AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2007 > March > 09 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USGators in their own league
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Florida had 17 points before Georgia managed one, and that was your ballgame right there. A great team played great. A pretty good team saw its immediate future spelled out in the glow of the Gator starpower on dazzling display, and that destination read …
N-I-T.
Georgia could play Florida a hundred times and might — might — win once. Georgia has a nice little nucleus. Florida has the whole blessed atom. Florida could well win four more games in the Georgia Dome over the next 23 days, and if they do the Gators would be three-time SEC titlists and back-to-back national champs. Until proved otherwise, this team remains the class of the collegiate game.
It was the Bulldogs’ lousy fortune to run across Florida at a time when their NCAA chances hung by a fraying thread. Georgia tried to convince itself that this was the best time to play the Gators — after the regular season but before the Big Dance — but there’s never a time to play the Gators if you’re Georgia. Not on the last Saturday of October in Jacksonville, and not on any day on any basketball court until the Bulldogs add players and Florida subtracts three or four.
Georgia is pretty good because it tries really hard with what it has. Florida tries just as hard and has five times the resources. No Bulldogs player would start for the Gators. Chris Richard, who’s Florida’s sixth man, is no worse than Takais Brown, who’s Georgia’s leading scorer and rebounder.
The only question about Friday night’s game was whether the Gators would take it seriously, and leads of 17-0, 28-4 and 31-6 supplied the emphatic answer. The three losses Florida suffered in their last three regular-season road games? They were the inevitable February letdown of a team pointing toward March, and if anything they served as coaching tools for Billy Donovan and his assistant Larry Shyatt. Anyone who thinks this team isn’t primed to defend its title(s) suffers from utter delusion.
“You see I haven’t written anything down,” said Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy, sitting courtside Friday night and ostensibly doing reconnaissance on the Gators. “When you scout a team you look for something to exploit, but with them there’s nothing you can exploit. You can only hope to limit them with surprise and change and smoke and mirrors, and then you hope you shoot it well and they don’t.”
Last month Dennis Felton called Florida the best aggregation he’d faced as a head coach or an assistant, and he spent six years working in the Big East and the ACC. Kennedy went even further back to find antecedents: “The Vegas team of 1991 that we played against [at UAB], the one that went undefeated but lost to Duke, was great, and Duke had some great teams, too. This is a team like that.
Said Sonny Smith, who coached Charles Barkley at Auburn and who does TV commentary for CSS today: “I don’t know that Joe B. Hall ever had a team like this [at Kentucky, and Hall’s Wildcats were 1978 national champs]. I don’t think LSU ever had a team like this, not even with Chris Jackson and Shaquille O’Neal.”
Kentucky’s two-deep 1996 NCAA titlist might have been a match for these Gators 1 through 10, but only five men can play at a time, and Florida’s five is better than the Wildcats’ first unit of 11 years ago. Kennedy again: “They’ve got four guys who’ll be first-round draft picks, and the fifth [Lee Humphrey] is the best open shooter in the country.”
There can be no disgrace in losing to a team of this eminence — disappointment, yes, but no disgrace. Georgia wanted to win Friday so as to be invited to the NCAA tournament. Florida wants to win a second consecutive NCAA tournament. Georgia’s dream wasn’t realistic. Florida’s is.
Permalink | Comments (46) | Post your comment | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC
Comments
By Darrin the "Vent King"
March 9, 2007 11:15 PM | Link to this
Just a week ago it was a gloom and doom for the Gators. We lost, OMG three out of four (all on the road), no soon after winning what? 17 in a row? Left for dead by this very paper. Oh yeah, the wheels fell off alright. RIGHT ON TOP OF UGA’S HEAD!!
Do we deserve that #1 seed now?
GO GATORS!!
