Does It Smell Like A Swamp In Here To You?

Happy Holidays Eagles fans! The hectic holiday season has certainly taken its toll here at the AU Hoops Blog, but we keep forging ahead as long as our team is playing. My personal apologies for being absent for our last outing against Penn State, as I suspect there were a number of loyal readers wondering what happened to the Penn State preview. Alas, it fell through the great crack of "having family in town", but fear not, for the Florida preview shall suffer no such undignified fate! Find out what happens next after the jump!

So I must admit, the holiday presents starting coming in a little early this year (well, not if you were celebrating Hannukah as I was) with the memorable victory over DePaul. I was still so giddy I turned the other cheek to the disappointing and close loss to UMBC, and despite an abhorrent second half was still pleased with our overall showing against Penn State. I can say with certainty that this is not the same team I was watching fumble through games a month ago. While we've certainly improved, however, I don't think we're quite ready to be making gator-skin shoes out of #18/18 Florida this evening (the humorous image above notwithstanding).

I will, of course, take a sip from the chalice of endless optimism we keep under the desk here at the AU Hoops Blog, and offer my opinion that we will not be blown out of the water - or shall we say, the swamp - by this ranked team. 8-3 Florida only days ago was 8-0 Florida, enjoying a ranking of 10th in the nation. The Gators' first loss was excusable, as they fell to #7 Syracuse of the BIG EAST. The next two losses in their current 3-game slide, however, are not what you might expect...Richmond and South Alabama. That's right, two consecutive losses to mid-major teams. These losses can be attributed to two things - 35% shooting on Florida's part and a complete inability to guard the perimeter after doing incredibly well in the Gators' first eight outings. As luck will have it, our Eagles are on a current hot streak from beyond the arc, making a season-high 50% (8-16) three-point attempts at Penn State (including 4-4 from Hendra), with 22 overall in our last 3 games. While I am certain Florida Coach Billy Donovan has spent the last several days absolutely grilling his team on their 3-point defense, if current trends continue I would even venture to say we have a sporting chance.

Speaking of coaches making adjustments, I have been busy praying to the college basketball gods that whatever Coach Jones is doing or saying during halftime that causes us to go completely (and I am absolutely 100% DEAD) cold in the first 5 minutes of the second half has stopped. This will be the other big factor in this game - even if we outshoot the pants off the Gators in the first half, if we completely stop playing basketball as soon as halftime ends, there go our chances at even keeping this modestly close.

Another notable adjustment that will likely be made this game is our starting lineup. All sources point to Vlad "The Impaler" Moldoveanu finally earning a starting spot after blowing us all away off the bench for the past three contests. Vlad's performances pretty much speak for themselves, as he's averaged a cool 19 points per game since he first became eligible to don an AU uniform. While Vlad is certainly a dynamo and will surely impale many a Gator this evening, this is not a one-man show. It became apparent to this blogger that at Penn State a little too much responsibility was placed on Vlad, and there's no way he can do everything himself (although it damn well looked like it against DePaul). Alternatively, he only saw 17 minutes against UMBC, and we were doing our best when he saw the least play. Finding a good balance with Vlad is key, and one I am sure we can find before Patriot League play. Against an SEC power like Florida, however, we will need all of our big guns for all 40 minutes.

By "big guns", I am talking about another stellar performance from Nick Hendra, who by all means has shown that his early-season slump is behind him. Stephen Lumpkins needs to pull down record rebounds, and finally achieving that second double-double of the season would be nice (not to mention finishing his shots). Riley Grafft needs to stand tall and not get taken down when he's going for the put-back. Blake Jolivette and Danny Munoz need to look the Gators right in the eye and not turn over the ball. Mike Bersch (if he sees play) needs to hit another groove and add some more treys to his resume. I have absolute faith that all of these plays can do these things, and if everyone can fall into a solid groove, we can keep the Gators as honest as they come down in Gainesville.

You are probably also wondering, at this point, who Vlad will be replacing in the starting line. While before I predicted that Vlad would be taking Grafft's spot, instead it looks like he will be replacing a point guard, and Blake Jolivette will get the bump instead. Our projected starters are Vlad, Lumpkins, Grafft, Hendra, and McCormack - a taller (and guard-lighter) lineup than I have seen in quite a while, and hopefully one that can pull off a third straight upset versus the Gators.

One last thing I'd like to point out is that Florida's scouting absolutely sucks. In their official game notes, they exhibited a surprising lack of research when they announced that we retained two starters, and our "leading scorer" Nick Hendra. That's some seriously poor scouting, since Hendra only started a handful of games last season (making him our only "returning starter", if you can call him that), and he was far from our leading scorer. Good job, champs. I can only hope they paid such little attention to Richmond and South Alabama as well.

All in all, I still don't expect us to win this. If we can keep it within 20 again (remember, this is still a ranked team we're facing), I'll call it a moral victory and move on to our upcoming Ivy League competition after New Years. Of course, if we do pull off the largest upset for our team in almost three decades (last time we pulled down a ranked opponent was Georgetown in 1982), then I won't complain about being wrong.

Tipoff is at 7 PM tomorrow in Gainesville, and video can be found online from ESPN here, audio here and the gametracker here. I will tentatively say that we will have another great liveblog running here at the AU Hoops Blog as well, although some of that holiday season craziness might unfortunately pull us away. For any of our readers who will be at the game, feel free to send us any pictures you take at AUHoopsBlog@gmail.com and we will be sure to post them in our recap. See you all (fingers crossed) later this evening while we (fingers crossed tighter) shock Gator Nation on their home court!

Pro Deo Et Patria and GO EAGLES,
Josh