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Young Gators Extend Home Winning Streak To 20

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By JENNA MARINA, Tribune correspondent

Published: November 10, 2007

GAINESVILLE - With seven freshmen on its roster, the University of Florida men's basketball team probably felt some jitters before stepping onto the court for Friday's season opener against North Dakota State.

But the bulletin board material took care of that.

"They came in here thinking they were going to beat us, at least that's what the media was saying," Gators freshman Nick Calathes said. "The radios said they were going to come in here and take us down because we're a young team, but that's our home court, and we're going to defend it."

The Gators did just that in a 75-65 victory.

With the victory, Florida extended its winning streak to 11 games and tied the school record for consecutive home wins at 20.
North Dakota State did its best to test the young Gators.

The Bison hit their first three shots and stormed to a 10-4 lead before Chandler Parsons hit a 3-pointer to cap Florida's 15-0 run.

"We were shell-shocked when they jumped on us right away, but we kept our composure and got a lead," Coach Billy Donovan said.

Florida held a steady lead throughout the first half but seemed to relax during the second half and let North Dakota State back in the game. With 2:26 left, UF held a six-point lead.

While the freshmen made some rookie mistakes, junior Walter Hodge looked polished, finishing with 15 points.

"I saw a tremendous passion out of him," Donovan said. "I thought he tried to take over a leadership role, and I was really encouraged to see that."

With the exception of Dan Werner, Donovan didn't seem to be overly impressed with the sophomore class's performance.

Center Marreese Speights finished with 10 points and eight rebounds.

"I thought Marreese could have dominated the glass a lot more," Donovan said. "There were a lot of rebounds where he didn't block out correctly."
Jonathan Mitchell played only four minutes in the first half and did not return for the rest of the game.

Werner finished with four points, seven rebounds, two assists, two steals and one block.

"He made some plays tonight that won't show up on the stat sheet," Donovan said. "We got away with a couple situations because of his understanding and his savvy. I thought he played physical tonight."

Werner said Donovan talked to him at practice about his shooting woes and told him to focus on helping the team.

"He basically just said don't worry about what other people are saying," Werner said. "Just go out and play hard. You can't control what other people think. Just give whatever you got, and that's kind of what I did.

"I think I left it all on the court."

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