Good article on the Florida b-ball team and their struggles from last year.
Coach Billy Donovan thought that his team had a sense of entitlement last year. Here are some pieces from the article:
"More than anything, more than the sense of entitlement from those two trophies and false hope brought on by a fast start, that was the crux of Florida's problem last year: Billy Donovan talked and no one listened.
No one heard a man with three Final Fours to his credit when he said they weren't practicing hard enough. No one listened when a guy who coached seven NBA first-round draft picks suggested their defense was awful. No one believed the first coach to win back-to-back national titles in the last 15 years when he told them their offense wasn't nearly as good as they believed.
The Gators' ignorance was short-lived bliss and their ultimate downfall. "It's what you buy into and that's where I was really disappointed in myself, that I wasn't able to get them to buy into what the truth was," Donovan said.
For 21 glorious games it looked easy. Florida rolled to an 18-3 start and a No. 19 ranking. The dynasty was intact, the freight train running smoothly, chugging directly back to the NCAA tournament.
Donovan didn't see it that way. He hated the way his players practiced, and was less thrilled with the way they acted before a game. They weren't focused or intense. For four years his practices were like turf wars -- David Lee pushed Noah; Anthony Roberson schooled Taurean Green; Matt Walsh took it to Corey Brewer.
These guys weren't disrespectful or uncoachable, but no matter what Donovan said it was like they were pointing to that W-L mark and yelling back "Scoreboard."
"It was, 'We got this, Coach'," Donovan said. "It was overconfidence. You want your kids to be confident, to have that swagger, but these kids had the swagger without doing the work. If you had asked them in mid-January if they were in the NCAA tournament, they'd say, 'Oh, definitely.' I knew we weren't in, not even close."
