Mark WiedmerYou won't find any of the Southeastern Conference's three remaining teams in action tonight when the NCAA men's basketball tournament resumes with its Sweet 16 games in the Midwest and West Regionals. Florida (East), Kentucky (South) and South Carolina (East) are all slated to play Friday night.
But one could forgive University of Tennessee at Chattanooga coach Matt McCall for already re-evaluating the ceiling for the Gators now that the two teams regarded as the beasts of the East - overall No. 1 seed and last year's champion Villanova plus second-seeded Duke - have been ousted.
"I'll confess, I had Duke winning that region," McCall said Wednesday morning from Hutchinson, Kan., where he's watching the National Junior College Athletic Association tournament.
"But now that Duke's gone, I wouldn't pick against the Gators. I really like the way they've grown and developed."
McCall knows better than most how much they've grown and developed under second-year coach Mike White. After all, McCall helped recruit a number of the current Gators before he left his alma mater to take over UTC after the 2014-15 season.
"A lot of these guys were freshmen my last year," McCall said of his days assisting former Gators coach Billy Donovan before Donovan headed off to the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder.
"And they struggled. Most everybody from that Final Four team the previous year (the 2014 NCAA tournament) was gone. (Point guard) Kasey Hill suddenly had to lead a group of freshman, and it was a tough year. That sometimes happens when you have so many young guys."
But as White and his staff prepare for Friday night's game in Madison Square Garden against Villanova vanquisher Wisconsin, they are young no longer.
Hill is in his final season, as are graduate student Canyon Barry and former junior college player Justin Leon, neither of whom ever played for Donovan. McCall recruits Chris Chiozza and Devin Robinson are both juniors. Sophomores Kevaughn Allen and Kevarrius Hayes also signed with Florida during McCall's time but have only played for White.
The Gators (26-8) have won their two NCAA tourney games this season by an average of 20.5 points. Robinson, the electric 6-foot-8 wing player, has averaged 19 points in the tourney and has almost certainly played his way into being selected in the first round of the NBA draft this year should he choose to go pro.
"When we first recruited Devin, you could see he was oozing with potential," McCall said. "We ran out-of-bounds plays to get him shots. But like so many players who go to high-major programs, he had to go through some serious growing pains."
They all went through growing pains Robinson's freshman year, when the Gators finished 16-17 during Donovan's final season in Gainesville. The record improved to 21-15 a year ago under White. Then came this season, and until two weeks from the start of the NCAA tourney - when Florida lost three of its final four regular-season games after standing 23-5 on Feb. 21 after an 81-66 win over South Carolina - the rowdy reptiles looked every bit like a Sweet 16 squad, if not a Final Four dark horse.
"You have to give Mike White a lot of credit," McCall said. "Just for Mike to keep those guys together (the class signed by McCall and Donovan). They didn't ask to get out of their national letters of intent. That's rare with a coaching change."
Hill also deserves special praise. Though he did amazing things his freshman year when surrounded by such graybeards as Casey Prather, Scottie Wilbekin, Patric Young and Will Yuegete - Hill remains one of only three freshmen in NCAA history (Magic Johnson and Jason Kidd are the others) to record as many as 11 assists in a Sweet 16 game - he wasn't asked to lead or score points that season.
With those players gone a year later, Hill often appeared lost. Now he runs the show, with per-game averages of 9.7 points, 4.5 assists and 1.7 steals.
"He's been hardened, calloused, toughened," McCall said of Hill. "He's learned how to lead."
Then there's Memphis native Chiozza, a versatile scorer and defender McCall rightly calls "one of the best guards in the SEC."
It has all added up to a team the UTC coach said "guards and plays fast. They fly up and down the court."
This has been the week for the entire conference to fly up the court of public opinion. Not only is the SEC tied with the Big 12, Big Ten and Pac-12 for the most remaining teams with three each, but the hirings of former UTC and Virginia Commonwealth coach Will Wade by LSU and former Tennessee and California coach Cuonzo Martin by Missouri all but guarantee a stronger league in the future.
Then came word Wednesday that the nation's No. 1 recruit - Michael Porter, Jr. - has asked out of his letter of intent with Washington due to the firing of Lorenzo Romar and may now join Martin at Mizzou.
But first there's this Sweet 16 to play, with a chance for the league to put two teams in the Final Four for the second time in four years.
"I'm a little concerned about the (Wisconsin) matchup because of the frontcourt," said McCall of the Badgers' dynamic duo of forward Nigel Hayes and center Ethan Happ. "But (the Gators) are coming together at the right time."
And having helped Donovan win two national championships and reach a third Final Four, McCall clearly knows what coming together at the right time can accomplish.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.