No Respect for SEC Hoops as Gators Hide

GoneGator    College Basketball, Florida Gators     Billy Donovan, Jeremy Foley, Nick Calathes

I’m not sure what to make of the fact that as conference play began in earnest this week, the SEC was getting absolutely no respect (at least on the men’s side).

This week’s AP poll featured only one SEC team: Tennessee, hanging on at No. 24 (and certainly out of next week’s poll after its blowout loss to Kentucky at home last night). The coaches’ poll was completely void of SEC schools. And it’s hard for anyone down South to complain.

Oh, where have you gone, Florida Gators?

Remember them, the back-to-back NCAA champions in 2006 and ’07? As of this writing, Florida may have the league’s best overall record at 14-2, but it doesn’t have a signature victory (unless you want to count a road win at UWashington back in November). The Gators lost their highest profile games — to Syracuse (89-83) and Florida State (57-55).

Florida is a long way from getting any sort of Top 25 consideration.

And for that, I blame Billy Donovan and Florida A.D. Jeremy Foley. God love ‘em, but they did the program no favors this season by lining up a pathetically weak pre-conference schedule for the second year in a row.

A pattycake slate made sense last season, after losing all five starters from its national-title teams. But this year? With so many players returning from a team that made it to the 2008 NIT Final Four, there was little reason for the Gators to crawl into the season like a bunch of newbies. Donovan should have set them up with plenty of challenges to toughen them for an NCAA run in 2009.

I mean, really … Southern Utah? Florida Gulf Coast? Stetson? Longwood? Couldn’t the Gators have replaced a couple of those games with major-conference matchups on national TV?

The only way Nick Calathes and Co. are going to learn what it takes to win championships is to compete against championship-caliber teams. They did little of that leading up to this SEC season. As things stand, I believe the Gators need to win 11 or 12 regular-season conference games to earn NCAA Tournament at-large consideration. In a down year for the SEC, that certainly is achievable.

And if Florida doesn’t make the Big Dance this year?

Fans mights start wishing Donovan had not left the Orlando Magic at the altar.