Florida basketball's non-conference season is over. Florida visits Knoxville to open the SEC season as the take on the Vols at 11 am ET (you can watch on ESPN2).

I had the opportunity to cover the final two home games for GatorsFirst.com. Here are some thoughts:

Florida 90 - Yale 70, Dec 31

- The first thing I noticed walking into the O'Dome was the walk-up crowd. I bought two, level one tickets in Section L (closer to the Yale bench) a month before the game... and had to buy two singles. I took this to mean that most of this particular section is filled with season-ticket holders, but the walk-up crowd had me nervous that Mrs. JB and I wouldn't be sitting together. As we walked in 10 minutes before tip, the lines extended from the ticket window all the way back to the parking lot. It turned out that most of the walk-ups were buying levels two and three, and the general admission seating that they sell in the student section when the Rowdy Reptiles are home visiting their mommies for the holidays. Anyway, the crowd was much better than I anticipated, credit Jeremy Foley for realizing ACRs need something to do before the drinking begins on New Year's Eve.

- As a quick aside, in case you're wondering- and I know you're not- I left the game and drove to Winter Haven, where the party I went to featured people in suits... and an elephant! I don't know if riding an elephant has become a New Year's tradition in Florida, but maybe there's a trend being set in Polk County.

- Yale started out on a 9-0 run, thanks to some hot shooting from three-point land. Their big men even can shoot the 3, so game stayed entertaining throughout most of the afternoon. The Gators did, however, do on a huge run to build a 10-point lead after spotting the Bulldogs the hot start.

- A fan and her husband sitting behind us debated the name of the dance squad that sits courtside for the basketball games (the one that Erin Andrews made nationally famous). I'm going to assume they weren't season ticket holders. Here is the approximate exchange:

Woman: What are those dancers called, The Sprinklers?

Man: No, that's not it.

Woman: Oh, right, it's The Sparklers!

Man: No, that's not it, either. That's wrong.

Woman: No, that's right... the Sparklers! What was I thinking with The Sprinklers?

Mrs. JB (turning around): They are called the Dazzlers.

On the positive side, if R Kelly needs a dance squad for a pickup game of hoops, I'm sure The Sprinklers would be on the top of his wish list.

- Erik Murphy actually stayed out of foul trouble, and hit some huge shots (specifically, three-pointers) for us in this game. His biggest problem this season has been staying on the court, thanks to his injury and foul trouble as he learns to defend more physical front court players. The fact that Yale's starting forwards spent some time hanging around the perimeter (the were 2-3 and 4-6 from three, respectively) helped him to record only two fouls in the game. However, he's having a great season, and seeing how good his shot looks in person make me a believer that he is approximating Matt Bonner. It's too bad he's not a goofy redhead with shots like he's playing a game of HORSE, but I'll take the 3-point shooting prowess.

- Patric Young is the leader of the defense. As the center, he really takes charge shouting at the other players for assignments, rotations, etc. The team appears to have bought in as a whole on the defensive end, with Boynton, Beal, and Wilbekin playing especially well on the perimeter. However, it all starts with Young, as he acts like a coach on the floor. While our team thrives on balance, in my opinion he's easily the story of this team so far, and the MVP of the first phase of the season.

- Mike Rosario got in the game fairly early. While he usually gets in the first half, I made a note that he came in with around 16 minutes left in the first half, which seemed early for him. It was noteworthy considering that to my memory, he sat the entire end of the Rutgers game after he was involved in the incident with his former team that earned each side a technical foul. Rosario's contributions in the SEC slate are a storyline to watch, as due to injury, defensive issues, and a deep backcourt he hasn't played as many minutes as I expected someone with his scoring talents to play this season. Getting more out of him will help rest the starting guards, as the Gators face an SEC slate without playing a single Wednesday game. The usual schedule for in-conference college basketball is Wednesday-Saturday, but many times this schedule is altered for national TV. Thanks to the addition of Thursday night ESPN games with the recent television deal, the usual Tuesday night ESPN game, the Gators appeal to national TV sets and their run to the Elite Eight last year, the Gators will face a lot of Thursday-Saturday, Saturday-Tuesday combinations without getting a normal amount of rest for the next opponent. To keep Walker, Boynton, and Beal fresh through this schedule, Billy D may need to get more out of Rosario (and Casey Prather, for that matter).

