Billy Donovan has to slow the pace to keep his three stars fresh.
By ANTONYA ENGLISH
Published March 12, 2004
ATLANTA - His signature style is the up-tempo, pressing and running game he learned while an assistant at Kentucky then molded into his own with Florida. But don't expect to see a lot of fastbreaks and serious pressing from Billy Donovan's Gators anymore this season.
The departure of forward Christian Drejer three weeks ago and a roster filled with freshmen still struggling with their roles will force the Gators to continue a trend of more zone play when they begin play in the SEC tournament tonight.
It's an effort to survive with a team relying heavily on just three players: junior David Lee and sophomores Anthony Roberson and Matt Walsh.
The three are averaging 28, 31 and 33 minutes, respectively, and with the possibility of playing back-to-back days in tournament competition, Donovan knows it's critical to find a way to keep those players on the court.
"For me personally, I would like to play more man to man and would like to press, but sometimes it doesn't finish out that way," Donovan said. "I think this time of year you've got to be able to play in different ways. The one thing (zone) does is, not that they can rest, but they can cover a certain area of the floor instead of having to cover the whole floor man to man. I think from a fatigue standpoint that helps those guys, knowing I've got to keep them on the floor so many minutes."
Although the change isn't new, it's one the players still are adjusting to, not the ideal situation heading into postseason play.
"For the most part, Anthony and I have been playing man to man since we've been here so it's going to be an adjustment any time you switch like that," said Walsh, who is averaging 16.1 points. "But we are getting used to it."
A year ago, Roberson and Walsh dominated the regular season beyond even Donovan's expectations, but by the time the postseason rolled around they had nothing left. Experience and extra emphasis on conditioning helped.
"I feel like it's a new season, I feel great right now," Roberson said. "I think I'm in pretty good shape, my body feels good. This time last year I couldn't tell you that."
Roberson went 3-for-12 and 0-for-6 in his two postseason games last season. Walsh, who admits "by this time last year, I had no legs," was 4-for-8 and 2-for-6. This year the two say they are better equipped to handle it. They really don't have a choice.
Donovan has said he needs to have two of those three players on the floor at all times, though that's not always possible. Roberson picked up two fouls in the first two minutes of Sunday's Kentucky game, which forced Donovan to sub early.
"There are situations when we have to play man to man and we obviously can't afford to get our guys in foul trouble," Donovan said. "That's a concern. ... But if we play zone there's less running around. So from a defensive standpoint we are going to have to mix it up with man and zone."
Playing more of that style may help lower the fatigue factor, but it poses other problems for the Gators, particularly rebounding. Florida was outrebounded 53-26 at Kentucky. It's a lesser of two evils Donovan is willing to accept.
"The toughest thing for those guys out of the zone is to rebound," he said. "Generally you're not a great rebounding team out of the zone because you're trying to block out an area and sometimes guys are vacating an area and someone's coming in so you can kind of get confused a little bit. And generally teams are going to shoot jump shots over top, which leads to long rebounds.
"But I think they are doing a pretty good job. If you look at the field-goal percentage over the last five games, outside of Kentucky, we've done a pretty good job defending teams. Teams are shooting around 40 percent (from the field) and below 30 percent from the 3-point line. So if we can hold teams around 40 percent every game, we're generally going to be in the game and have a chance to win."
