Gators sophomore forward Will Yeguete went down early in the first half when he hit his head on the corner of the basket stand after going up for a block. Yeguete laid motionless on the floor for a few minutes while trainers came over to check on him. Eventually he sat up and left the court with blood coming from the right side of his face, never returning to action.

After the game, Donovan said Yeguete suffered a “definite concussion” and is “out indefinitely” because he failed concussion tests in the locker room and had 8-10 stitches for the cut above his eye. It is Yeguete’s second concussion this season as he also suffered one early in the year at Ohio State.

“When I got over there he was knocked out. He wasn’t even conscious,” he said. “He wasn’t even awake when I was over there. I was a little bit concerned there. He finally woke up and didn’t know where he was at. And then when he rolled over, he had a lot of blood coming out of his eye.”

Donovan called Yeguete “doubtful” for Tuesday’s game and does not expect him to practice with the team on Sunday or Monday. Should he pass concussion tests mid-week, Florida could potentially have him active for Saturday’s game at Arkansas but could hold him out until next Tuesday’s game vs. Auburn.

NOTES AND QUOTES

» Donovan on how to “harden” the team: “That’s one of the greatest challenges and dilemmas in coaching there is. Because Joakim Noah and Al Horford, those guys weren’t hardened either. There is a mentality and an understanding of what really goes into a preparation to really go out there and win. I’m spending too much time in practice dealing with stuff I shouldn’t be dealing with instead of dealing with preparation. A lot of it is our maturity level and us growing up and growing through some of those things. [...] Some teams have to go through that.”

» Donovan on if senior point guard Erving Walker is “hardened”: “Chandler Parsons was a great outlet for Erving Walker. Because when Erving got into maybe taking some quick, ill-advised shots and over-penetrating, [we could put it] in Chandler’s hands and facilitate offense through him a little bit and get Erv off the ball. It’s hard to do that with Brad there. [...] From a verbal leadership standpoint, I’m not so sure that’s Erving’s makeup to kind of take over the team like that. I’ve probably got to help him in that area a little bit. The hardening part, I’m not so sure how hardened Erving is because there was always somebody to kind of help him through. But now a lot of this is kind of falling on his shoulders in terms of running our team. I got to do a better job somehow getting through to these guys about what this is about.”

» Donovan on what is “wrong” with sophomore center Patric Young: “He may have some foot issues. It may be bothering hm. I don’t think it’s bothering him. I think the biggest challenge Patric is dealing with is playing at an intensity level on a continual basis. There was one point there in the first half he played 18 minutes with one rebound. It’s hard for him. He’s a guy right now that’s really trying to figure out how to really play with that intensity level all the time. He’s shown spurts of doing it, but he’s unable to sustain it. Last year we could really do it where you could throw him in for 2-3 minutes. He would come in there, knock some people around, pick up a couple fouls, offensive rebound, dunk and all of a sudden he’d be gassed. Now because he’s playing between 24-28 minutes, you can see the great explosions and you can see the laboring. He’s got to learn how to push through fatigue and deal with the mental duress and those kinds of things. He’s got to grow in that area.”

» Freshman guard Bradley Beal on Donovan not being happy in the locker room: “No, not happy at all. We didn’t compete at all really. Our defensive press was really bad again. We really weren’t focused. We didn’t get any offense at all. We were jacking up shots. Our mentality throughout the whole game, we weren’t focused mentally at all. It started in practice a couple days ago. We really weren’t focused and weren’t playing hard. It showed tonight.”

» Beal on if depth issues can be blamed: “It was difficult, but at the same time it’s not an excuse. We go through situations like this in practice. Guys get hurt in practice and other guys have to step in. everybody has to be ready to play and we just have to work with what we have.”

» Tennessee leads the all-time series against Florida 70-52 though the teams are an even 16-16 since Donovan took over UF’s program. The Gators had won four-straight games against the Volunteers before falling on the road at Knoxville to open SEC play.
» Florida is 13-0 at the O’Dome this season and trying to continue a 19-game winning streak in the House of Horrors.
» The Gators will be wearing special Nike Hyper Elite Platinum uniforms for Saturday’s game, which you can take a look at by clicking here.
» All five of Florida’s normal starters are averaging double figures in scoring.
» The Gators have made 10+ three-pointers in 16 of 24 games this year, a season-high mark under Donovan.
» Florida has made a three in 675 consecutive games dating back to Jan. 1992.
» The Gators are 284-37 since 1988-89 when holding opponents under 70 points.
» Florida is one victory away from winning 20+ games for the 14th consecutive season, which is currently the longest active streak in the SEC and fifth-longest nationally.

