By DAVID JONES
Florida Today

GAINESVILLE, Fla. - When Southeastern Conference followers looked at the league schedule in November, many predicted Saturday's CBS-televised Florida-Alabama showdown would be must-see TV. So much for monumental matchups.

The Gators, who on Monday became the nation's top-ranked team for the first time, were thumped 70-55 at Kentucky a day later. The Crimson Tide, the defending regular season champions, were ranked No. 1 in The Associated Press poll for a couple of weeks in late December. They've since fallen into a funk and lost four of their last five games heading into Saturday's visit to Gainesville.

Needless to stay, being ranked the top team in the country hasn't been a pleasant experience for either school.

"Obviously, we're disappointed," Crimson Tide coach Mark Gottfried said.

"But we can't keep looking in the rearview mirror. We've got to look forward. We've got a great opportunity with Florida. They're obviously very good. Their game with Kentucky, I'm sure, is going to get their juices flowing real well, so we've got to go down there and play extremely well."

Both Florida and Alabama are fighting to stay alive in their respective SEC divisions. Florida (18-3 overall, 7-1 in the SEC) sits a game behind UK in the Eastern Division. Alabama (13-6, 3-5) is two games behind Auburn in the Western Division.

Both teams have some major issues to address. Florida shot just 20 percent from the floor in the first half against the Wildcats, making just two of its last 23 shots of the half. The game was pretty much over at that point.

Alabama also has been extremely inconsistent shooting from the perimeter since New Year's. With 2002 SEC Player of the Year Erwin Dudley back at center, the Tide knows it can get strong inside play. But somebody has to start hitting outside shots in a hurry if Alabama is going to turn the season around.

Alabama is last in the league in field goal percentage (40.8) and 11th of 12 teams in three-point accuracy (30.8).

"We don't want to become a team that never shoots a perimeter jump shot," Gottfried said. "Obviously, you become very easy to guard at that point. At some point, if you want to become a good team, your players have to step up and play better. I think that's the reality of where we are."

Gottfried said the top ranking may have given the Tide "an inflated feeling" about themselves. The recent slump has fixed that.

"For us, the question is, are we that good anyway?" Gottfried said. "There's the perception that, as soon as you are ranked No. 1, you are the best team in the country - regardless of who else has lost and who you've beaten, how did you get to be ranked No. 1 and all those type of things.

"Then, from there forward, you are always trying to live up to that magical level. In reality, you might not be good enough to do that, anyway."

Gators coach Billy Donovan said the moment his team was given the top ranking, he wasn't so sure it was justified. Just 24 hours later, Kentucky ran over the stunned Gators.

Both teams may be coming into this game with a little bit of self-doubt, but both looked like potential national championship contenders just a few weeks ago. Now, both are stinging from losses and hearing criticism from media and fans.

"Hopefully, we can look and find out why we made mistakes, where we made mistakes and learn," Donovan said. "Whether we'd won the (Kentucky) game, whether we'd lost by one or gone into overtime, we still had to come back and play Alabama."

Donovan let his team know about his displeasure with the Kentucky loss by having players attend a film session before sunrise Thursday.

"They watched tape from 6 a.m. until about 7:15 a.m., then went to class," Donovan said. "I wanted to get that behind us. I addressed the things we did wrong and the things I was upset about and told them we needed to move forward. I thought it was important to get that behind us, but at the same time, guys need to be realistic and honest with themselves and our coaching staff needs to be honest with themselves to take responsibility for what happened.

"Now, what are we going to do about that?"