Pat Dooley’s Back Nine: Florida Men’s Basketball Is Good

The Back Nine comes to you after another perfect Gainesville weekend that included something I didn’t think we would see.

10. On Saturday morning at the gym I was thinking about how the first item in this column should be about the Super Bowl instead of Florida basketball. That’s how little confidence I had in the mighty Gators playing against the No. 1 team in the country in front of the toughest crowd in the SEC. Then, they announced that Alijah Martin was out. Then they started by falling down 10 points. So, it was all playing out. And then Florida outscored Auburn 63-32 over the next 20 minutes. There was a point where all Gator fans had to be saying, “How is this happening?” I’ll tell you how it happened – these guys are good.

11. And by these guys, I mean the program as a whole. Todd Golden talked about it as being a great program win and I couldn’t agree more. This was the trainer and assistant coaches and massage therapists and Duke Werner and student managers and all of the dudes wearing white quarter-zips. This was Denzel Aberdeen again stepping up and Urban Klavzar hitting all three of his 3-point attempts and Thomas Haugh doing Thomas Haugh things and Walt, ooooohhhh my, Walter Clayton Jr. That was a show. Anyway, the Gator Nation should be proud of a team that is one of five in the history of basketball to beat a No. 1 team at home and a No. 1 team on the road.

12. Hey, it doesn’t get any easier with a quick turnaround to play Mississippi State on the road Tuesday night. The Bulldogs also understand what it would mean to beat a team with Florida’s resume. The funny thing is that Florida is in the weird place where its NET and KenPom rankings didn’t change despite the fact they beat No. 1 on the road.

13. Before I go any further and talk about what happened Sunday, I want to talk about what happened earlier in the weekend. Mary Wise decided to step down as Florida’s volleyball coach. The numbers only tell part of her story – 987 wins, 25 SEC titles, eight Final Fours. I was able to cover several of those, but Mary Wise was more than a coach. She could not have been better to the media and she was also a friend. I’ll miss seeing her on the court, but will definitely see her elsewhere.

14. You know, we probably should have seen this Super Bowl result coming. The Chiefs ran out of breaks and played against the best roster in football – put together by a UF grad. Howie Roseman, the Eagles GM, had the best offseason in the NFL and it showed up in the playoffs. For the most part, the Super Bowl was Eagles domination followed by commercials where you had to guess what they were for and what they were selling.

15. Dr. Football wanted the last game of the year (the UFL? Please. Don’t.) to be a gem, but we got something kind of like the college football title game. The team with the best players won and it wasn’t close. But I did pick the Eagles, so I finished the seasons with a winning record in college and the NFL. That’s what I’m talking about.

16. It was a rough Friday night for the gymnastics team at Arkansas with two falls on the beam contributing mightily to the final score. They’ll shrug it off, because it is early February and I’m sure it will be a packed crowd for the home meet Friday at 8:15 p.m. in the Link To Pink meet against Auburn.

17. But it was a great weekend for the softball team as it started the season 6-0. Keagan Rothrock still hasn’t allowed an earned run and they were swatting the ball all over the place down on Tampa. Florida has outscored its opponents 53-8 and now comes home to flex at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium for the week starting Tuesday against Jax at 6.

18. Have you ever had a round of golf where you hit shots and started laughing at how well you were playing? That happened to me Friday when I hit seven greens during nine holes at Ironwood. I also had this playlist to keep me humming:

• “Don’t Fade Away” by Beach Fossils.
• “Audacious” by Franz Ferdinand.
• And for an old one, “I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)” by the Electric Prunes.

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.