WALKER CLIMBING UP ALL-TIME LISTS

Senior point guard Erving Walker is steadily making his way up a number of Florida’s career lists. Below are some of the marks he is about to pass in UF’s record books.

» Assists: Walker (496) can move into No. 1 all-time with eight dimes, passing Ronnie Montgomery (503).
» Minutes: Walker (3,932) can move into No. 2 all-time with 32 minutes on the court, passing Chandler Parsons (3,964).
» Three-pointers made: Walker (264) can move into No. 3 all-time with four treys, passing Anthony Roberson (267).
» Scoring: Walker (1,620) can move into No. 5 all-time with five points, passing Dwayne Schintzius (1,624).
» Free throws made: Walker (400) can move into No. 7 all-time with 12 makes from the charity stripe, passing Dan Cross (411).
» Free throws attempted: Walker (506) can move into No. 9 all-time with nine foul shots, passing David Lee (514).
» Walker is also near the top 10 all-time in games started (four away), field goal attempts (28 away) and steals (six away).

NOTES AND QUOTES

» Donovan said sophomore center Patric Young’s early foul trouble in games is what has prevented him from achieving high rebounding numbers recently.

» He believes the Gators must do a much better job defending the three seeing as opponents have been shooting quite well from long range against UF in SEC play.

» On why redshirt freshman forward Cody Larson is not seeing much time on the court: “Cody keeps getting better. One of the things that’s hard sometimes – unless I can get him in the flow – sometimes I feel like I’m putting him into a situation where I throw him in there and he’s sat for 30 minutes and I might be setting him up for failure a little bit. I got to find him a way to plug him in sooner. When Murphy’s not in foul trouble and he’s on the floor, it adds a different element to us offensively whereas Cody doesn’t bring that element. Cody, I think, probably needs to be backing up Patric some.”

After splitting the regular season series 1-1 with each squad winning at home, Kentucky upended Florida 70-54 in the championship game of the 2011 SEC Tournament in the teams’ last meeting. Brandon Knight was one of four Wildcats in double figures and scored a game-high 17 points in the contest, while the Gators struggled offensively (38.6 percent from the field, 37.5 percent from the line) and saw Kenny Boynton lead the way with 10 points on 4-of-16 shooting. Florida lost both halves and Kentucky’s 42.9 percent shooting from beyond the arc kept UF at a distance the entire contest.

