marquette might be stealing the Conference USA race.
The Golden Eagles have drilled DePaul on the road, upset Cincinnati and knocked off the league's hottest team, South Florida. Their latest conquest came on Wednesday in Milwaukee Brian Wardle's 28 points help beat the Bulls, 72-68.
At 3-0, they're the last unbeaten team in the conference.
If Tom Crean's overachieving crew can pull off the always-difficult mission of winning at Saint Louis this weekend, it comes home for consecutive games against Tulane and Southern Miss. A 6-0 start might be insurmountable, even with a difficult February ahead.
In Conference USA's National Division, Memphis appears to be getting in synch with new coach John Calipari's system at just the right time. The Tigers have won four straight to improve to 8-8 overall and are 2-1 in a scrambled league. The latest victory was over a tanking DePaul team last Saturday.
"The one thing that has happened for us, we are playing better team deffense, we are swarming better, and we are still a great rebounding team," Calipari told the Memphis Commercial Appeal, which is trying to cover the Tigers in between stories on the burgeoning football recruiting scandal in the city.
"For us right now, we are still trying to figure out our team. It's mostly game to game: What do we have to do to stay in games?"
The Tigers continue to play without suspended John Grice and Courtney Trask, who have been out since December for violation of team rules. Calipari said they may be out until February.
Regardless of how this season turns out, Memphis fans have to smile thinking about next year and the arrival of prep savant DaJuan Wagner, who scored 100 points in a game this week. Wagner just might start next year -- if he's eligible, and if he bypasses the NBA Draft.
Storm clouds continue to gather in Louisville, where Hall of Famer Denny Crum is digging in his heels against the growing push for his retirement. It got so bad at the end of the Cardinals' 20-point loss to Cincinnati last Saturday that Crum exchanged words with a Freedom Hall heckler behind the home team's bench.
"There's a lot of crap out there that people are saying," said Crum, whose team is 6-11 and headed for just the third losing season since World War II. "But I don't listen to any of it. Some people out there may think they know more about basketball than I do, but I haven't forgotten how to do things.
"We just need to get a little more experience and add one or two talented players inside -- which we're in the process of doing -- and people will stop talking."
Don't be so sure. This could get ugly by March.
First-year Houston coach Ray McCallum has found the malaise mighty deep in Cougar country.
He's 4-11 with Clyde Drexler's disparate leftovers. Academic problems cost him seniors Kenny Younger and Calvin Murphy Jr. His already-thin team took another hit when McCallum suspended freshman Alton Ford, for unspecified reasons, for a game against Louisville on Wednesday.
The 6-9 Ford arrived with prep All-American hype, but has produced so-so numbers, averaging 8.7 points and 5.5 rebounds. He's shooting just 38.6 percent from the field and 53.7 percent from the line.
Surest sign that Tennessee is still Tennessee: Point guard Tony Harris' line against Kentucky: 4 of 14 from the field, two assists, six turnovers. Harris has played much more intelligently this year, but his relapses (he did the same thing against Virginia) have directly contibuted to the Volunteers' two losses.
Joe Johnson leads Arkansas in scoring (13.4 points) and rebounding (6.5), but those numbers are well below his preseason Player of the Year projections. He's been bothered by ankle and wrist injuries, and the Razorbacks are the biggest disappointment in the league to date at 10-6, 1-3.
Southern Mississippi remains the team most likely to ruin opposing scoring averages. The Golden Eagles haven't given up more than 60 points yet in January, and have only allowed one opponent to top 70 (Arkansas State got 71 in a 76-71 Southern Miss victory).
James Green's team currently is the top C-USA entry in the Sagarin Ratings at No. 22.
Quote to Note
"We got off to a great start, I think one that surprised maybe all of us. I mean, we were really ready to play. ... And then all of a sudden, some spirit from somehwere came into Altron Jackson's body. He went from being a great player to being a superstar against us."
-- Marquette coach Tom Crean, on Jackson's career-high 35 points for South Florida in defeat Wednesday.
Thought of the Week
Anybody seen Charlotte lately?
Pat Forde of the Louisville Courier-Journal is a regular contributor to ESPN.com
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