It's been 20 years since I first sat in Section G, Row 15, Seat 12.  I remember a lot of odd things from the early years, players like Vernon Maxwell, Dwayne Schintzus, Livingston Chatman, Brian Hogan.  Growing up in Gainesville, we all pretended to be Stacy Poole.  The 7 win season under Don Devoe, when the entire O'Dome booed as they said his name during introductions.  The way the male cheerleaders held up the females in a swimming position, and they went around the court to the Jaws theme, acting as if they were swimming away from an alligator.  The student section used to all act like they were reading the newspaper when the announcer said the opposing team's starting lineups.  The way Shaq entered the gymnasium for pregame warm-ups with LSU.  Someone making a sign involving the Mavericks' old logo and Jamal Mashburn's name.  Everyone chanting Vince Carter's name on a recruiting visit.

In those days I got to the O'Dome an hour early with my Grandpa.  We stopped off at the Krispy Kreme tent (concessions there now, for all the on court success, are terrible), and watched warm ups, the band, everything.  The only part of the game he stood was during the Dazzlers show at halftime.

Of course, my last season sitting in those seats every game was the fall I finished my Master's, I really tried to drag it out as long as I could.  We started off the season 17-0, and that team was a lot of fun to watch.  Once I got out to Texas, I could not get almost any of their games (ESPN FullCourt didn't pick them up, and they weren't on National TV more than 2 or 3 times).  That team won the first National Title in Florida Basketball history.  Essentially the same team won the second, which is incredible.  To think that when I got my Bachelor's the joke was Georgia Tech had won more SEC basketball Tournaments than Florida.  Matt Walsh, David Lee, and Anthony Roberson took care of that, and the 04's took care of the rest.  It really is amazing to see how far we've come.

This year, I've purchased ESPN FullCourt.  Even though Walter Hodge and Mareese Speights are the only guys casual fans had heard of before the year, ESPN chose us to be aired essentially every game (I'd have to check the schedule, but I believe the lone holdout is the game even Sunshine is broadcasting on tape delay- Georgia?).  I can't say I understand how they figure this out, but I'm glad to be able to watch.  Even if the picture is an insult to my beautiful HDTV.  I can still tell the difference between Adam Allen and Chandler Parsons better than Larry Vittel.

As sort of a kick-off to the time period when most fans will really pick up interest in the basketball team, I thought I'd give some insight to how the first few games have gone.  As low as expectations are for this year, I was still feeling physically sick during the FSU game.  I like to think I somewhat behaved myself, as the in-laws were in town for Thanksgiving, but you'd have to ask my wife.  I do not take Florida losses very well.  Especially ones in which we don't do anything remotely resembling good basketball.

All in all, this year's team is fun to watch and worth your time, but it's hard to gauge where we fit in nationally, as we've played a lot of bad teams.  But I remember days when how we fit in nationally wasn't even part of the equation.  Either way, we did play really well in beating Rutgers (an opponent at least people may have heard of), but it lead to a premature national ranking.  We should be exciting come tournament time, but any sort of accomplishment like a Sweet 16 or SEC tournament championship should be considered a great achievement, rather than an expectation.

Anyway, here is a short rundown of all you need to know to begin following this year's team (think of it as 07-08 Florida Basketball for Dummies, for those of you who haven't been paying attention yet):

The starting 5 has been Hodge, Jai Lucas, Nick Calathes, Dan Werner, and Speights.  One Junior, 2 freshmen, and 2 Sophomores.  We have gotten significant scoring contribution from Allen and Parsons, both around 6-8 with good 3 point range, and freshmen.  Alex Tyus (the last freshman) is the only real post player we have coming off the bench, though we have a lot of guys in the 6-7, 6-8 range that we play at the 4.  Jonathan Mitchell, a sophomore from New York, has been playing better lately (Donovan treated him, minutes-wise, as a borderline walk-on in a few early games), and needs to develop defensively to get on the floor, but more on that later.  The final count for our roster is 1 Junior, 3 Sophomores, and 5 Freshmen- only 9 scholarship players.  Even all 3 of our walk-ons are new.  I don't know much about them, except 'Shane Payne' is a cool name, and Weisenberg apparently never played even HS basketball- some guys on the team convinced Donovan to try him out after playing pick-up games with him at Southwest Rec.