PLAYERS TO KEEP AN EYE ON

FLORIDA
» Senior point guard Erving Walker (#11)…who is the longest tenured player on the team having appeared in 127 consecutive games with 66-straight starts. A shoot-first player much of his career, Walker has been tasked with distributing the ball and managing the game this year. He is the SEC’s active leader in minutes (3,906) and treys (264) but also ranks second in points (1,620), assists (495), steals (149) and free throws made (400). Walker is No. 6 on the school’s all-time scoring list, No.23 in assists, No. 8 in free throws, No. 4 in threes made, No. 2 in treys attempted (687) and No. 4 in minutes. He is also hitting a team-best 80.9 percent of his attempts from the charity stripe while averaging 12.6 points and an SEC-best 5.1 assists per game.
» Junior guard Kenny Boynton (#1)…who is a dynamic scorer and just the second starter returning from a year ago. Boynton is working on his consistency this season and is already shooting better than he has throughout his career (47.3 percent from the field and 43.8 percent from downtown). He is the best defender on the Gators and is often put on the opponent’s best backcourt playmaker. Boynton currently ranks fifth in the SEC among active players in points (1,405) and third in three-pointers (229). He had hit a trey in 34-straight games and is the SEC’s second-leading scorer averaging 17.6 points per game. Boynton is No. 6 on UF’s list for threes made.
» Freshman G Bradley Beal (#23)…who is starting at the three for Florida fresh out of high school. Beal was the 2011 Gatorade National Player of the Year and is arguably the most talented player to sign with the Gators since Donovan took over. He is averaging 14.3 points and 6.1 rebounds while shooting 44.2 percent from the field and 74.3 percent from the line while playing a team-high 33.4 minutes per game.
» Sophomore center Patric Young (#4)…who joined the starting lineup this year after being the primary frontcourt reserve as a freshman. Young saw action in all 37 games as a freshman, averaging 3.4 points and 3.8 rebounds in limited action. He has four double-doubles on the season and scored a career-high 25 points against Arizona. Young is posting averages of 10.7 points, 6.5 boards and 1.0 blocks per game.
» Forwards junior Erik Murphy (#33) and sophomore Will Yeguete (#15)…who are trying to be do-everything players for Florida. Murphy is averaging 10.2 points and 4.2 boards with team-highs of 1.3 blocks and 46.1 percent accuracy from three. Yeguete is netting 4.7 points, 6.4 rebounds and 1.3 steals in 22.9 minutes per game.
» Redshirt junior G Mike Rosario (#3)…who is finally playing for Florida after transferring out of Rutgers and sitting out the 2010-11 season. Rosario scored more than 1,000 points in two seasons with his former team and averaged 16.7 points per game during his sophomore year. He is the Gators’ de facto sixth man and is seeing 15.8 minutes of court time each game, averaging 8.2 points while shooting 43.9 percent from the floor and 39.0 percent from beyond the arc.

KENTUCKY
» F Anthony Davis (#23)…who is leading his team in scoring (13.9 points) and rebounding (10.1 boards) while shooting a team-best 66.3 percent from the floor (third nationally). He is also the country’s leading defender with a NCAA-best 4.8 blocks per game and a team-high 1.5 steals (eighth in the SEC). Davis has set the SEC freshman blocks record with seven games left to play and is in consideration for a number of top conference and NCAA awards.
» G Doron Lamb (#20)…who is one of the Wildcats’ “veterans” as a sophomore and is the team’s second-leading scorer averaging 13.5 points per game. He shoots 47.0 percent from the field and team-highs of 47.8 percent from three and 82.4 percent from the charity stripe.
» F Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (#14)…who is another dazzling freshman, averaging 12.6 points and 7.5 rebounds in 31.0 minutes per game, the second-most on the team.
» F Terrence Jones (#3)…who is the third member of the Wildcats’ big frontcourt, hauling in 12.5 points and 6.4 boards per game. Unlike Davis and Kidd-Gilchrist, Jones also has range and is netting 36.7 percent of his attempts from beyond the arc while still averaging 49.5 percent shooting all-around.

If two players were to be singled out for their respective performances on Saturday, Beal and Yeguete would undoubtedly get those honors. After struggling in the first half, Beal hit two big threes in the second half, took a ball coast-to-coast for an impressive lay-in and netted four free throws down the stretch to help Florida offensively.

“I was really proud of Brad,” Donovan said. “He didn’t shoot the ball particularly well … in the first half. He didn’t have a great first half and didn’t do a whole lot but then he knocked down a big three for us that gave us the lead. He had a great transition drive; he got fouled one time going to the rim. He made a lot of really good plays that really impacted the game. The last 10 minutes of the game he really made some big plays.”

Still trying to improve his offensive game, Yeguete factored in mostly on the defensive end. He was the main cog causing the Gators’ press to be successful and gave the team a major boost while on the court for 29 minutes.

“He was great. He was really good in the press, disruptive, steals, deflections. He really exerted a lot of energy. He was a difference maker in the press for us,” Donovan said. “The thing with him that he’s great at – and he’s probably the best guy since Brent Wright who was here up there – there’s a lot of decisions he has to make in the press of when to go trap, when not to go trap, understanding how the floor is starting to move and look. He’s got a really high IQ of understanding hat. When he’s in that mode there where he can kind of freelance around, he can cause some problems. He was really disruptive.”

NOTES AND QUOTES

» Donovan on deciding to start Young after five-straight games on the bench: “Patric is too critical to our team and too valuable that I just forced him right back into the starting lineup. And that was a great decision because he played three minutes in the first half with two fouls. [Smiling] I’m not so sure if that was a good decision or not. [...] It was nothing that he did or didn’t do.”