By NationalChamps
March 9, 2007 11:17 PM | Link to this
Oh my have the times changed. Mark Bradley one of the all time Gator bashers is now singing their praise. Poor Bradley. Poor Dawg fans. We ruin your football season every year. Now we ruin your March Madness dream. Enjoy watching the mighty gators in March Madness.
By IMF
March 9, 2007 11:21 PM | Link to this
Anything else?
By Scott
March 9, 2007 11:42 PM | Link to this
I have to say that I respect the Gators, but not nearly as much as I hate them.
By Well, Mark...
March 9, 2007 11:45 PM | Link to this
Florida got whipped by LSU without Big Baby. 4-12-in-the-league LSU. WITHOUT BIG BABY. Let’s not forget this.
1990 UNLV? Not so much. For my money, this Florida team is just like last year’s UCONN outfit- million dollar talent, ten cent heads, and a coach that may or may not get effort out of his crew each night. Very dangerous club, but they can be had by teams that play tougher and smarter.
And for what it’s worth, after that 17-0 lead, both teams played neck-and-neck the rest of the way. Now, we can say that Florida stopped caring…but isn’t that their problem to begin with?
May they live in interesting times if they think giving 40% every night will do it.
By br
March 10, 2007 12:23 AM | Link to this
Oh please, give me a break about these “powerful” Gators. I mean, whoop-de-doo, they whipped up on a mediocre Dawg squad and now you think they’re world-beaters? Please, mark my words, they’ll go down early in the NCAA tournament…they’ll be exposed as the frauds they are!
By Matt
March 10, 2007 12:38 AM | Link to this
Florida’s the next NCAA Champ, no contest. Wouldn’t it be great if UGA gets invited to the NIT and we have a NIT and NCAA Champ from the SEC again? Who says that the SEC doesn’t have the best sports in the nation?
Georgia got flattened tonight, yes, but I still think that Dennis Felton has this team on the right track. I honestly and sincerely hope that they keep him for a very long time at UGA because he is not just building a winning program (and going 17-13 is good for UGA even if it doesn’t get us into the NCAA tourney), but he is also building outstanding young men who will become leaders in different industries.
Go Dawgs! and good luck to the Gators. Win another one for the SEC!
By Matthew at the SLC
March 10, 2007 12:40 AM | Link to this
I think that the Bulldogs still deserve to go to the big dance. They should go because Coach Felton is black and it would be great for all minorities. Coach Felton would agree.
By scooter
March 10, 2007 1:07 AM | Link to this
SLC, If I had two basketballs and one was black and one was pink…you could dribble on my right one and make my left one jealous.
By bigdawg
March 10, 2007 1:17 AM | Link to this
It came down to the matter of fresh legs: UF simply has a deeper bench and also didn’t play a game the night before.
By biggator
March 10, 2007 8:21 AM | Link to this
Hey bigdawg, is that why the dawgs lost to the Gators three times this year?
By randy
March 10, 2007 9:05 AM | Link to this
biggator swallows! the worm will turn! see what georgia does to flordia in the next few years in basketball and football!
By Sonny Martinez
March 10, 2007 9:09 AM | Link to this
Florida…frauds?? My gosh!!! Florida is the Defending National Champs… Defending SEC Champs. Florida is anything but a fraud. They are great.
The Ohio State Football team were exposed as frauds by Florida.
By bigjeb
March 10, 2007 9:16 AM | Link to this
My how the times have changed. Gators are so deep in dawg fans heads they can’t think straight. Twenty five years ago it was just the opposite when I went to Emory. With some luck and Donovan and Meyer leave UF the dawgs can win a few games again. Until then all you can do is cry big dawg tears just like the 70’s gator fans did.
By Forrest
March 10, 2007 9:36 AM | Link to this
Stupid is as stupid does. Be it football or basketball, the dogs become pussycats anytime they face tough competition- particularly against Florida. UGA is simply not a National Championship caliber school for football or basketball. The sooner the fans and media in this town figure that out, the better off we all will be.
