Bryant’s tragic death has ‘crushed’ Gators

GAINESVILLE — A day after falling to top-ranked Baylor at home, the Florida Gators struggled to deal with a much more difficult loss during Sunday’s practice.

The tragic death of superstar Kobe Bryant, along with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven other people, following a helicopter crash outside Los Angeles reverberated all the way to Gainesville.

“We were coming out of film and we heard that he had passed, and then a few minutes later we heard about his daughter,” UF coach Mike White said Monday. “It was really … it was tough in the gym for a little bit. We had to do our best to get our guys to refocus. Our guys were crushed.”

The 41-year-old Bryant won the fifth of his NBA titles in 2010 when most of the Gators were in grade school.

“I watched like a few of his games on TV, but I didn’t really grow up on him, more like LeBron [James],” sophomore forward Keyontae Johnson. “I just want to pray a lot for his family.”

Despite the generational gap, UF sophomore Andrew Nembhard is familiar with Bryant’s historic body of work — James passed him Saturday to become the NBA’s third all-time leading scorer — and legendary drive to be the best.

“Just something I kinda took from him was just his work, work ethic, something that I think everybody listened to him for,” Nembhard said. “He kinda drove that kinda sense of the game for sure.”

Nembhard said while he was a standout at Montverde Academy, he consumed Bodyarmor SuperDrink because Bryant did.

“Just stuff like that, he’s just kinda influenced all those times,” Nembhard said.

The 42-year-old White said even though he was Kobe’s contemporary and makes a living through basketball, the Gators’