FOUR BITS: Fishing, Knight, Williams, transfers

By Adam Silverstein
April 14, 2010

1 » As OGGOA first reported via Twitter yesterday, the Florida Gators have taken home yet another national title: the National Guard FLW College Fishing National Championship. That’s right – the University of Florida team of Matthew Wercinski and Jake Gipson won the first annual event on Fort Loudon Lake after catching a three-day total of 10 bass weighing 29 pounds, 10 ounces. The duo won $25,000 cash, $50,000 for UF (either for the club team or as a scholarship, we are assuming) and a Ranger 177TR with a 90-HP outboard motor wrapped in orange and blue!

2 » REMINDER: Five-star shooting guard Brandon Knight (Fort Lauderdale, FL) will officially make his college commitment Wednesday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. (EST). Knight is universally expected to pick the Kentucky Wildcats over Florida and a number of other programs vying for his services.

3 » With the 2010 NBA Playoffs on the horizon, a few Gators will be making appearances and attempting to win the league’s title. However, the one with the best shot is likely Orlando Magic point guard Jason Williams. The Gainesville Sun caught up with head coach Stan Van Gundy, who had glowing things to say about the former Florida player. “He really pushes the ball in transition and he brings a real consistent energy,” Van Gundy said. “There’s rarely a time where, in fact I don’t even remember one, where he goes into a game and you just say, ‘Wow, Jason doesn’t have much energy tonight.’ He really brings that every single night. That’s probably the No. 1 thing he’s done for us, plus he’s the best passer we have.”

4 » Though many Florida basketball fans have been quite annoyed with the number of transfers the team has had over the last few seasons, it should be notated that both Kentucky and Alabama have had more (12) and Ole Miss has had almost as many (10). This is neither an indictment nor an excuse, but it is nice to put things in perspective sometimes, especially since Ray Shipman announced his decision on March 24.

5 Comments

JayV says:

April 14, 2010 at 11:05 am

I think its important to note that Ole Miss, Alabama, and Kentucky have all undergone recent coaching changes as well, making their turnover a little more expected and explainable. Florida has the most stable coaching situation in the SEC, so the number of transfers we have had still seems strange to me.

Reply
Adam Silverstein says:

April 14, 2010 at 11:35 am

Sure. But if you look at the rest of the league, the next group of a few teams still have 9, 8 and 7, respectively. So it’s not like most teams have 2-3 transfers in those years and the Gators have 11. The disparity is not that great.

Reply
On Campus says:

April 14, 2010 at 12:51 pm

When you can only have 13 scholarship athletes, each scholarship handed out is very valuable and we are either having recruiting troubles or something about these kids is making them want to leave FL. I love Billy D, he is the face of our program and has built it to where it is today, which is slightly higher than a mid-major, but 11 transfers in the most stable program, like Jay said, is illustrating some sort of problem in our program. I’m looking forward to seeing how our incoming recruits for this year perform, but it won’t shock me if any of these guys transfer the following year, and that’s a problem. Either way, Billy will figure it out, and we’ll be back where belong soon, which is in the hunt for the SEC title, and Sweet 16 worthy. I’m just hoping sooner rather than later, because boosters and fans get real impatient sometimes

Reply
JayV says:

April 14, 2010 at 2:56 pm

Out of the next group of Georgia (9), Arkansas (8), and Miss St (8), two of those three have also undergone coaching changes, haven’t they?

Just seems, when looking at the ranking of transfers, that UF is in an odd place… I am, however, making the assumption that head coaching changes are a significant driving force in turnover.

My gut feeling (with absolutely no information to back it up) is that this team, the last few seasons, has had some chemistry issues. Are the players on the team close with each other?

Reply
Adam Silverstein says:

April 14, 2010 at 3:41 pm

I think you need to take each individual transfer on its own and look at the reasons why the players left. For example, Lucas liked it at UF but wanted to play in a different system. Shipman LOVES it at UF but isn’t getting enough minutes. I don’t think these guys changing programs is any indictment on the Gators or the coaching staff, though many disagree.

Reply