Can Florida Gators Close the Deal On the Brink of the Big Dance?

It's been three years. Three long years of frustration for Florida Gator fans. Three years of frustrating losses and late season collapses have kept the Gators from going back to the NCAA Tournament. Well, here we are again.

Saturday in Oxford, at times in spite of themselves, Florida got a huge win over Ole Miss. Vernon Macklin was huge. He scored a career high 22 points and virtually was unstoppable in the paint.

However the Gators were terrible from the outside. Dan Werner hit the only three-point shot of the day for Florida with roughly five minutes left. Color analyst Mike Gminski stated that UF was "chipping a lot of paint off the front of the rim."

Three times this year Florida has played a Thursday night game followed by a Saturday game. None of those times were both at home. And all of those Saturday games have seen Florida's three-pointers hit front rim often. That is a sign of fatigue. However the Gators have managed to win all six of these games. That is a sign of a team with heart.

Now we will see just how much heart this team has. Tuesday night Tennessee comes to town. UT has won eight of the last nine meetings with the Gators. So it would be safe to assume the Vols are in their heads. This game is almost a must win for UF.

The schedule gets no easier after Tuesday. Saturday, they travel to Athens, GA. The Bulldogs have already beaten East division rivals, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt at home. If the Dawgs were having the same success against the SEC West that everybody else in the East is having this year, they'd be right in the thick of things.

After that the Gators close the SEC slate with Vanderbilt and Kentucky. Those two are the best in the SEC by far this year. It would not be much of a stretch to predict the Gators will close out at 0-4. IF that happens, 19-12 and 8-8 will not get it done. UF needs at least one more win to stay in contention.

Tennessee is probably the best bet to get that win. UF had a shot to beat the Vols in Knoxville but Alex Tyus had a game winner roll off the rim at the buzzer. The Gators know they can play with them. They just need to close the deal. It's the same deal they've been trying to close for three years now.