If Florida's basketball team is going places in March, this guy will be driving the bus

Zyon Pullin got some frustrating news Tuesday morning. At least most basketball players would have considered it frustrating.

He did not make the All-SEC team. Just one day after making the All-SEC team.

If you’re confused, consider yourself qualified to be a sportswriter.

The official SEC All-Conference team is decided by the coaches, and it was released Monday. Pullin made the first team.

The Associated Press released its All-Conference team Tuesday. For all the impressive things he’s done this season, it might have been Pullin’s most astounding feat.

He became the first player in Florida history to make the first-team coaches’ team and not even make the second team as voted by the media.

Far be it for me to call my colleagues confused, but I’m not sure what league they were watching the past four months.

“I think it was a little bit of an oversight,” Gators coach Todd Golden said. “I think it’s pretty clear to everybody who has followed the league that he’s one of the best five players in the league this year.”

So clear, you’d think the snub might have bothered the snub-ee. But the reaction was classic Pullin.

“They have their own opinion, but it’s cool to get recognition from coaches, the guys who see it every day," Pullin said. "But, uhm, yeah.”

He just shrugged, and it seemed sincere. No big deal. Nothing to get rattled over.

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Those are the traits that got him those first-team votes, and the reason Florida has a decent chance to win this week’s SEC tournament. If you have watched the Gators this season, you also know they have a decent chance to not even make the semifinals.

When they are good, they are very good. When they are bad, they squander big leads and can lose to anybody. In just the past week, they blew out Alabama and lost to Vanderbilt.

You’re never sure what you’re going to get from almost every player – except for the point guard who goes by ‘ZP.”

“He’s never too high, never too low,” Golden said. “Steady, focused on the floor. Very rarely displays any body language.”

With Pullin, you can almost fill out the scorer’s book before the game. He’ll have about 15 points, four rebounds, five assists and one turnover.

Those last two combine to make him exceptional. Pullin’s turnover-to-assist ratio of 4.4 is the best of any SEC player this century. He simply doesn’t give the ball away despite handling it in the highest-pressure situations.

And if there’s nobody open, Pullin bulls his way into the lane, steps back and takes a mid-range jumper. The move has become an offensive security blanket for Florida.

“He has a great feel, a great understanding of space, of physicality, of how to use his body to get open,” Golden said. “He’s a basketball player. He's just a basketball player."

Whatever the situation, you get the feeling Pullin’s pulse never rises above about 50 beats a minute.

“I just really try to balance it,” he said. “Making sure we're still locked in when things are going well. Picking things up when things aren't going well.”

It’s almost funny now to think how the team’s most known quantity was an unknown not long ago. Pullin transferred after four years at UC-Riverside. He was All Big-West Conference, but nobody has ever mistaken the Big West for the SEC.

He wasn’t even a big recruit at Riverside. That’s why his favorite quote was “Without struggle there is no story.”

“It just suited me at the moment,” Pullin said. “The struggles with basketball and being under-recruited and stuff like that. And just the story now, how things keep getting and better. It shows the work I’ve continued to put in.”

The real payoff could come in the next few weeks. There’s the SEC tournament, followed by the NCAA.

As strange as it feels to write this going into the postseason, the Gators are a lock for an NCAA bid. What will happen there is a mystery, but to paraphrase someone’s favorite saying…

Without Pullin there is no 21-win regular season, no sure ticket to March Madness, no real hope of making a deep run in the tournament.

Everybody who’s watched Florida knows it, even if a bunch of confused sportswriters don’t.

David Whitley is The Gainesville Sun's sports columnist. Contact him at dwhitley@gannett.com. Follow him on X @DavidEWhitley

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Florida basketball's steady Zyon Pullin is an underappreciated star