I get that Billy Donovan is less-than-thrilled about the SEC scheduling and that he is not alone in believing Kentucky gets preferential treatment by avoiding the Thursday-Saturday curse.
He’s looking out for his own team and his own sport.
But the average Gator fan has nothing to complain about. You can’t have it both ways.
You can’t brag about the amount of money your league pulls in and then complain because TV dictates scheduling. And you can’t get preferential treatment in football and then complain when you don’t in basketball.
Well, maybe you can but it will do you no good.
Florida has played its last two football bowl games at a slot well above its deserved spot. The Outback Bowl after a 7-5 2010 season and the Gator Bowl after a 6-6 2011 season were not what the Gators deserved.
But Florida has a football brand that is among the best in the nation. As a result, the Gators are held in a higher esteem when all things are equal and sometimes even when they are not.
The same doesn’t hold true in basketball, despite the best efforts of Donovan to turn Florida into a basketball school. It’s not one and never will be one. It’s a great basketball program and he is a tremendous coach but when you can’t sell out conference games and a quarter of the fans don’t hang around until the game is over, you are not a basketball school.
Kentucky is a basketball school. It’s the only true basketball school in the league. But more than that, Kentucky is a stronger brand than any other SEC schools and it’s not even close. ESPN wants Kentucky on Tuesdays and Wednesdays which are its biggest basketball nights. Thursday is filler programming.
It’s just the way it is. Learn to live with it.
