GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Desperate to improve Floridas free-throw shooting last season, coach Mike White tried a little bit of everything.He tweaked some of his players mechanics. He increased repetitions in practice. He had guys shoot while tired, winded and with some team accountability at stake. He even considered bringing in a sports psychologist.I didnt want it to become more mental than it already was, White said Tuesday.So he waited until the offseason.Thats when White brought in renowned sports psychologist Spencer Wood to work with the Gators this summer.If you can train your mind, use different methods to understand how to stay in that place -- whatever that place is for you or whatever that trigger word is for you -- or get you back into that place of calm, or confident, those type things, I think it can help you with the rest of your game as well, said White, whos in his second season in Gainesville.So far, its made a noticeable difference for Florida (2-0), which plays St. Bonaventure (1-0) in Lakeland on Thursday night.After ranking 323rd (out of 346 NCAA teams) from the foul line last season, shooting a meager 64.7 percent, Florida is up to 78.6 percent from there this season. Two games are hardly enough of a sample size to make White a believer, but he wants to think there is improvement.You hope that moving forward we can be in the same mindset, White said. Im not sure its fixed. I dont want to sit here and think were a great free-throwing shooting team. But what weve seen the first two games is what weve been in practice. You want that to continue, of course. Our guys are in a pretty good place.White said feedback was positive, especially from center John Egbunu, point guard Kasey Hill and forward Justin Leon. Egbunu (53.2 percent), Hill (53.8) and Leon (46.2) were among Floridas worst foul shooters last season. All three are above 70 percent through two games.Leon said Wood worked with players to find their hype meter on a scale of 1 to 10, telling them they needed to play defense at a more frantic pace than offense, especially at the line.He gave me a lot of different breathing patterns, Leon added. So thats really been working for me. ... Its good to see it impact the game. That means the stuff weve been doing is working and it shows weve taken to the time to put the effort in the gym.Woods resume includes a number of college and professional teams. He even worked with the Gators previously, getting invited by former Florida coach Billy Donovan before the 2010 season and helping that team deal with the psychological aspects of trying to get back to the NCAA Tournament after a two-year absence. The Gators, led by Chandler Parsons, Kenny Boynton and Erving Walker, returned to the tournament.White blamed free-throw shooting for his team missing the NCAA Tournament last season. The Gators blew several leads, failing to put teams away late from the line, and had double-digit misses in 10 games.The Gators look considerably more confident this season. If not for newcomer Canyon Barry missing three of his first four underhanded free throws in the opener because of nerves, the Gators would have shot at least 80 percent from the charity stripe in both games.Very nice, very nice, White said. Knock on wood we continue shooting it this way. We have in practice. We just hope we continue to see that carry over. You can see it their body languages, a little more confident at the foul line. ... Its a big factor for us. It kept up out of the NCAA Tournament last year, single-handily, and hopefully this year we continue shooting like this.---More AP college basketball: http://collegebasketball.ap.org Jaren Jackson Jr. Jersey .Y. -- Paul Byron and Matt Stajan scored as the Calgary Flames started a five-game road trip with a 2-1 overtime win over the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday afternoon. Dzanan Musa Jersey .Y. - Nelson Mandela will be honoured by the New York Yankees with a plaque in Monument Park. http://www.cheapjerseysauthenticnba.us/aaron-holiday-jersey/ . But by the time the game started, the Toronto Raptors forward felt even worse. And, for three quarters, it showed as Gay shot a woeful three-for-13 from the field. Marvin Bagley Jersey . -- Josh Sterk scored once and set up two more as the Oshawa Generals edged the visiting Belleville Bulls 3-2 on Friday in Ontario Hockey League action. Kevin Knox Jersey .Y. - Nelson Mandela will be honoured by the New York Yankees with a plaque in Monument Park. At around 12.50pm on a hot Saturday afternoon in Mumbai, December 10, Alastair Cook called for an ambitious lbw review. At the same time, in Bangalore, Prema Nair, a teacher at Chinmaya Vidyalaya in Koramangala finished her walk back home. The replays were on when she entered. This was