White ‘holding my breath,’ hoping UF stays healthy
GAINESVILLE — If the Gators can stay healthy, this will be a basketball team that can come at you in waves.
Every time a ball hits the floor and players follow it, Mike White winces a little bit.
The Florida basketball coach is expected to field his deepest of his four Florida teams this season, but after last year, when he lost most of his frontcourt to injuries, White is a little paranoid about injuries.
“I’m just hoping we can remain healthy until November,” White said last week during the SEC coaches’ summer teleconference. “I’m holding my breath every time there is a loose ball and guys are hitting the floor, every time there is a mosh pit under the basket and guys are fighting for a rebound.
“We’re trying to be creative in the longevity of practice and the physicality, but we also know we did very, very little contact in last year’s preseason and feel like it backfired a little bit from a defensive and rebounding standpoint. So healthier today (and) hopefully we are as healthy in a month and so on and so forth.”
In other words, go hard but not too hard.
If the Gators can stay healthy, this will be a team that can come at you in waves. The Gators added three freshmen, including highly touted guard Andrew Nembhard; Jalen Hudson chose to play his senior year rather than enter the NBA draft; and Chase Johnson and Isaiah Stokes are on the road back to playing.
Johnson missed almost all of last year with a pair of concussions and Stokes the entire season after knee surgery. Add in the physical limitations of Gorjak Gak, who had surgery in April, (not to mention missing John Egbunu the entire season) and Florida was hurting on the frontline.
“Stokes is cleared to play in the half court, and he has done a lot of competing,” White said. “He’s gotta get in much better condition. We’re hoping that by November, he’s a guy who can go through a two-hour practice.
“Chase Johnson is terrific physically. He’s ready to go. And Gak is working his butt off, and they are very optimistic he could perhaps be back a little quicker than expected, maybe early September.”
If all goes well, the Gators would have a full complement of 13 scholarship players built around the nucleus of Hudson, KeVaughn Allen, Keith Stone and Kevarrius Hayes.
“There’s no question about it,” White said. “We’ll have a much better chance at healthy competition. More productive practices. More depth hopefully. We will be able to play a couple of different ways, which we weren’t capable of doing last year.”
Last year, Florida reached the Round of 32 of the NCAA Tournament and finished third in a much-improved SEC that sent eight teams to the Dance.
The league only promises to be better this season with so many players choosing to return to college and some of the nation’s best recruiting classes coming in.
“It’s only going to make our league more powerful,” said Vanderbilt coach Bryce Drew. “It’s a great compliment to our league (the players coming back) because they know the league will be better next year and they will be playing against draft picks on a nightly basis.”