If this season is to be 'saved', it will begin in Gainesville tomorrow night (ESPN, 7 ET) v. Auburn, followed closely by a 'nooner' with Ole Miss on Saturday (CBS, noon ET).

Last week was a disaster for these Gators- not just that we lost (you probably expect to lose that road game; and Xavier is higher than us in all the rankings + had a full week- i.e. mid-week bye- to rebound from an embarrassment v. Davidson), but how we lost.

Turnovers and awful free throw shooting were our downfall in Columbia.  Xavier dominated us inside, and we showed a lethargy starting with the opening tip that could not have been a good sign for Gator fans.

So, what's up with our basketball team?

This began as a longer post in our forums, here.  I turned it into this blog, instead.

We have definite front court issues.  It all goes to depth, I think.  I mean, we don't have anyone to play PF, so Werner got moved their for his entire career, which couldn't have helped his development.  I obviously don't mean &anyone& as we have Macklin/Tyus as a frontcourt tandem that is pretty good (when V-Mack decides to show up, and Tyus doesn't just jack up jumpers as soon as he gets the ball.  It's called a pass, Alex).

Adam Allen and Kenny Kadji injuries hurt here.  So does the bailing of Deshawn Painter (NC State), the transfer of Eloy Vargas (possibly UK? his twitter account just says he's in Miami) and Allan Chaney (Va Tech).  And those were just from last year.  Speights could still be in school- same class as Werner- but it was unlikely he'd be a 4 year player.  I covered the early departures under Donovan in a 4-part series, part 4 is here and has a summary of all the departures and covers the current classes.

We also have ball-handling issues.  Walker hasn't been great with the ball- and has rightfully been singled out- but 8 of our 20 turnovers against The Devan Downeys were Tyus and Parsons getting exposed as ball-handlers, throwing ill-advised passes, or otherwise trying to impersonate guards.  And I don't need to tell you about our PG playing in Texas and our PG playing in Greece which partially explain those issues.

I can't blame Billy, I think he's doing the best with what he has.  He's had some misfortune (Chaney being an idiot and needing to leave school, etc) with some of the recruits that have come in lately, and missed on a few (everyone does).  I know he 'shops for the groceries', so 'what he has' is 'what he recruited', but it's just been a tough set of circumstances to replenish a roster which was depleted after we reached the highest high ANY COLLEGE BASKETBALL TEAM has seen in nearly 2 decades.

I'm also not convinced the problems with our team aren't solved by simply convincing Patrick Patterson and Eric Bledsoe to come to Florida over Kentucky.  The former would have solved our toughness/defense/rebounding issues of the last 3 years, while the latter would be a much more productive use of a 2009-10 scholarship than Nimrod Tishman.

All of this being said, I still like this team.  I hope the FT issues, Walker's turnovers, our lack of rebounding against Xavier, and our overall lack of energy out of the gates last Saturday aren't indications of a fatigue problem that is going to haunt this depth-less team through our last 6 regular season games.  If they are, we're in serious trouble.

If they aren't- we haven't played ourselves out of the tournament, yet.  We've only eliminated our margin for error.  If this team still has fight in it- and I think the character of this team is to fight, though the depth/fatigue/lack of talent issue may overcome that fight- we have 4 regular season games left against RPI top 50 opponents (@UK, @Ole Miss, Vandy, Tenn).  We must beat Auburn and Georgia, and win 2-3 of those other games.  Unless we are physically and mentally worn down beyond salvation, I think this team can make that kind of run.  It all starts this week, and it all starts at home against Auburn.