What makes great teams great?

A few days ago, an old friend and I were talking about the John Wooden legacy, which led us to rate the many great UCLA national championship teams from that incredible era from 1964-76 in which the Bruins won 10 NCAA titles in 12 years. As the conversation progressed and we dissected those great teams, we began discussing what separates the good teams from great teams? What is it that every great team has that the good teams lack?

On the surface it would seem that a requirement for a great team would be great coaching and great talent, but there are teams with so much talent that they win in spite of the coaching and there are coaches so great that they can win with even average talent. Bum Phillips once said that Bear Bryant could (I'm paraphrasing here) take his players and beat your players or take your players and beat his players. Bear re-invented himself as a coach at least four times, adapting his style of coaching to the talent level of his players.

Coach Wooden is another one who adapted his style of play to the level of talent. He won his first two national championships (1964 and 1965) with a team whose tallest starter was 6-5. In those years the Bruins were a helter-skelter, full court pressing team that won with superior quickness and the ability to force other teams to play their style. When he recruited Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor --- you know him as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar --- Coach Wooden went from the helter-skelter to a half court style designed to overpower opponents on the inside. When Alcindor graduated, he changed styles again.

I'm not saying that Roy Williams and Tubby Smith are bad coaches --- far from it --- but those 2009 North Carolina Tar Heels and those 1998 Kentucky Wildcats had so much talent that they probably would have won the national championship no matter who was coaching. There are indeed times when coaching is vastly overrated.

So what is it that makes a team great? If not coaching and if not talent, then what?

It is my belief that while talent and coaching are important, there is nothing more important than the combination of leadership and chemistry.

Flashback if you will to 2008 when the Poodles were the poster children of every preseason college football magazine. Georgia had Matt Stafford at quarterback and No Show (if you saw the Florida-Georgia game that year then you know why it's No Show) Moreno at tailback. They had Mark Richt coaching and the experts had proclaimed him the Einstein of the coaching profession for sending his team on the field en masse to celebrate a touchdown against Florida in 2007.

Georgia went 10-3 in 2008 and one of those losses was a 49-10 schoolyard beat down in Jacksonville at hands of the Florida Gators, a loss that officially stuck the hatpin in Georgia's championship hopes. Florida went on to win the national championship. So why did Georgia fail and why did Florida succeed?

Let's start with leadership. Florida had Tim Tebow and Brandon Spikes working in tandem, driven and determined to make 2008 a special year and with the added motivation of payback for the Poodles to make them work that much harder. Everyone knows the names Matt Stafford and No Show Moreno but does anyone remember someone who was the maximum supreme leader on that Georgia team?

In the months leading up to the 2008 season, the Poodles went double digits in arrests and off the field incidents. At SEC Media Days in July, Richt was asked if his team was having trouble handling the high pressure of expectations. He didn't exactly dodge the question but his answers didn't exactly instill confidence that his was a team with outstanding chemistry.

Meanwhile down in Gainesville, the Gators used the Poodles as their inspiration and it turned good chemistry great. Urban Meyer constantly gushed about how he loved this team for its professional, motivated approach to practice, attention to detail and how the players had bonded together. Maybe the best examples of team chemistry were in the SEC and BCS National championship games when we saw how the Gators responded to Tim Tebow’s driving will to elevate the Gators to unknown heights. When the Gators needed it the most, they responded to leadership because of the chemistry developed in the offseason.

As we consider the tale of two seasons --- Florida’s national championship run and Georgia’s run to the Capital One Bowl --- it was a clear case of superior leadership and chemistry in Gainesville and a case of what happens when talent and coaching aren’t enough in Athens.
Mark Richt's record proves that he is a fine football coach and the Georgia roster was oozing with talent in 2008 just as it is every year. The Gators were a great team. Georgia was a good team that could have been great except for a severe lack of leadership and chemistry.

Another good example of chemistry and leadership is Florida's back-to-back national championship basketball teams in 2006 and 2007. The seeds for those titles were sown in the summer of 2004 when incoming freshmen Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Corey Brewer and Taurean Green teamed with sophomore Lee Humphrey in pickup games against the veterans in the summer. The bond those five formed that summer carried over to the summer of 2005 when the combination of work ethic, teamwork and camaraderie forged them into the best starting five in the country. Those five guys started for two seasons and they won two national titles.

They had the chemistry. Billy Donovan swears he’s never been around a team that had more and the fact is we may not ever see a team that was more in touch and more connected than those two Florida championship teams.

Everybody still talks about the chemistry on that team but nobody talks all that much about the leadership, which is a shame because those two championships couldn’t have been won without extraordinary leadership contributions. In 2006, senior Adrian Moss never sulked as younger players ate up his minutes. Moss was glue in the locker room and patient enough to wait his turn on the floor. When the Gators needed him the most he came up big. Remember those nine points and six rebounds off the bench against UCLA in the national championship game?

In 2007, while Joakim Noah and Taurean Green provided the energy Al Horford and Chris Richard provided the leadership. Former Florida assistant Lewis Preston tells me that there were times in the huddle that Billy Donovan would offer adjustments only to have Horford say, “Coach, they’re playing me this way so get me the ball here (spot on the floor) and spot Hump (Lee Humphrey) up on the wing and Jo down low, we’ll get a great shot.” It takes a real leader with a great understanding of the game and the respect of both the coaches and teammates to do something like that. Lewis tells me Al was never afraid to speak up like that. As for Chris Richard, he’s another guy who never sulked. On any other team in the SEC, Chris Richard would have been the star attraction. At Florida, he was the sixth man but he was also the guy the players went to when there was a problem. They would talk and Chris would listen. If he recommended taking the problem to Donovan, that’s what they did. If he thought the problem could be handled without the benefit of a coach, he took charge or assigned someone to handle it.

