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Friday, March 31, 2006
Florida cast as the villain
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Indianapolis — At 6:07 p.m. Saturday, the hated Gators will be hated as never before. They’ll be hated in a way that even Ray Goff could never muster for Steve Spurrier, and this time it isn’t Florida’s fault. It just happens to be the team playing the most huggable underdog in Final Four history.
“We’re definitely going to be the villains,” Joakim Noah said. “But that doesn’t matter… . It doesn’t matter what stories are being said about who. Like [teammate] Adrian Moss says, ‘There’s 10 players and two buckets and one ball — that’s what it’s all about.’ “
Usually it is. This is a bit different. Florida is facing not just George Mason but a nation of casual observers who have decided George Mason is their favorite team ever. Said Jim Larranaga, the Patriots’ coach: “We’ve been embraced by the whole country… . We all feel it would be great to be the underdog and to overachieve. I think we all can identify with that attitude.”
The Gators can. They weren’t picked to finish first in the SEC East and weren’t a No. 1 (or even a No. 2) seed when the Big Dance began. But suddenly they’re the massive favorite to squash George Mason and take the title to boot.
“We still feel we’re the underdog,” Gators point guard Taurean Green said. “With all the hype surrounding George Mason, we still feel we have something to prove.”
And then, in the next breath, a somber Green said: “We’re here to handle business. We’re not here to have fun.”
The cuddly Patriots, by way of conspicuous contrast, were living the dream Friday. They were wide-eyed when they took the floor at the RCA Dome for their public practice, and during Larranaga’s media briefing, guard Lamar Butler could be seen poking his head through a curtain and smiling at the immensity of it all.
Said Butler: “I was looking at how big this [interview] room is. Never seen so many people here just to write a story.”
Four teams have gathered here, but there’s only one real story. Can George Mason win again? Is George Mason about to unseat the 1954 Milan High School Indians — the real-life inspiration for the movie “Hoosiers” — as the most improbable champion crowned in this city?
The most famous scene in “Hoosiers” has coach Gene Hackman gathering his Hickory squad on the floor of Hinkle Fieldhouse and measuring the rim to prove it’s the same 10 feet as the ones back home. How eerie is it that Hinkle, which stands 7 miles from the RCA Dome, is part of Butler University and that George Mason’s most effusive player is named Butler?
And what are we to make of Lamar Butler’s first cast at the 10-foot rim in the Dome?
“I shot an airball,” he said. “I’ve never in my life been inside a dome. All I could think of was Peyton Manning throwing all those touchdowns.”
The Patriots were loose and effusive. The Gators were something else. Noah and Green met the media and were alternately confrontational and sullen. Noah sparred with questioners and, just for the heck of it, answered a French correspondent in French.
Given that Noah is the son of a tennis champion and a Miss Sweden and that Green’s dad played in the NBA, they came across as too worldly to be truly excited. Their next opponent knows little of the world but seems delighted that many of its denizens have just discovered George Mason.
Guard Tony Skinn: “Even though we’re far from home, I think we have just about everybody cheering for us… . Whenever we score, we’re going to hear the crowd roar.”
But the crowd doesn’t actually get to play, and Florida has played better than any other team in this tournament. The happy George Mason story figures to end Saturday. Unless it doesn’t. Unless all that hating undoes the Gators, same as it did UConn.
“I hope [people] come out tomorrow and cheer us on,” Butler said. “For us to get into the Final Four, people have something to cheer for. We’re the Dallas Cowboys [meaning America’s Team] of the 2006 era.”
And the Gators? In the court of public opinion, they might as well be from France.
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