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Will Soft Schedule Harden Gators?

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By ANDY STAPLES, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 19, 2007

Updated: 12/18/2007 11:57 pm

GAINESVILLE - The script for tonight's basketball game between the University of Florida and Charleston Southern probably will read like this. In an O'Connell Center only half-full because of no-show season-ticket holders, UF will feast on an opponent far lower on the basketball food chain.

Sound familiar? It should.

Before the Gators open their SEC schedule at Alabama on Jan. 8, they will have played 15 games - 11 home, three neutral-site and an away game Saturday at Ohio State. Of the teams Florida has faced or will face at the O'Connell Center, only one (FSU) is ranked in the top 100 of the Ratings Percentage Index rankings this week, according to college hoops stats guru Ken Pomeroy. Three are ranked No. 318 or lower out of 341 Division I teams. The average RPI of the 11 O'Connell Center visitors is 231.6, and their combined record through Monday against Division I opponents was 31-69.

That begs two questions.

1) Why are the Gators playing such a soft schedule?

2) Will better teams come to the O'Connell Center in future years?

The answers are 1) Youth has made a traditionally creampuff-laden schedule even creamier and 2) Yes.

Gators coach Billy Donovan and associate head coach Larry Shyatt - who handles much of Florida's scheduling - knew when they made the schedule that they'd probably have a radically different team than the one that won the past two national titles. With so many untested players and an already-agreed-upon game at Ohio State, they didn't want to shock their young players and risk killing their confidence early in the season.

"It's a fine line in scheduling," Donovan said last week. "There's a time when you can go out and play a bunch of different people. But with a young team, you can have a team that gets overwhelmed."

Add to that an athletic budget that, according to Florida associate athletic director Greg McGarity, requires the Gators to play 16-18 home games a year. Eight of those are SEC games, meaning Donovan and Shyatt must find eight to 10 teams willing to come to the O'Connell Center, probably for a $50,000 check instead of a return game. McGarity said he understands the discontent with the home schedule, and he said he and Shyatt are working to improve it next season.

"What we are looking for next year," McGarity said, "are two anchor games in the O'Connell Center."

That could require some juggling. Florida agreed to play in the CBE Classic, an exempt tournament in November that would feature two games against power-conference opponents in Kansas City assuming the Gators beat two low-level opponents in the O'Connell Center. But because of a 2006 NCAA decree that loosened the rules governing exempt tournaments, McGarity said Florida is trying to pull out of the CBE Classic in order to play an exempt event that would allow the Gators to bring an ACC, Big 10 or Big East school to the O'Connell Center.

"We want those teams here," McGarity said, as opposed to a neutral site.
McGarity also said Florida might bring in better quality mid-major opponents by making two-for-one (two home games in exchange for one road game) or three-for-one deals with schools near the hometowns of current Florida players. For example, the Gators might ink a deal with a school near Houston to allow point guard Jai Lucas to play close to home.

Still, don't expect the Gators to stock their pre-conference schedule with a dozen NCAA Tournament teams. McGarity pointed out that the "bottom line" is to win. Donovan, who said he doesn't even look at the RPI until late February, said there is no need to beat up his team in November and December when the NCAA Tournament selection committee will weigh heaviest how the Gators perform in the SEC.

"If you're sub-.500 in your league," Donovan said, "I don't care where your RPI is going into the league, you're not going to the NCAA Tournament."

Reporter Andy Staples can be

reached at (352) 262-3719

or astaples@tampatrib.com.

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