» Junior G Kenny Boynton on trying to end Kentucky’s home winning streak: “I’m very excited. We got the team to do it.”

Climbing his way up a number of all-time lists at Florida, Walker passed 1,200 career points Thursday and is just 15 points away from moving into No. 5 on the school’s scoring list. He is also three assists away from the No. 2 spot in that category, four three-pointers away from No. 3 on the list, 24 minutes away from No. 4 in court time and six trey attempts shy of No. 1 all-time at UF.

“It’s pretty amazing what he’s done at his size, a guy that came off the bench as a freshman and then moved into the starting position as a sophomore. In terms of his assists, three-point shooting, the scoring, it’s amazing a guy his size has been able to score at the level he’s been able to score at,” Donovan said.

“Any time you are able to score over 1,000 points in a career, that’s always a pretty good career offensively. I think he’ll go down as one of the better guards to play here just based on statistics and someone being here for four years.”

Walker has been concentrating on something other than scoring this season – taking care of the ball. His season-long assist/turnover ratio is 2.46, and he is first in the SEC in assists averaging 5.1 per game.

“He tries to do everything I ask him to do. We’ve talked about trying to lead the league in assists, and he’s right up there,” Donovan said. “He’s keeping his turnovers down. He’s starting to see and understand where his shots are coming from, when he needs to shoot and when he needs to pass. He’s getting better at it.”

A “GENTLEMEN’S AGREEMENT” IN RECRUITING?

Donovan was asked if there is a “gentlemen’s agreement” in college basketball when it comes to recruiting. In other words that a coach will not actively recruit a player committed to another school. A common practice in college football, Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer was accused of doing so by Wisconsin this week. He admitted as such and stated it was an aggressive action but not illegal and that many other schools do it as well. Below are Donovan’s thoughts:

“Yeah. I’ve always been amazed at football. There used to be a basketball coach – I’m not going to say his name – years ago he’s no longer coaching, when I first got in the business and a guy would commit, he would say, ‘Great now it’s down to two – me and you.’ I would say in basketball there is no question a gentlemen’s whatever. I will not recruit anybody who is committed. Never ever ever. That’s kind of a thing that goes on in basketball. And I have the right to recruit, but I think it’s kind of an unwritten or an unspoken law in basketball that once a guy is committed, that’s it.

“I have not done this but I know coaches will do this. If a guy is committed to a school and there is another school trying to change or break that commitment, the school he’s committed to will call up the coach and say, ‘What are you doing? This guy has made a decision. He’s already coming to our school.’ [...] I’ve always been amazed in football that a guy is verbally committed somewhere and he’s taking official visits to other places. That makes no sense to me. He shouldn’t commit anywhere if he’s not really sure. It just seems that’s what goes on.

“Al Horford is a perfect example. Al Horford committed to Michigan. I had a person very close to Al in the recruitment who said that he felt like he made a mistake and he would like to come to Florida. I said, ‘I’m not going to recruit him. The only way that I would recruit him is if he calls up the coach at Michigan and tells him that he has decided to open up his recruitment. But I’m not going to talk to you about Florida, and I’m not going to talk to you about anything. It’s got to be his decision.’ Al obviously did that. I’m not going to pick up the phone and talk to a kid that’s already committed somewhere and tell him why he shouldn’t go there and that he’s making a mistake there.

“There’s kids that decommit all the time. Austin Rivers decommited last year and he decided to open up his recruitment. [...] I don’t know if other schools were tampering with Austin or not or talking to him. It’s one of those things where I just don’t do that. I would say that most of college basketball coaches don’t do that once a guy is committed. That’s like an across the board consensus.”

NOTES AND QUOTES

» On if he “ripped into the team” following their victory on Thursday: “I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older that sometimes you’re better off watching the film. I would say most of the time my assessment just sitting there is accurate but there are times where you look at something and you think something was the problem and it’s not.”

» On the quick turnaround: “There’s no question the stretch that we have coming up is going to be very demanding, very tough playing against a lot of good teams. [...] What you have to do is put all of your focus and energy into what is in front of you right now. They’ll eventually all play themselves out.”

