GAINESVILLE, Fla. – As the Gators start to enter the final fourth of their season, they are in a difficult situation: the bubble. With eight games remaining, and losers of three straight, Florida sits as one of the first four out, according to ESPN’s bracketology.
“We’re in a spot right now where it’s a lot of uncertainty right now so we have to pick things up,” senior forward Jalen Hudson said. "And in order to do that we have to start with today.
“We don’t really know what’s gonna happen. We can’t really call it. Some people are saying first four out, first four in, whatever the case may be, but all we can control is what we can control today so that’s what we’re trying to handle."
Florida is coming off its toughest stretch of the season with losses against seventh-ranked Kentucky, at Auburn, and at top-ranked Tennessee - that can weigh on a team if they allow it to affect them mentally.
The Gators are not letting that drive their focus.
“It just depends on how you look at it. If we sit here and mope and whine about it, it’ll carry over to our Vanderbilt performance,” head coach Mike White said Tuesday. We’re not going there. The season is far from over. I liked our approach (in practice) yesterday.
“This is a team I’ve fought at different times in the film room, in practices. We’ve had to coach effort at times with certain guys, with certain veterans, which has been discouraging at times. Our culture hasn’t been where it’s been in the past," added White.
“We’ve had our struggles this year. We’re not getting a lot of production from our bench. They’ve been challenged for a while. I will say yesterday was our best practice in about a month.
“I don’t know how much of a factor that will have tomorrow, or even today. The goal is, ‘Now, let’s have another really good one.’ But good teams have that most days. Great teams have it every day. And us, with some of the deficiencies we have, we need to hang our hat on that. I liked the day we had yesterday.”
Next up is Vanderbilt. Vandy comes to town still searching for its first conference win all season, and although the Commodores are 0-10 in the SEC this season, they are still a tough matchup, especially with their length against a smaller Gators team.
They have always given Florida problems. White is 1-6 so far against Vanderbilt in his time here and Florida cannot take them lightly Wednesday.
“They’re all important,” White said of this upcoming stretch of games. "Home. Road. It’s the next one. It’s Vandy. It’s a team that’s really their way against us the last few years.It’s an opportunity to get better. Opportunity to bounce back. Opportunity to continue to develop and grow. Opportunity for an SEC win, potentially, depending on how well we play.
“They’re all important. Anytime you’re home, it’s of the utmost importance in this league to put your best foot forward and give yourself a chance.”
The 12-11 Gators are not happy with their season so far, but for all their struggles there is still time to turn things around and close out this season on the highest note they can even after dropping three straight and four out of their last five.
“It’s kind of like a newfound energy,” Hudson said of Monday’s practice. Kind of went through a rough patch here in the last couple weeks, I would say, more so the last week-and-a-half.
“We’re just really not happy with where we’re at right now as a team, so we just want to be able to control what we can control, and one of those thing is energy. We can’t really control what happened in the past, and so all we an control is today, so that’s kind of what we tried to do.”