By randy
March 10, 2007 9:49 AM | Link to this
forest sucks and swallows too!
By Being Real
March 10, 2007 9:59 AM | Link to this
Georgia right now, this year, is getting about what it’s going to from Felton. The talent level will not rise above what it is now and he will coach it no higher than he has now. What you’re seeing is what you get. Despite what Bradley says, this is Felton’s program at its peak, not on the rise.
By Darrin the "Vent King"
March 10, 2007 10:00 AM | Link to this
To “By Well, Mark”:
Are you serious? You lose ONE game badly to LSU “without Big Baby, without Big Baby, without Big Baby” (said it three times so you wouldn’t think I forgot LOL) No disrespect to LSU, them boys took us to the woodshed for sure that night. Apathy caught us sleeping and we got what we deserved. But, how the @#$% are the Gators just like UCONN “outfit million dollar talent, ten cent heads”? We won the whole thing LAST year, UConn did not. May or may not get effort from the crew every night? Is that how you win SEVENTEEN games in a row? This year and last? Is that how you become back to back SEC tourney champions? Is that how you make the NCAA tourney every year this century? The ONLY thing you’ve said in that sorry post was “they can be had any night”. Well congratulatins genius, that’s true for every freaking team in NCAA. They give 40% effort and beat the Dawgs by like a thousand points? I mean it was 33-8 at one point in the game. What do you want them to do, beat the Dawgs by a million? HAHAHA. Well Mr. “For my money”, I hope you don’t put your money where you mouth is, because you’ll be finiacially broke in no time.
GO GATORS!!
By Matthew at the SLC
March 10, 2007 10:05 AM | Link to this
Coach Felton is the greatest coach to ever walk the floor of the Steg. He will bring us to the promised land.
By Pitbull
March 10, 2007 10:16 AM | Link to this
I think that Coach Felton has brought the Dogs along great during his short time in Athens. They improve each year and even if outmatched, they fight and do not give up. I am proud of their season. They would have had 2 more wins if the ref in the Alabama game had not been asleep at the end, and if Coach Felton had not punished a starter for disrespect towards another coach a couple of weeks ago. The W’s are great, but do not in and of themselves indicate the joy of being a Dog. If the Gaturds won every basketball game for the next 100 years, they would still suck as people.
By MB
March 10, 2007 10:30 AM | Link to this
Scott-what an idiotic post-you sound jealous-bet you wish you had those so called”ten cent heads” on your team. So what if they lost to lsu without big baby, without big baby-they were on the road, and had already won the SEC title outright-sure any team can beat another in BB that’s why they play the game-you need to see how ridiculous you sound-it sounds like pure envey plain and simple
By Being Real
March 10, 2007 10:33 AM | Link to this
But for Georgia basketball, the promised land is a trailer park outside Eatonton. Also, greater coaches walk the floor at Stegeman all the time, Billy Donovan of Florida and Tubby Smith of Kentucky to name two. And, finally, Pitbull. Felton has brought the Dogs along, but the sad fact is they’ve gone as far as they are ever going to under this mediocre coach.
By randyisafag
March 10, 2007 10:39 AM | Link to this
Randy, you must swallow and suck as it takes one to know one.
By Big Al
March 10, 2007 10:54 AM | Link to this
“If the Gaturds won every basketball game for the next 100 years, they would still suck as people.”
Hey Pitbull… sounds like you got some personal issues there. I have been a Florida Fan for over 35 years now. I have a lot of relatives that were born and raised in Georgia and are huge Dawg Fans. Having said that, I don’t look down upon them any less as a group of people. I am related to them. Their DNA is my DNA. In fact you would be absolutely surprised at the number of hard core Gator Fans who now respect the Bulldog program and what Mark Richt and Felton have brought to the table. You guys have great teams, with good, upstanding players and two very honorable coaches. As Gator Fans, we see the difference quite quickly. We have to gaze upon that collection of honor and integrity that is found up in Tallahassee every year. The distinction is quite clear.