Donovan spoke at length about a number of Florida’s players Monday.

Young and his recent stint coming off the bench: “It’s helped our team. I think Patric’s come off the bench and he’s added a different element and a different boost to our team. It takes a pretty humble kid, as good as he is as a player, to do that, but I also feel like it’s my job and responsibility to make sure that in whatever role that he’s in, he’s a vital and important piece to our team and that we figure out how to best put him in the position where he feels like he can play his best. I don’t know if that’s coming off the bench or not. I just know that he’s been comfortable with it.”

Boynton and his low-scoring affair Saturday: “At the end of the day, I think it’s good for Kenny that happened because it at least demonstrates that we don’t need one person to score. I’ve got a lot of confidence in Kenny. I was really impressed with the way he played the game because he didn’t really force any shots, he didn’t try to create things that weren’t there. [...] Kenny knows he’s got freedom to be aggressive, to go out there and play, but I also think it was a great lesson for our team that on any given night, anything can happen.”

On senior point guard Erving Walker’s impact: “You always have to account for him on the floor because he’s a proven scorer in this league. You always have to account for him wherever he’s at on the floor because he has such deep range. Erving, as many times as he can eliminate those drives to the basket, leaving his feet and getting caught in no man’s land and making a crazy shot or a crazy pass that leads to a turnover or a bad shot. When he eliminates those things and gets in the lane and makes good decisions, it opens things up.”

On sophomore F Will Yeguete’s defensive skills: “Will has got a great base defensively. He has got great feet, and he’s got exceptionally long arms. I would say another thing with Will is he is not afraid of contact and he can physically put his body in place. [...] Once Will gets a guy in the area of the floor where it’s away from the basket, he’s good enough physically to take on contact and obviously he is really good with his hands in terms of slapping and deflecting balls. He’s a really good defender – as good of a post defender as I’ve had since we’ve been here. He takes great pride in taking in those challenges.” On how he’s improved from a year ago: “He was pretty raw. The things he did defensively were the same things he did a year ago. His biggest problem a year ago was that he led our team in turnovers per minute. It became very difficult to play him because when he touched the ball there was a good chance that he was going to turn it over. He’s gotten better with his decision-making. He’s gotten better with his passes, but he still has some lapses there.”

NOTES AND QUOTES

» On Florida’s improved assist-to-turnover ratio over the last five games: “It’s something we’ve always preached, something we’ve always talked about from day one. Even going back to preseason, I talked about Erving Walker and his role and what he needed to do. I do think when you have somewhat of a new team it does take time to learn each other and get better with each other. We’ve gotten better in that area – understanding what’s open and what’s available and how to utilize each other. That’s really important when you want to have a team that has balanced scoring. We do have several guys averaging double-figures, and I think that’s a product of guys understanding each other. Sometimes when you’ve got new guys it takes a little bit of time to get to that point but I think our backcourt guys and our perimeter and post players are doing a better job of making decisions. We’ve been unselfish. I never felt like our unselfishness was ever a problem. I thought at times our decision making was a problem and the last few games we’ve gotten better with our assist-to-turnover ratio. We’ve done a really good job there.”

» On the Gators stepping up defensively:
“They’re trying defensively. I was really pleased with them on such a quick turnaround, getting in late after the game on Thursday against Ole Miss and really having a couple hours to prepare and really not having much time at all on the day of the game because it was a 1:45 game.”

» On Florida’s turnovers previously being an issue in their losses: “I don’t think that you ever want to turn the ball over – that’s never good, and it’s not going to help you in any way. There’s a lot of ingredients that go into winning, too. Certainly turnovers are important, how well you shoot the ball, how well you defend, how well you rebound. But I think that when you do go on the road and turn the ball over a lot, that makes it that much more difficult to go on the road and win.”

While Boynton is certainly not leaving the starting lineup, he has cooled off after starting the season on fire from three. He has shot 38.5 percent or worse from the field in four of six SEC games this year and went 1-for-6 on Saturday with a season-low two points. What he has been doing is dishing the ball and making the rest of his team better.

