UF is certainly in the conversation but on the outside fringe of the conversation to win it all this year. Considering that in 2006, UF was not even ranked pre-season, this is a good thing.
I think UF has all the pieces for a run, IF Mike White will play the pieces:
PG: UF has a solid PG IF Chiozza builds on last season rather than regress as he did in his Soph after have a big game. Allen has shown the last couple of exhibitions with Chiozza out that he can handle the backup spot.
SG: In Allen and Hudson UF has good skill, depth and size. My one worry in the exhibition games is that Hudson seems to want to pick up the slack and commit all the live ball turnovers UF lost with Hill leaving.
SF: Koulechov is off to a good shooting start from the arc. His rebound is ok so far, but he needs to be a consistent rebounder from the 3. Stone can pick up the other minutes here as he has the range for SF and allows UF to go big.
PF/C: UF can go two real bigs ala Horford and Noah with Hayes, Bassett, Gak and Egbunu when he is healthy. Stone too can contribute here and brings good skill to this position.
So UF has all the positions covered with good experienced players. I worry Mike White might be in love with the idea of 3 or even 4 guard lineups. While 3 guard lineups can win you lots of regular season games, I worry that they won't win the tourney. So I hope to see UF use regular lineups and even going big from time to time.
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