Drejer may be best of bunch
Nelson struggling to rediscover game
The ball is a yo-yo in his hands, been that way since he was 4 years old. Bouncing that thing in the house or outside church, on the bus or in a foot of snow, or in a rec center so humid that the wood floor would sweat as much as those fiery gym rats. A day didn't pass where they didn't talk about "Peep" making money playing this game.
So Anthony "Peep" Roberson arrives in Gainesville last summer as an all-everything star-in-waiting with a tattoo on his arm that proclaims "I love this game." His first pickup game with his new Florida teammates ends when he makes a game-winning, twine-spinning 3-pointer. Like anyone is surprised.
The next thing you know, there's Roberson, all 6 feet, 180 pounds of him, standing face to chin with 6-10, 240 senior forward Matt Bonner, jawing and yapping like he's still in that clammy gym in Saginaw, Mich.
Bonner, who himself was once a hotshot recruit of coach Billy Donovan, knew this was coming. This is freshman orientation for Chemistry 101. Some learn harder than others. Bonner tells "Peep" he may as well be "poop" -- a story that quickly makes its way around college basketball.
"Everybody was Mr. Everything where they were," Bonner says. "You're nothing here until you earn it."
Or in this case, learn it. A few months later, Roberson is in the middle of another situation involving an upperclassman. Guard Brett Nelson can't find his game, which once was so limitless, and Donovan calls Roberson into his office and tells him he will start over Nelson. Roberson's response: "You can't do that to Brett; he's a senior."
And another day goes by in Donovan's balancing act, juggling talent, egos and personalities. College sports live off of emotion and motivation -- and a strange, subtle and significant thing called chemistry. It is a big reason games are won and lost and little things often morph into the unexplainable. Chemistry is the reason the line between champs and chumps isn't as wide as you would think.
Last year, when a lack of chemistry was palpable, things went haywire for Florida at the worst time. Two days after Selection Sunday, reserve guard LaDarius Halton, who left the program after last season to play overseas, punched Nelson in practice, fracturing Nelson's right cheekbone. Then the team fell apart in a first-round NCAA (news - web sites) Tournament loss to underdog Creighton. Nelson played but was horrible. Reliable point guard Justin Hamilton slipped and turned the ball over with less than a minute to play. Guard Orien Greene forgot to call timeout on an inbounds pass with seconds remaining, leading to another turnover. Creighton's Terrell Taylor, a reserve who averaged 12.6 points in the regular season, lit up the Gators for all 28 of his points in the second half and overtime, including an off-balance game-winning 3-pointer that mercifully ended a Gators season full of close and confounding losses.
For every action, there is reaction. For every team filled with good chemistry, there's another treading in bad karma.
"It's pretty easy to see where we were last year," Donovan says.
That makes this season all the more gratifying. A roster of overflowing talent is swimming in tranquility. The Gators go 10 deep, and the second five probably would win 15 to 18 games. Roberson scored 20 points in 20 minutes against Vanderbilt, then took five shots the following game. Reserve power forward Bonell Colas, who probably would start for nine of the other 11 SEC teams, scored 16 points in a road win over South Carolina, then played 8 minutes in the following game. Freshman Christian Drejer, the team's most talented player, is healthy again after an early ankle injury but can't get minutes.
"Everybody gets their chance," freshman Matt Walsh says. "You have to be patient and take advantage of it."
It's sweet symphony in a game that has evolved into a me-first world. The doors open to the Florida locker room, and the only things wider than the gulf between last season and this season are the smiles on the players' mugs after yet another victory. The Gators (18-2) had won a school-record 14 straight heading into a showdown at Kentucky earlier this week. It is a streak built with a bond of cohesion and chemistry. After a game, you can find Donovan off to the side, quietly talking to a player who didn't get as much playing time as he probably should have.
"The most important thing to developing chemistry is the players have to believe the coach is being fair," Donovan says. "There has to be constant communication. If we win and you're in the corner pouting because you didn't play, you're telling the whole team what's going on with you is more important than anything else."
Florida got better in the offseason not only by adding five talented freshmen but by subtracting two players who didn't quite fit Donovan's mold. He wants players who can shoot and run and dive on the floor and take charges. Roberson and Walsh are the epitome of gym rats. Former McDonald's All-American James White and Greene were not. Donovan says he has no ill feelings toward White, who transferred to Cincinnati, or Greene, who transferred to Louisiana-Lafayette. But as Bonner says, "We had a couple of guys last year who had a little gas in their can." Chemistry is as much about finding what works as it is finding what doesn't.
Even Donovan has made changes. When he arrived at Florida, he recruited players who could get up and down the court and dictate the pace of games with their athleticism. The Gators pressed on defense with the sole purpose of forcing the game into a hectic tempo. The more controlled chaos, the easier it was to hide Florida's weaknesses.
Donovan now focuses on recruiting players with "high basketball IQs." He wants players who know about spacing on the floor and ball screens -- and who know when to call timeout on an inbounds play. The offense has moved from the low post to a high-post, perimeter-based game; the defense from fullcourt pressing to halfcourt trapping.
"They have guys who like to get dirty," says Maryland coach Gary Williams, whose team lost to Florida in December. "When you play smart and you play hard, you're going to win a lot of games -- and maybe some you shouldn't."
Last month at South Carolina, the Gators played one of their worst games of the season, shooting 40.0 percent to the Gamecocks' 50.0 percent. Still, Florida sealed a 77-75 victory with a backdoor pass from Walsh to Bonner. A backdoor pass. When Florida made its run to the national title game in 2000, it had center Donnell Harvey, who could walk the length of the court on his hands but couldn't remember where he needed to be on "51 Flat" or "41," low-post plays designed specifically to exploit his athleticism around the basket. It had forward Brent Wright, who could handle any of the five positions on the press but failed to box out on a game-winning tip a year earlier in a Sweet 16 loss to Gonzaga.
This team has Roberson, who is good enough to be earning the praise Duke freshman J.J. Redick is receiving but couldn't care less about his relative anonymity. It has David Lee, a 6-9 forward who weighs 240 pounds but plays like he's 265, with his understanding of positioning for rebounds and post moves. It has Walsh, who played point guard all of his life until a freakish growth spurt in high school (5-10 to 6-6) gave the Gators a point forward with a deadly shot and uncanny passing ability.
Florida is a team that is so deep and so fundamentally talented that practices are as tough as games.
"Violent," Lee says. "Everyone is fighting to extend and defend because everyone can shoot."
That, as much as anything, is the biggest difference between last season and this one -- and is why the Gators will be one of the nation's most dangerous teams in the NCAA Tournament next month. A team that shoots well is one that plays with confidence, something the Gators lacked in the second half of last season. A team with confidence is invariably a team cooking with chemistry and harmony.
"You knew what they were doing last year," says Georgia coach Jim Harrick. "But they can get points from anywhere on the floor this year. Winning cures a lot of those (chemistry) problems."
Matt Hayes is a staff writer for the Sporting News. Email him at mhayes@sportingnews.com.
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