an offbreak from Moeen Ali, which her son, Karun Nair, playing his second Test, had looked to defend. The umpire saw the bat and pad close together, and also figured the ball was turning too much so ruled it not out. The odds for this getting overturned were long. Yet everything went right with the review: from round the wicket, the ball turned enough to miss the inside edge but not the leg stump.Here we go again, Prema thought. She doesnt watch Karun bat. She locks herself up in a room and worships when he bats. She watches the IPL games but not Delhi Daredevils batting. She cant bear to watch. She gets too nervous. So her husband Kaladharan tapes the games, and she watches them later. This Saturday review against Karun just reinforced the superstition for her.Kaladharan, 62, found it difficult to convince his wife, 59, to come to Chennai to watch her first cricket match, and had to play on her emotions to win her over. How will I go alone? How will you stay back alone? This is his first Test in south India. So finally Prema relented. Having seen - through moist eyes - her son bring up his first Test century, and then go on to make it only the third triple by an India batsman, Prema finally believes that she cant bring bad luck to her son. A son for whose career both parents - middle class with no back-up if cricket doesnt come off - have made a lot of sacrifices. How could she ever possibly bring him bad luck?The thing, though, is that luck has been a big thing in the Nair family. It has also been cruel. In July, having made his India debut in the limited-overs series in Zimbabwe, Nair went to Alleppey in Kerala to make offerings as gratitude for getting his India cap. The current in the river was too strong, and the snake boat capsized. Everybody swam for safety as you do in such situations. Karun made it, but only later did he realise that the relatives who had organised the trip couldnt.A religious trip for good luck had turned into something horrible. It was bound to affect Karun deeply, but his family and relatives tried to keep him distracted, and get him back to cricket. No matter what you do, though, if you are the superstitious kind, the following incidents can bog you down. On the A tour of Australia in August and September, he managed just 38 runs in four innings. On Test debut - which was a last-minute decisionn thanks to an injury to his good friend KL Rahul - he was run out by his captain Virat Kohli after some freakish fielding.dddddddddddd In his second Test, he dropped Englands debutant Keaton Jennings before he had scored - Jennings went on to make a century - then fell victim to that improbable review on 13. It is difficult to break into the India batting line-up. In three years, they have handed out one cap to a batsman - Rahul. Karun was a week shy of his 25th birthday when he finally got the call. His batting is not as explosive as Rahuls. He is not a flamboyant person. He and Rahul are both friends, they have played almost all of their cricket together since the age of 11, but Karun is more subdued. I think he once felt like getting tattoos [like Rahul], but I said its not a good thing and he has stayed away, says Kaladharan. There are bound to be fears you are not cut out for international cricket, when the fates seem to be conspiring against you.All those fears have been quashed now as the Nair family and friends watch Karun race away to a double and then a triple-hundred in a match that he got because Ajinkya Rahane got injured in the final nets session in Mumbai. At one point, Karun looks to play a vertical sweep as left-arm spinner Liam Dawson fires a defensive delivery down the leg side. No, not that shot, says his father, there is a short fine leg in place. A friend next to him says, No, no, its okay, he is hitting down on it, into the ground.Like Sachin Tendulkar used to, says Kaladharan. He likes that and the reverse sweep.Kaladharan should know. He goes to every match Karun plays in Bangalore. A mechanical engineer who was posted in Jodhpur when Karun was born, Kaladharan moved to Bangalore and has also worked on the sprinkler system on the Chinnaswamy Stadium outfield. Karun knows his father is there in the stadium when he plays Ranji Trophy matches at Chinnaswamy but doesnt point to him when he reaches milestones. In Chennai he does. At every milestone, after acknowledging his team-mates, he turns towards the Pattabhiraman Gate End and points to Level 1 of F Stand.The proud parents are sitting there, living every moment of the innings, trying to come to terms with what has just happened. Their shy son, who doesnt speak much, who watched old videos of Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev when little, whose main pastime was PlayStation. 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