SLUMPING GATORS HOPE TO REBOUND
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — With his program mired in its worst slump in five years, University of Florida baseball coach Kevin O’Sullivan wanted his players to hear a different voice.
Thumbing through the contacts list on his phone, one name stood out: Oklahoma City Thunder coach Billy Donovan, who led the Florida men’s basketball program from 1996 to 2015 before leaving for the NBA.
Donovan happened to be in town, so O’Sullivan lined up the high-profile guest to speak to his team Wednesday.
What his players got was a clear message about dealing with adversity. Donovan used an example from his time in Gainesville, when the basketball Gators dropped three of four games — all of the losses by double digits — down the stretch in 2007 but regrouped in the postseason by winning 10 straight to repeat as national champions.
“I thought there were a lot of similarities,” O’Sullivan said. “I think he was really helpful.”
O’Sullivan’s team hopes for the same sort of turnaround. The top-seeded baseball Gators (42-17) begin their quest to repeat as national champions in NCAA regional play today having lost six of their past seven games, all since clinching the Southeastern Conference’s regularseason title.
Their coach figures it’s human nature to have a letdown, especially during a pressure-packed season, but he hopes to avoid a total collapse. Florida opens against Ivy League champion Columbia (20-28), one of two teams in the tournament with a losing record. Jacksonville (39-19) and Florida Atlantic (40-17) round out the four-team regional in Gainesville.
But the Gators will garner most of the attention, and for good reason.
Ace Brady Singer, expected to be a top-five pick in next week’s MLB draft, is scheduled to return Saturday after missing two weeks with a strained left hamstring. All-SEC catcher J.J. Schwarz, a senior and the team’s captain, remains sidelined with a broken bone in his right hand. And SEC player of the year Jonathan India is in a slump, hitting .190 with two RBIs over the past six games. The usually surehanded third baseman also has committed five errors in the past four outings, so he’s glad to have “basically a clean slate.”
“We didn’t really battle much adversity this year, so every team is going to go through it at one point,” said India, also projected to be a first-round draft selection. “We’re going through it now. It’s just the cards we’ve been dealt. We’ve got to get that focus back and play like we did at the beginning of the year.”
The Gators looked like a lock to make it to the College World Series just a few weeks ago. They won 19 consecutive weekend series, the last one coming against Georgia and clinching the SEC title.
Little has gone right since. They were swept at Mississippi State to close the regular season, squeaked past LSU in their SEC tournament opener, then were outscored 19-2 in consecutive losses to Arkansas and LSU.
O’Sullivan soon will find out what impact Donovan’s speech might have made.
“I didn’t know he was the loud, fiery guy that he is, but it was really incredible,” Singer said. “He said you can either overcome that adversity or let it shut you down. I think we’re still 100 percent confident. We’ve just got to play like we had been playing and kind of wipe off what’s happened the past two weeks. I don’t think we’re going to have a problem with it.”
All-Americans
Singer, a junior, was one of six starting pitchers selected to the Collegiate Baseball All-America Team announced Thursday.
Georgia Tech junior catcher Joey Bart also made the list, with Tennessee Tech junior Kevin Strohschein honored as the designated hitter.