And lastly, Mr. Bradley, I want to commend you on your article. I have been reading your work ever since you started at the AJC. Must admit that some of those earlier articles seem to be very cutting and in my opinion, not called for. And some of those classic “Spurrier Photos” that were taken of him in not the best “PR” light…well, ya know what I mean. But honestly…my sincere “Thanks” for these last few articles.
By Dawgs Fans SUCK
March 10, 2007 10:56 AM | Link to this
You’re calling people Gaturds and that they suck? Get real, you’re a loser rooting for a loser university. You can’t beat us so UGAY fans desperage the students fans and athletes. Dooley would be so proud. LMAO
By Gators Rule Right Now
March 10, 2007 11:14 AM | Link to this
Pitbull, you need to change your name to pitiful. If, if, if… you have more excuses than chins in a chinese phone book. Bottom line is that UGA can’t beat Florida and it makes you mad. Big Al said it well, you all have a great school and two great coaches that don’t make excuses for what happens on the field or on the court. Wake up pitiful bull and realize we are just better than you right now. We accepted that fact in the 70’s and you need to do the same now. Enjoy your NIT bid and don’t make excuses for losses.
By Historical clarification
March 10, 2007 11:28 AM | Link to this
Dogs’ domination included much more than the ’70s buttmunch. That’s why the series lead in football is still in UGA’s favor.
By Steve
March 10, 2007 11:40 AM | Link to this
Historical Clarification, buttmunch? What were you guys buttmunching in the 70’s? I bet your breath smells like a dawgs behind from all the butt munching you do. Enjoy your NIT bid as well as you big Peach Bowl win.
By Historical clarification
March 10, 2007 12:06 PM | Link to this
We will enjoy them. Thank you. We will especially our win in Jacksonville over Florida next season. Farthead.
By Steve
March 10, 2007 12:15 PM | Link to this
You are so welcome butt breath. It is not about the past and it is not about the future, it is about right now and right now we are kicking your behind.
By Chip
March 10, 2007 12:20 PM | Link to this
Historical clarification, you live in the past and now you see into the future. What you better do is wake up and live in the present and presently Florida owns your dawgs
By Historical clarification
March 10, 2007 12:25 PM | Link to this
Steve and Chip take turns owning each other’s behinds. See first Steve bends over in front of the computer and types bs, then Chip bends over in front of the computer and types bs.
By EEJAY
March 10, 2007 12:28 PM | Link to this
It’s easy to be in your own league when the the rest of your league sucks. The Gators are good but will not repeat.
By Steve
March 10, 2007 12:41 PM | Link to this
Historical clarification, not bs just facts. Now you have let everyone know your sexual preference and favorite position by wishing you could have someone jam it up your behind while you type bs on your computer.
By Historical clarification
March 10, 2007 12:49 PM | Link to this
Clever. You might as well have typed “I know you are but what am I?”
By Proud Gay Dog
March 10, 2007 12:51 PM | Link to this
I’m a proud, gay man and a Bulldog graduate, 1992 (Building Construction). The other night, after some strenuous lovemaking, I turned to my lover and said “Coach Felton, will the Dawgs EVER beat the Gators again?” Denny looked at me tenderly and said “Absolutely. I’ve been working twice as hard at this ever since you smartened up and broke up with Coach Richt. We’ll be back. Oh, yes.”
By Steve
March 10, 2007 12:53 PM | Link to this
I know what I am chump, you are the one that came out talking about owning behind, not me.
By Historical clarification
March 10, 2007 1:01 PM | Link to this
We all know what you are, too. And, hey, it’s Chip’s turn now.
Do you guys use KY or saliva?
By Steve
March 10, 2007 1:06 PM | Link to this
Just because I have been anally gang banged regularly by Richt, Felton and Dooley, that does not mean I am gay.
