NCDS: Rob Lanier, Asst. Coach - Florida
By: Rob Lanier, Asst. Coach - Florida
In my last entry I mentioned our heartbreaking defeat at
Tennessee by one point. We followed that loss with an exciting
last second road win at Alabama. Then we returned home to face a
formidable Mississippi State team lead by the nation's leading shot
blocker, Jarvis Varnado.
Our starting center, Vernon Macklin stepped up and had the best
game of his career to that point to lead us to a critical home win.
That set us up for a big week. A Feb 10th road game at South
Carolina led by Devin Downey followed by a late season non
conference game vs Xavier on Feb 13th. It turned out to be a
very disappointing week. A tough loss at South Carolina was
followed by a nationally televised performance versus Xavier where
we were dominated for the majority of the game.
Xavier's combination of speed, experience, toughness and depth
proved to be too much for us on that night. They were coming off a
very decisive loss at Dayton with a full week to prepare for our
game. They were well prepared and obviously very determined.
With so much talk this time of year about the NCAA tournament and
who's in or out there's no denying that the two game losing
streak weighed heavily on our team mentally.
We haven't talked much about the NCAA tournament with our team. We
have tried to keep the focus on improving each day. So in the
aftermath of the Xavier loss, we have tried to use their dominance
over us to narrow our focus even more on the things that go into
winning. Our guys have responded very well and have since
won three consecutive games. We beat a tough perimeter
oriented Auburn team at home on thurs Feb 18th (7pm ET) and
followed that, on a very quick turn around (11am CT on Feb 20th),
with a hard fought road win at Ole Miss. It was our third quick
Thurs/Sat turn around and we came away 6-0.
It was important because it was not a great performance
statistically. We shot theball poorly, turned it over at critical
times, gave up the lead late, and got out rebounded. We won the
game, though with mental toughness and made huge free throws down
the stretch to seal the win.
So that set us up for a return home on Feb 23rd vs No#17 Tennessee.
The Volunteers are so well coached. They do a great job of
identifying how they're being defended and taking advantage of your
defense. They, quite frankly, have had our number over the past
several seasons so this was a huge game for us. We got out to a
fast start before Tennessee made run and took control in the first
half. We responded late, finished the half strong and went into the
locker room at halftime tied at 37.
We followed with a strong second half defensively and got a much
needed win over a very good team on National television. So at 20-8
and 9-5 in the SEC there is the speculation about our positioning
for the NCAA tournament.
We know we can't shield our players from all the talk but after the
disappointment following the Xavier loss we worked very hard to
remain focused on continuing to improve. Now the challenge is to
maintain that same mindset after having some success, which can
sometimes be more difficult.
We have a tough remaining schedule with games at Georgia, at home
vs Vanderbilt and at Kentucky before the SEC tournament. So,
although it sounds cliche', we need totake it one game at a time.
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