In terms of talent from top to bottom of the roster, I can name 10 teams off the top of my head that had more than those Florida teams of 2006 and 2007 but I’ve never seen a team with the kind leadership and chemistry that the Gators had so abundantly. That’s the difference between good and great.

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These are the dog days of summer for Florida’s football and basketball teams. It’s a little less than two months before the football team opens its season with Miami of Ohio and approximately four before the basketball team opens its season. Expectations will be high for both. The Gators are expected to face Alabama for the SEC football championship in Atlanta and the basketball team will open the season as a top ten pick and a darkhorse to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.

Both the football and basketball rosters are loaded with talent and I wouldn’t trade Urban Meyer or Billy Donovan for any other coach in the country. These are going to be good teams but they could be great if the chemistry develops and leaders step up. The difference between the BCS National Championship Game and an at-large bid to a BCS bowl will be determined on the practice fields in the heat of the afternoon. The difference between one and done or two and through and a shot at the Final Four will be forged in those endless pickup games at the basketball practice facility.

This is the time when teams find chemistry and followers choose to become leaders. It’s when good teams take the first steps toward greatness. Talent and coaching will only take the Gators so far. The rest will be determined by chemistry and leadership.

* * *

The Gators are very close to landing a monster basketball recruiting class for 2011 and setting the foundation for a 2012 class that will be off the charts. Billy Donovan, Richard Pitino and Larry Shyatt are in Indianapolis for the big Adidas tournament where they are taking a good long look at Cody Zeller (6-10, 210, Washington, IN), younger brother of UNC’s Tyler Zeller, for 2011 and 2012s Kaleb Tarczewski (7-0, 220, Southborough, MA St. Mark’s School), Alex Murphy (6-8, 190, Southborough, MA St. Mark’s School), Robert Carter (6-7, 250, Thomasville, GA Central), William Goodwin (6-7, 225, Decatur, GA Southwest DeKalb), Wannah Bail (6-8, 190, Houston, TX Jersey Village), Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell (5-10, 175, Indianapolis, IN Park Tudor School) and Kenny Kaminski (6-7, 200, Medina, OH).

Next week Donovan and Pitino will be at the Nike Peach Jam in North Augusta, SC where the main attraction will be Bradley Beal (6-4, 190, St. Louis, MO Chaminade Prep, who not only is the gem of the 2011 Florida recruiting class. The Gators will also give a good long look to Sam Thompson (6-6, 190, Chicago, IL Whitney Young), Rakeen Christmas (6-9, 225, Philadelphia, PA Academy of the New Church), Dorian Finney-Smith (6-8, 185, Portsmouth, VA IC Norcum), Johnny O’Bryant (6-10, 248, Cleveland, MS), Ky Madden (6-5, 190, Lepanto, AR East Poinsett County), Austin Rivers (6-4, 192, Winter Park, FL), and Mikael Hopkins (6-9, 215, Hyattsville, MD DeMatha Catholic) as well as 2012 hotshots Omar Calhoun (6-2, 180, Middle Village, NY Christ the King), Nerlins Noel (6-10, 200, Everett, MA Tilton School) and Tony Parker (6-9, 260, Lithonia, GA Miller Grove).

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Through five games at the FIBA World 17-and-under championships in Hamburg, Germany, Florida commitment Bradley Beal (6-4, 190, St. Louis, MO Chaminade Prep) is averaging a team-high 17 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game. Florida target Adonis Thomas (6-6, 211, Memphis, TN Melrose) is averaging 7.8 points and 3.2 rebounds per game while Johnny O’Bryant (6-10, 248, Cleveland, MS) is averaging 4.8 points and 4.0 rebounds per game. Florida 2012 target Tony Parker (6-9, 260, Lithonia, GA Miller Grove) is averaging 5.0 points and 2.8 rebounds per game.

The USA team will take on Germany in the quarter-finals Friday.

Florida assistant Rob Lanier is in Germany to watch the tournament.

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With Rutgers transfer Mike Rosario already in school and Beal an unshakeable commitment, the Gators have two spots open for the recruiting class of 2011. My best guess scenario has the Gators landing Sam Thompson (6-6, 190, Chicago, IL Whitney Young) and Cody Zeller (6-10, 210, Washington, IN). Florida leads for Thompson who also has Oregon State and Ohio State in his top three. Zeller looks like he will be a Florida-Butler (yes … you heard that right) battle although Indiana will make a very strong push to keep him close to home.

If Florida can’t land Zeller or Mikael Hopkins (6-9, 215, Hyattsville, MD DeMatha Catholic) I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Gators decide to go long and lean with Thompson and Dorian Finney-Smith (6-8, 185, Portsmouth, VA IC Norcum).

* * *

Despite rumors that had a lot of Gators in a panic mode, Duke has no clearcut advantage for Alex Murphy (6-8, 190, Southborough, MA St. Mark’s School), younger brother of rising Gator sophomore Erik Murphy. Florida will be there at the end, which is not a surprise. What may shock some folks is that Butler has emerged as Florida’s top competition.