Speights has looked really good at times, but I think he's the type of player that needs a big, physical running mate in the front court.  He's got really good shooting range, but I think he's too content to shoot from 10-15 feet versus posting people up down low.  Donovan has also called out his physicality, saying he needs to take over games defensively and on the boards.  He's still very exciting and it will be great to see his development this season.

Lucas you may have heard of as he was a late commit, and has a famous dad and a brother who played at Oklahoma State not too long ago.  He's short, as is Hodge, which could be a problem for our back court entering SEC play.  They're both very quick, which probably means we can be effective in games where we dictate the tempo.  Jai's got the necessary moves a short guy needs in driving the lane, as he does very well in getting floaters up over big men, high off the glass.  When Hodge goes without cornrows, the two are really hard to distinguish on the blurry picture of SunSports and Fox Sports Florida, but obviously not on any sort of zoomed-in shot.  My one concern with Lucas is in a couple games he got what I call 'Roberson tendencies' where he became a shoot-first PG, and took shots too early in the shot clock, without any ball movement.

Werner was the highest profile recruit we added last year, as the New Jersey native decommitted from NC State during their coaching change, but came under scrutiny last year from never shooting the ball.  I think he didn't attempt a shot after like Jan 8th, until the NCAA tournament.  I'd have to look that up, though, so don't hold me to it.  This year he's playing better, though he had a rough start in the first game or so, he's making some great passes and picking it up defensively, and rebounding.  Occasionally he has a game where he scores, but to me he's almost too willing to let everyone else score.  With the way things have been going, though, it's not a problem, he's been giving this team what it needs- defense and rebounding.  (I keep mentioning this, because our lack of size/muscle/experience will make these problem areas throughout the season).

I left Nick Calathes for last.  I really think he's been the best player on the floor in probably every game, though the FSU game was bad for everyone in Orange and Blue.  But until I see us play Ohio State and the SEC slate, you can almost excuse that game as a young team was not ready for a physical game, and didn't truly understand what playing at this level means.  He was a top-10 overall recruit, and the star of our number 1 ranked recruiting class.  He's around 6-6 and has great PG instincts, and has twice come close to a triple-double already (remember, Corey Brewer got the only one in Gator history- it's more meaningful than in the NBA).  My dad and brother swear he looks like Donovan's kid.  All you really need to know is that he was the one from the McDonald's HS All-American game that was throwing passes.  Supposedly he worked with Jason Williams in the off season to develop his passing game.  He does this thing now where he throws an alley-oop every game, on fast breaks where it's like a little finger roll to his teammate in the lane.  He also threw an incredible 3/4 of the floor bounce pass, and frequently goes to no-looks and the like to make defenses look stupid.  His size helps his court vision, but also requires that he plays better defense.  Donovan benched him for 10 minutes of the FSU game, sort of like a few years back when he did the same thing to David Lee (also against FSU) to really get a point across.  In that game, he, like the rest of the team, took too many shots too early in the shot clock, which lead to our falling behind too far.  One cool fact about Calathes is his brother is a senior for St. Joe's (Pat)- he came into school as a 5-11 PG, and is now a 6-10 Forward.  I can't imagine what it would be like if Nick has a similar growth spurt.  Either way, this kid is going to be awesome. 

My outlook for the season is fairly optimistic.  We have good players, and they should get better each week.  We have an excellent coaching staff, so it is not hard for me to see this team making it back to the NCAAs.  Fairly or not, they'll have a big bull's eye from all other teams, however, and need to stick to Donovan's game plan.  Against FSU, it seemed like they panicked and their solution was in jacking up more and more 3's (which missed) and not in settling into their offensive game plan.  This is probably due to their being a young team, and if they every grow out of that they'd be a very dangerous team, because of their talent.  They are not deep (9 scholarships, little to no experience), so fatigue/ foul trouble will be problems.  As will just practicing, they can't go 5 on 5 without including walk-ons.  Starting two guys who are 6 feet or shorter could cause problems against the physical back courts in the SEC, which is why I think Jonathan Mitchell's development as a defensive role player will be essential to our success as a team.  He has the size and athletic ability to match up with other teams the way Hodge and Lucas cannot, so being able to get him significant minutes to slow the other team's back court scoring would be huge.

Sorry for all the rambling, but due to the technical difficulties I wasn't able to spread some of this out over the last several days.