Florida 79 - UAB 61, Jan 3

- My pregame meal and beverages were consumed at The Top on Main Street. Tuesday night is Taco Tuesday! Anyway, the reason I bring this up was the presence of an asshole Florida State fan who decided to engage my dad and I in debating the Gators football team and his perceptions that Will Muschamp is a failure and that all Gator fans also hate Urban Meyer. He also claimed to be a FHSAA football official who ''has always said that John Brantley sucks, even in high school''... which I'm guessing was obvious by his winning Gatorade National Player of the Year and being the hottest recruit in the nation. I basically ignored him, waiting for him to go away.

The whole exchange made me wish that much more that the Thanksgiving Weekend Debacle had gone our way (NINETY-FIVE *^&%!*$% YARDS OF OFFENSE), because that's really the only thing FSU fans had on us this season. Congratulations on losing to Wake Forest and Virginia. As bad as we seemed at times, had we played an ACC schedule I'm sure the difference between 9-4 and 7-6 would be much smaller. ESPECIALLY IF WE DIDN'T HAND THEM THE HEAD TO HEAD MATCHUP! OK, I'm done. For now. Not really, I've got one more: he was giddy that we have Muschamp as our coach, who he thinks is so clearly not the long term coach at Florida... is a 9-4 season after preseason BCS Championship talk the part where Jimbo is solid in his job security? Or is it the part where HE'S A *^$%!^# OFFENSIVE COACH WHO LED HIS TEAM TO NINETY-FIVE *^&%!*$% YARDS OF OFFENSE AGAINST US? It does give me a little satisfaction that Gator fans ran Zook out of town, while Seminole fans are embracing Jimbo for doing pretty much the same thing.

- Back to basketball: I was glad that our friend @RowdyTownMayor gave me a tip about the story of Todd O'Brien. Read it.

- The crowd was much, much smaller for this game than the Yale crowd. Virtually no line at the ticket window, and parking in the neighborhood behind Emerson Alumni Hall was easy to come by. My dad estimated it at 4,000... but the box score reads 7,512. I am bad at counting that high, but I can say I think the crowd was more like half of the Yale crowd than the 80%-ish number recorded in the box score (Yale's box score says 9,119). We had the general admission tickets and got down to the third row, across from the Gator bench, on an aisle/even with the baseline. Otherwise known as directly behind the guy who kept yelling ''You still suck!'' at UAB players who made free throws.

- One exchange between Billy D and Will Yeguete, as Yeguete came out of the game, prompted my dad to observe, ''Billy rides him the hardest of anyone on the team. Usually he is laidback and lets his assistants handle the coaching as they come back to the bench, but he's the only guy where you could clearly hear him yell WHAT WERE YOU DOING? as he walked back to the bench.'' I'm thinking it's got to be a case of Billy D going with what works best to reach a given player, as Yeguete clearly never lacks for effort on either end, as he's involved with hustle plays and rebounding on both ends of the floor. When he can't get rebounds, he does a great job at tipping the ball to one of the guards. Anyway, it's at least entertaining to watch how Billy acts differently toward Yeguete than some of the other guys.

- It was good to see Erving Walker set a season-high in scoring. I love how his emphasis has been on distributing the ball this year (thanks to a challenge by Billy D to lead the league in assists), but the threat of his being able to score can only help him in that quest. Walker scored 23 in this game, with Boynton adding another 20 to pick up the slack from an off night by Brad Beal.

- Beal had a number of shots that rimmed out, so I hope he has the mental toughness to not change anything. As an experience beer pong player, sometimes your shot is good, but you're just that hair off where it spins out instead of goes down. Keep doing the same thing, Brad, and eventually the phase of the moon will adjust enough to where those hit beer- I mean, net, this is getting confusing.

- The Gators total of 79 points was the highest against UAB this season. While the 5-7 record entering the game may have led you to dismiss them as a decent team (particularly with a good defense), losses against Creighton, VCU, Kent State, etc. aren't exactly bad losses. Scoring a season-high against the Blazers is a good thing to takeaway from this game, though I'll agree it won't make a list of season highlights for these Gators.

- Assistant coach Matt McCall did a good job getting the Gators to play up-tempo. Any time they got a rebound, he was yelling for them to push it up the floor. It was clear that with Florida's excellent shooters and finishers, the coaching staff thought the extra possessions from an up-tempo game would work in our favor. Then again, maybe this isn't news, as this maybe a defining axiom of the Donovan Era.

- Kenny Boynton's three pointer with 5:01 left in the game was the biggest shot of the game. UAB had cut the lead to 9, but once the Gators got it to 12, it went to 15 with a three by Walker and the Gators never looked back.

- Check back soon for the annual Florida Basketball Drinking Game as we enter conference play!