By Historical clarification
March 10, 2007 1:09 PM | Link to this
“He is Vigo. You are like the buzzing of flies to him.” — Ghost Busters II
“I will do everything in my power, fair and unfair to trip you up.” — An Officer and a Gentleman
Done picking wings off flies now. Bye bye.
By Steve
March 10, 2007 1:10 PM | Link to this
Historical clarification, how do you know so much about ky or salvia? It must be that you have tried both and have a preference.
By Steve
March 10, 2007 1:13 PM | Link to this
Historical clarification, I must go now as I am going to the Georgia Dome and watch the defending National Champions play LSU. You were a blast to joke with.
By Steve
March 10, 2007 1:26 PM | Link to this
historical classification, that is a low shot by writing in my name and implying that I have had gay experiences with your coaches. You have now classified your coaches in the same group that you run with.
By Terry
March 10, 2007 1:54 PM | Link to this
Steve, I agree with all that you have fired at historical classification. However, we play Ole Miss. Historical classification can’t help that he wakes up with hairs in his mouth and has butt breath.
By Ed
March 10, 2007 2:53 PM | Link to this
I hate Gators. I hate them when they are 0-10-1 (1979 football). I hate them when they are 13-1. I hate them when they overachieve (last year), I hate them when they underachieve (‘02-‘04, and most of their 70 yr. history). I hate them when they own my Dawgs (since 1990), I hated them when the Dawgs owned them (pretty much the entire Ga-Fla history before ‘90). I hate them when they mercilessly boo a sophomore quarterback getting his first real playing time (some kid from Lakeland in the early 80s - he never recovered), or when they loudly boo a talented 4-yr. starter in the middle of leading them to a conference and national championship (Chris Leak, this past year.).
I hated them when they managed to go 52 years without a single conference football championship, choking and cheating away many opportunities along the way. I hate them now that they seem to win conference championships regularly, because they are still Gators. If they win the next 20 games, I will rejoice when they lose the 21st. If they lose the next 20 games, I will lament their winning the 21st. I hate the Gators. I hate them because - win, lose or draw - they are still Gators, and they will never have an ounce of collective class. It’s still great to be a Gator Hater, and it always will be.
By Buck Cochran in the NW
March 10, 2007 9:11 PM | Link to this
I guess so of you people think you’re being funny with what you post. Well, you’re not. To watch a blog sink to the level this one has is just disgustin. Are you telling me that you can’t get your zingers in without the low rent posting? Ed just made his point without getting in the gutter. I DON’T LIVE IN THE PAST EITHER. LIKE IT OR NOT, THE REPTILES HAVE WHIPPED OUR BUTTS OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS AND NOTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE THAT RECORE OF THE IMEDIATE PAST. wHAT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN IS THE FUTURE AND THAT WILL CHANGE. IN ‘07, WE HAVE THE TALENT TO GO MAMO MAMO WITH THE REPTILES AND WIN. THERE WON’T BE ANY NEED TO GET IN THE GUTTER WITH THEM OR ANYONE. i’LL BET THAT STAFFORD AND OTHER DON’T FEEL THE NEED TO DO ANYTHING BUT GO OUT AND WIN. OUR “HC” MATURED IN ‘06 AND WE NEEDED THAT TO HAPPEN. PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY’VE SEEN THE DAWG “O” OF THE FUTURE HAVE. MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT EVERY COACH IN THE SEC WAS ALL EYES AND EARS DURING THE 2ND HALF OF THE “CFB”. THAT IS WHAT PEOPLE WILL SEE FROM THE DAWGS AND IT’S NOT A THING LIKE YOU’VE SEEN SINCE CMR HAS BEEN THERE. SO ALL YOU MEMBERS OF THE “DAWG NATION’” WHO’VE BEEN IN THE GUTTER, GET OUT, SHOW A LOT OF CLASS JUST LIKE OUR TEAM WILL BE SHOWING IN ‘07