REPS ON LINE
ATLANTA – History beckons.
It has called the Florida Gators since April 7, 2006, when surefire NBA first-round picks Joakim Noah, Al Horford and Corey Brewer chose the chance to inscribe themselves in the book of college basketball lore rather than cash in on their 2006 national title.
“We’re back baby,” Noah screamed into a microphone that day at a Gainesville celebration, sending thousands of Gators fans into delirium.
And history screamed back.
It was been 15 years since an NCAA champion has successfully defended its title and tonight Florida, with those three great sophomores returning, gets its chance to join a short elite list that includes Oklahoma St., Kentucky, San Francisco, Cincinnati, and UCLA. All that stands in the way is a dynamic Ohio State team led by a 7-foot dominating center.
“We don’t want a team to go back-to-back,” said Ohio State swingman Ron Lewis. “Especially on us.”
Lewis gave the Gators (34-5) whatever extra motivation they might need when he said the Buckeyes (35-3) were a great team while Florida was a good one. But the Gators, 4 ½ favorites, need no push.
If Florida prevails, it will have set a standard and perhaps sent a new message: Players can return to college if what is in their hearts is more important to them that what is in their wallets.
They can concentrate not on repeating but rather enjoy the camaraderie of a diverse team that has a Dominican power forward (Horford), a French-African-American center (Noah), a son of an ex-Knick (point guard Taurean Green), a small forward whose father this season lost a leg to diabetes (Brewer), and a shooting guard from Maryville, Tenn., (Lee Humphrey), who coach Billy Donovan says has milk and cookies before bedtime.
“For whatever reason, it’s all meshed and gelled,” said Donovan.
Has it ever. Florida is on a 17-game postseason win streak. After looking solid but not spectacular in wins over Jackson St., Purdue, Butler and Oregon, the Gators closed in on history by slapping UCLA, 76-66, in a rematch of last season’s 73-57 championship game triumph.
Five days later the Gator Boys, as they call themselves, announced they would return. Donovan has done a masterful job of keeping this team focused. If it was that easy, some team would have repeated since Duke, or before that, UCLA from 1967-73.
“After we won the national championship people would always talk to us about expectations,” said Noah. “That was probably the word that I heard the most after we won and decided to come back. It’s one thing to talk about expectations, but I feel like we really experienced it.”
“This year is almost more satisfying because I feel like we had to go through so much more just being under the microscope,” continued Noah. “I think that we’ve done a great job of that. We realize that we needed to stick together through the circus, because this year has really been a circus every single time the Gator boys come to play.”
Such was the case on Dec. 23, when Ohio State came to Gainesville and the Gator Boys blew them out, 86-60. It was center Greg Oden’s fifth game back from undergoing right wrist surgery. He finished with just seven points, six rebounds and four blocked shots and the Buckeyes looked nothing like national champion contenders.
“I don’t want to say that I circled Florida and said, ‘I want to play Florida again,’ said Ohio State coach Thad Matta. “You get beat by 26 points, you really don’t want to see that team for a while. But I do think that I wanted to be in this position and was a realist that there was probably a really, really good chance that Florida was going to be the team that was going to be on the opposite side.”
History beckons: Florida is on the opposite side.
