Teddy Dupay was sitting in a hot tub Saturday in a Detroit-area hotel, trying to soothe his sore back. Not quite a year removed from surgery to repair a herniated disk, Dupay is used to dealing with discomfort, though these aches had nothing to do with injury.

"I'm stiff," Dupay says. "It was my turn to drive."

The night before, Dupay watched on television as sixth-ranked Florida lost to Arizona in the title game of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic at Madison Square Garden in New York. It was the kind of setting Dupay craved and often thrived in.

"New York. The Garden. Are you kidding me?" he said. "I'd have loved to have been there."

But while the Gators were leaving their luxury hotel Saturday morning in Times Square, Dupay was waking up at a chilly motor lodge in State College, Pa., and piling into a station wagon with four members of the Nike Elite traveling team. The eight-hour drive to Ann Arbor to play an exhibition against Michigan wasn't much different than the 12 hours from Atlanta to Philadelphia, the five hours from Philly to Storrs, Conn., or the six from Storrs to Syracuse, N.Y., all of which he made earlier in the week.

Welcome to Teddy Dupay's senior season.