Pat Dooley’s Back Nine: Uninspired Effort By Florida Men’s Basketball

The Back Nine comes at you after a be-a-you-ti-ful weekend. That’s the way they would sing it on WGGG when I was a kid and it stuck with me.

10. What was not beautiful, of course, was the way Florida played in Knoxville. Todd Golden called it “atrocious”, but I call it uninspired. These guys knew they had to win a game in the 60s, but didn’t seem to want that. Instead, they looked flat and intimidated and lost by 20. They couldn’t get good shots so they started taking bad ones. The three guards scored 18 points and needed 27 shots to get there. They were outrebounded and had almost twice as many turnovers as the Vols. So, yeah, uninspired.

11. But here is the thing – every team has a bad game once in a while. The key is to hold home court and that chance comes Tuesday night against Vanderbilt. Vandy is good enough to beat Florida if the Gators don’t re-fire the pilot light. Home court is so important that Florida did not drop a single spot in either the NET Rankings or the KenPom, because the loss was to a top-10 team on the road.

12. But you know who did lose its place in the rankings? Kentucky lost badly at home and fell nine spots in the NET. Yes, they booed coach John Calipari and he stuck it right to the Big Blue Nation. Cal joked that he thought his team was losing because he kept looking at the Kentucky score on the board.

13. These are the dog days of college basketball, and they will soon be over as Florence and the Machine sing. We saw it Saturday when 11 ranked teams lost, tying the all-time record. There was head-butting and a Hurley (pick one) making headlines for accusing the opponent of “no class” and an AD losing his mind over the ejection of one of his players and a coach (see: Texas Tech) and Kansas blowing the biggest lead it has ever blown.  I worry that some of these guys are going to burn out before the Big Dance, especially in the cannibalistic SEC.

14. This is the parity we have now – only two major conference teams are unbeaten in conference games, Auburn and Duke. Let’s just let them play for the fun of it. They are clearly the best two teams. And after that whooping Duke put on North Carolina, is Hubert Davis in trouble?

15. The NBA was exploding with the big trade of injury-prone Anthony Davis to the Mavs for Luka Doncic. The Mavs know Doncic has a max contract (along with questionable conditioning) coming up so they dumped him in LA. Davis is a great player, but he gets hurt checking the mail. The rest of the league is beside itself saying, “How do the Lakers always make these kinds of trades and why was it not offered to us?”

16. It’s time for the final prediction of the season for the NFL and I’m making the call and putting all of my pretend money earned from the college version of The Picks on the line here. I’m taking the Eagles and the 1.5 points. I’ll be rooting for the Chiefs, but I understand the Chiefs Fatigue. My wife went from wanting to have a Super Bowl party, to wanting to go out somewhere and pregame party to not wanting to even watch the game because she is over the Chiefs thing. Hey, I’m just rooting for the laundry and Playoff Pat.

17. Florida’s gymnastics team woke up in Morgantown, West Virginia on Groundhog Day and saw a shadow so we have six more weeks of winter. Well, we don’t. Anyway, it was a good win against No. 4 Utah (and West Virginny) even without its best stuff. There were some mistakes – especially on beam – but LeAnne Wong won her 16^th career all-around title and the Gators prevailed. Next up is a trip to Arkansas on Friday on the SEC Network.

18. I stayed true to what I said on The Tailgate that if the Gators lost I was not going to watch the rest of hoops Saturday. Instead, I had this great playlist in the gym:

• “Bohemian Like You” by The Dandy Warhols.
• “Big Dreams” by Cut Glass Kings.
• And for an old one, “You and I Will Meet Again” by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.  My favorite song from “Into the Great Wide Open.” Yeah, I still really miss Tommy.

WRUF.com sports columnist Pat Dooley can be heard on “The Tailgate” along with Jeff Cardozo from 4-6 p.m. Monday-Friday on 98.1-FM/AM-850 WRUF.