By: Dan

Various media outlets are reporting that DeShawn Painter, a 6-foot-9, 195-pound power forward, wants to get out of his commitment to the University of Florida. Painter has already signed a national letter of intent, so Billy Donovan would have to agree to release Painter before he could pursue other options.

Painter, a four-star recruit according to scout.com, has not done anything official yet, so this could all be hearsay. But if Painter does leave, it does create an interesting situation with the Florida basketball team.

As it stands right now, the Gators are in somewhat of a numbers game. The team can only have 12 scholarship players. With the graduation of Walter Hodge, Florida has 10 scholarship players on the roster. (That’s assuming that Nick Calathes comes back to UF). If all three of the incoming freshmen (Painter, Kenny Boynton and Erik Murphy) honor their letters of intent, then that would leave Florida with 13 scholarship players, and Donovan would have to cut someone. In that scenario, the two most likely candidates would be Adam Allen and Eloy Vargas. After a fairly quiet freshman year (4 points, 10.4 minutes per game), Allen missed all of the 2008-09 campaign with a knee injury.
Vargas made less noise as a freshman than Allen did. He averaged less than one point and one rebound a game and only played in nine games. It’s hard to say what Donovan would do in this situation, but I think he’d probably stick with Allen. At least he showed that, when healthy, he could contribute to the team.

On the other hand, if Calathes elects to go pro and Painter is released from his commitment, a scholarship position would open up. A few different names have circulated, but the one Gator fans should be the most excited about is Rico Pickett.
The good news is that Pickett started 20 games as a freshman at Alabama and averaged 5.9 points per game. The bad news is that Pickett was suspended twice while a member of the Crimson Tide. First, he had to sit for one game for being late to a practice and disrespecting former coach Mark Gottfried. Later in the season, he was suspended indefinitely for failing to comply with team rules (whatever that means). He ended up transferring Miami-Dade College.

Some readers may be wondering what there is to be excited about. Well, Pickett averaged 17.4 points a game and 4.6 assists at MDC. He was named first-team all-conference and helped the Sharks to a Southern Conference title.

More importantly, by all accounts, Pickett can create his own shot. He’s big enough (6-foot-3) to take the ball to the basket without getting swatted or bullied (unlike Erving Walker) and is athletic enough to finish at the hoop (unlike Calathes). Florida had a number of deficiencies this year, but one of the biggest problems was that no one had the ability to slash to the basket. For the most part, everyone except Alex Tyus was stuck on the perimeter. Ray Shipman showed flashes of being able to take the ball to the hole, but didn’t do it consistently enough.

Pickett showed a lack of maturity at Alabama and has to clean up his act. Hopefully a year in JUCO did the trick. Of course, if Calathes goes to the NBA and Painter stays, or if Calathes stays and Painter goes, I just wrote this blog for nothing. But if both guys leave, Gator fans should cross their fingers and hope for Pickett.