Donovan: "They're not committed to it."

by mlmintampa on Mar 14, 2008 7:57 AM EDT in Florida Basketball

This entire season I've been impressed with the patience shown by Billy Donovan towards a team that at times had no clue what they were doing. Well, that patience ran out last night. From Mark Schlabach at ESPN...

"It's in front of our guys, what it takes to win," Donovan said. "For whatever reason, I haven't brought it out in them. They're not committed to it. But I'm not necessarily really that excited about these guys being sophomores, to be honest. I don't think people change a whole lot, and I don't think you've seen the basketball team change at all this year. So it's hard for me to get overly thrilled or excited."

Holy crap. It gets better or worse, depending on if you're a fan of dark comedy.

"I think we have some talent issues on the defensive end of the floor, footspeed-wise, that sometimes is not all their fault," Donovan said. "But I think we have a commitment issue, too, which bothers me as a coach because I just got done coaching a group the last two years that was so committed. And to be with this group, I don't think just because they're going to be another year older that all of a sudden, everything gets resolved. I don't see that."

Donovan addressed the talent issue. Mainly that it appeared that many of his guys thought they could just out-talent people and win.

Even after 32 games this season, Donovan still isn't sure if many of his current players have that same determination. Why didn't Donovan know his players might have lacked that fire when he was recruiting them?

"I don't think you ever see it," Donovan said. "I know exactly what I want in a player. I know the makeup I want. We've got good players. They're good players. But they're not so good that we can be [so bad on defense] and really expect to win."

I really don't know how to react to this. I mean, it's one thing if I throw the team under the bus. It's something else when Donovan already has them under the wheels. I think that maybe Donovan got into a comfort zone with the previous era and is coaching the same way. He needs to change because he isn't going to find a group of guys like the Oh Fours. Hell, he may not even find a Humphrey or Richard.

Donovan's comments will have some legs and it may take a lot from him to remove the sting they have. But, I can't help but think of the context. The last time Florida was in that building, they won their second National Championship. This time, they looked like they couldn't win a JV championship.