“I told Kenny after the game that I was really proud of him,” Donovan said. “Kenny maybe would be a guy who would’ve been upset a couple years ago. It was a real valuable lesson. Boynton and [Erving] Walker, the last four or five games, have gotten [39] assists and [10] turnovers. It’s a pretty impressive stat for those two guys.”

His teammate, freshman Bradley Beal, is equally impressed. “Kenny played great no matter how many points he had,” he said about his performance. “He did a great defensive job on [Dee] Bost. That was his main goal coming into the game, trying to defend him and trying to stop him the best he can. He really shut him down.”

NOTES AND QUOTES

» Donovan on the team’s offensive output: “Offensively, although we made 11 threes in the game and Murphy had a lot to do with that, I thought we had some decent looks and we didn’t shoot the ball great.”

» Donovan on MSU C Renardo Sidney: “You can catch the ball on him. He’s not going to fight and try to take away post position. But what happens is, when you put the ball on the floor to go and make a move, he doesn’t move.”

» Donovan on MSU G Bost: “We guarded him in pick-and-roll action three different ways. We trapped him just to get the ball out of his hands … and make him throw the ball to somebody else. When he’s coming off a pick-and-roll, there’s so many options for him because he can score and he can pass.”

» Donovan on his team taking five charges on Saturday: “If you’re not a shot-blocking team, and we’re not, you have to put your body in play and take charges.”

» Beal on Young’s impact: “Whenever Pat is in the game, he just brings energy. Whenever he checks in the game, the crowd is always screaming and there’s always excitement.”

» Walker on the team’s SEC experience: “We work real hard in practice. Coach puts us in every situation possible. We know games versus these good teams are not going to be easy. You just got to be able to defend, and when you can defend you’ll be in any game.”

» Young on getting back on SportsCenter’s Top Plays: “I’ve had like 12 dunks the last two games. They’ve got to do something.”

Florida and Mississippi State last squared off a year ago with the Bulldogs earning a 71-64 victory on their home court. The Gators held a one-point lead late in the second half, but MSU scored the final seven points of the game to pull out the hard-fought victory. Dee Bost scored a game-high 24 points for Mississippi State, and Erving Walker chipped in 18 for Florida on a paltry 6-of-17 shooting performance. UF struggled to score throughout the game, hitting just 39.7 percent of their attempts from the field while shooting 23.8 percent from downtown.

PLAYERS TO KEEP AN EYE ON

FLORIDA
» Senior point guard Erving Walker (#11)…who is the longest tenured player on the team having appeared in 127 consecutive games with 66-straight starts. A shoot-first player much of his career, Walker has been tasked with distributing the ball and managing the game this year. He is the SEC’s active leader in minutes (3,807) and treys (259) but also ranks second in points (1,585), assists (479), steals (145) and free throws made (392). Walker is No. 7 on the school’s all-time scoring list, No. 3 in assists, No. 8 in free throws, No. 4 in threes made, No. 2 in treys attempted (671) and No. 5 in minutes. He is also hitting a team-best 82.1 percent of his attempts from the charity stripe while averaging 12.8 points and 5.1 assists per game.
» Junior guard Kenny Boynton (#1)…who is a dynamic scorer and just the second starter returning from a year ago. Boynton is working on his consistency this season and is already shooting better than he has throughout his career (48.8 percent from the field and 44.3 percent from downtown). He is the best defender on the Gators and is often put on the opponent’s best backcourt playmaker. Boynton currently ranks fifth in the SEC among active players in points (1,361) and third in three-pointers (222). He had hit a trey in 34-straight games and is the SEC’s second-leading scorer averaging 18.0 points per game. Boynton is No. 6 on UF’s list for threes made.
» Freshman G Bradley Beal (#23)…who is starting at the three for Florida fresh out of high school. Beal was the 2011 Gatorade National Player of the Year, one of the top five players in the country, and is arguably the most talented player to sign with the Gators since Donovan took over. He is averaging 13.9 points and 5.9 rebounds while shooting 42.9 percent from the field and 72.6 percent from the line (third-best on the team) while playing a team-high 33.6 minutes per game.
» Sophomore center Patric Young (#4)…who joined the starting lineup this year after being the primary frontcourt reserve as a freshman. Young saw action in all 37 games as a freshman, averaging 3.4 points and 3.8 rebounds in limited action. He has four double-doubles on the season and scored a career-high 25 points against Arizona. Young is posting averages of 11.4 points, 6.8 boards and 1.1 blocks per game.
» Forwards junior Erik Murphy (#33) and sophomore Will Yeguete (#15)…who are trying to be do-everything players for Florida. Murphy is posting averages of 10.4 points and 4.2 boards with team-highs of 1.3 blocks and 47.5 percent accuracy from three. Yeguete is averaging 4.8 points, 6.2 rebounds and 1.5 steals in 22.0 minutes per game.
» Redshirt junior G Mike Rosario (#3)…who is finally playing for Florida after transferring out of Rutgers and sitting out the 2010-11 season. Rosario scored more than 1,000 points in two seasons with his former team and averaged 16.7 points per game during his sophomore year. He is the Gators’ de facto sixth man and is seeing 16.2 minutes of court time each game, averaging 8.5 points while shooting 44.7 percent from the floor and 39.1 percent from beyond the arc.

MISSISSIPPI STATE
» F Arnett Moultrie (#23)…who is leading his team in scoring (17.1 points) and rebounding (11.2 boards) as well as shooting percentage both from the field (.563) and downtown (.500). Moultrie is also hitting 81.0 percent of his free throw attempts making him a dangerous offensive threat anywhere he is on the floor.
» PG Dee Bost (#3)…who has averaged 12 points and 5.8 assists in four career games against Florida and is known as one of the most clutch players in the league. He is averaging 16.0 points, 5.7 assists, 3.6 rebounds and 2.2 steals per game this season but is only hitting 38.1 percent of his field goals.
» G Rodney Hood (#4)…who is proving himself as one of the best freshmen in the league averaging 11.5 points, 5.0 boards and 2.1 dimes per game while netting 39.7 percent of his chances from beyond the arc. Hood is playing 34.2 minutes per game and is the third-leading scorer for the Bulldogs.

Even though he has three supremely talented starters, including two top-rated underclassmen, likely to seek out information about playing in the NBA following the season, Donovan is not presently concerned about what the future might hold.

As a coach who has seen players stick around to repeat a national championship but also witnessed two leave early for the NBA Draft recently, he is less concerned about whether or not his players try their hand at the pros bur rather how uncertain the situation can be.

“You don’t know [what’s going to happen] and that’s the thing that’s hard sometimes and that can be challenging,” he said. “Sometimes you actually spend more time recruiting them when you do coaching them and that’s the hard part.”

As far as Young and guards junior Kenny Boynton and freshman Bradley Beal go, Donovan said he has not noticed any of them discussing their future at all this season.

“Those guys are really level-headed right now. They don’t talk about it,” he said. “I really think those guys are totally in tune right now of trying to play this season. I think that they all realize, if our team does well and they do well, maybe down the road there’s time to make a decision. I don’t get a sense from them that it is even on their mind or that they’re talking about it, at least in my conversations. They’ve been pretty focused on playing.”

NOTES AND QUOTES

» On fighting back from 16 points down against Ole Miss: “Part of us getting down like we did 20-4 was we didn’t make shots early in the game. We had pretty decent looks ourselves. Patric got the ball a couple times and just didn’t finish some plays. We missed a couple runners in the lane. We really didn’t get to the free throw line. But we kind of weathered the storm and hung in there. [...] I didn’t really sense from our guys that they were disappointed or frustrated or bothered. I thought that they just hung in there and kept playing.”

» On if the win was a confidence booster for the team: “Anything that’s happened in the past at home or on the road, it really doesn’t mean anything. It’s over and done with.”

» On senior point guard Erving Walker’s performance on Thursday: “Erv was really good outside of that turnover where he slipped. He had nine assists in the game and one turnover. He played a very good floor game. He got guys shots [Thursday] night. He made some great interior passes to Patric for some dunks. It was a situation where I thought he made the game easier for everybody else last night. He really did do a very good job. He’s the guy you want to have with the ball in his hands to get fouled. He just unfortunately slipped in that situation. [...] That was his only turnover for really 39 minutes of play. I thought from a floor game standpoint he played really well.”