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It’s great to be an aw-shucks Gator
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It was interesting to hear the Florida Gators as they addressed the media throng here at the Georgia Dome for the NCAA championship pregame press conferences. The Gators players and coaches spent a lot of time defending their greatness and proclaiming humility.
A lot of people are wanting to go ahead and anoint this Florida team as one of the college basketball’s all-time greatest. To their credit, the Gators aren’t ready to except that distinction.
“I feel like that’s a question that we should talk about after the game if things go our way,” said junior forward Joakim Noah. “I feel like right now we realize that it’s not about history. It’s not about all that. We have to take care of business and do what we do and that’s just play basketball for 40 minutes and focus on the task at hand. Then hopefully we’re back here and can talk about that again.”
A lot of the optimism — Vegas has the Gators a five-point favorite — stems from Florida’s performance in its last meeting with Ohio State. The Gators won 86-60 on Dec. 23 at the O’Connell Center in Gainesville.
Of course, a lot has happened between then and now.
“Well, I don’t personally think December has anything to do with April, right now,” Florida coach Billy Donovan said. “That game was played on our home court. They’re totally different; we’re totally different. I don’t think you can sit there and make comparisons from that game. Certainly for Greg Oden, he was not healthy.”
That’s right. Oden was still mending his broken right hand. So the right-hander played left-handed and finished with 7 points, 6 rebounds and 4 blocks in 28 minutes while encountering some foul trouble as usual. Still, the Gators came away impressed.
Recalled Noah: “I remember him blocking my shot and smacking me right in the face after it. It didn’t feel too good.”
Oden is healthy now and playing with both hands. An added bonus: He’s now very ambidextrous.
But forgotten about that last meeting is this little tidbit. Oden wasn’t the only one playing hurt.
Florida’s Al Horford had missed the previous two games with a sprained ankle and his availability for that game was highly in question. Horford didn’t start — Chris Richards did — but came off the bench to give the Gators 11 points and 11 rebounds.
Therein lies the key question for tomorrow night’s game. Do you give Ohio State the edge on interior play because of Oden? Or does it go to Florida because it has not just one low-post threat but three: Horford, Noah and Richards, the latter of whom is 19-for-21 from the field in the NCAA Tournament.
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No trash talking from OSU
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Well, the first round of the NCAA Championship pregame press conferences is in. Ohio State was first up on the podium and the Buckeyes offered up almost no trash talk.
Sigh.
We say “almost no” because Ron Lewis came as close as anybody. Clearly, it took a great deal of restraint for the senior guard not to come with more than he did.
Lewis’ trash talk came in the form of calling the Florida team they’ll face in tomorrow night’s championship “good.” This was in contrast to coach Thad Matta and teammates Mike Conley Jr., Ivan Harris and Jamar Butler, who all used some derivation of “great” or “excellent” or “special” or “tremendous.”
And then there was Greg Oden, who said very little about anything.
It was really just a passing reference that likely would have gone unnoticed if not for one alert — or should we say desperate — reporter in the front of the room who noticed Lewis’ disparate response and fixated on it.
Following is an excerpt of the reporter’s exchange with Lewis:
Reporter: “Do you have a different standard of greatness? What do you think makes a team a great team? Is Ohio State a great team?
Lewis: “I think [Ohio State is great] because we got to this point. [Florida is] a good team to me. That’s all I can say about it.”
The press conference drifted a different direction momentarily before the microphone returned to our antagonist.
Reporter: “Ron, why are they only good and do you think they could be great?”
Lewis: “They’re a good team. I go bad team, middle team and then a good team. That’s the top. If you want a great team, look at the Chicago Bulls.”
Hey, it was as close to controversy as you could get here at the Georgia Dome on Sunday. Of course, it’s kind of hard to toss barbs at an opponent that beat you by 26 points three months ago.
That was the prevailing theme for the Buckeyes presser. What makes you think you can beat now a team that beat you 86-60 on Dec. 23 in Gainesville, Florida?
Said Matta: “I think that game taught us a lot about who we are. We were not a very good basketball team on December 23, and quite honestly Florida had a lot to do with that… . I thought it taught us a lot about our strength and weaknesses and gave us a point of reference to what we needed to work on to get better as a team.”
That, and there was that little thing about Oden’s broken right hand. He played left-handed. Now both hands work.
Matta said he is looking forward to seeing how his team does against Florida on a neutral floor with a completely healthy team.
“I don’t want to say that I circled Florida and I said, ‘I want them again.’ You get beat by 26, you really don’t want to see that team for a while. But I DO think I wanted to be in this position and was a realist that there was a really, really good chance that Florida could be the team on the opposite side. So be it.”
So it be. Do the No. 1-ranked Buckeyes, five-point underdogs at last check, have a chance?
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Today’s Final Four memory
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After all these years, it still doesn’t make sense. It really doesn’t.
Georgetown was the defending national champion during its fourth trip to at least the Elite Eight in six years. The Hoyas had the great John Thompson as coach, and they had the accomplished Patrick Ewing as leader of a loaded bunch.
March Madness in Atlanta:
Speaking of Villanova, it was nothing, at least compared to Georgetown.
Well, make that compared to most teams ever to reach the NCAA title game. The Wildcats were a No. 8 seed with a 19-10 record that kept them unranked for the season. They had 6-foot-9 Ed Pinckney as a potential NBA draft pick, but Georgetown had Reggie Williams, Billy Martin, Michael Jackson, David Wingate and Ewing.
Somehow Georgetown didn’t win the 1985 national championship.
Such things happen when the other team throws the only perfect game in the history of the tournament.
Seventy-nine percent? That’s what Villanova shot from the floor overall after hitting 22 of 28 attempts, including nine of 10 in the second half.
Even so, here’s what made that night at Kentucky’s Rupp Arena as memorable as anything else: Instead of grumbling, Georgetown players responded with clapping when the Villanova players were honored on the court as the most unlikeliest of national champions.
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Today’s Final Four memory
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
To fully appreciate the completion of that miracle on March 28, 1977, inside the Omni, you have to consider the days, years and decades afterward.
March Madness in Atlanta:
One thing McGuire didn’t do: He didn’t coach again.
This was a Hall of Fame guy who won 80 percent of the time during his 13 seasons at Marquette. There was an NIT title. There also were a slew of other loaded teams, but there was just one Final Four championship resulting from the completion of that miracle. And, remember: When McGuire departed the Omni back then for his last game as a coach anywhere, he was only 48 years young.
All of that is why it was even more significant than we thought to see McGuire crying at the end of the Marquette bench on that rainy night in Georgia.
Yes, McGuire announced his retirement plans down the stretch of that season, but few believed him. Then one of his weaker teams kept winning before surviving mighty North Carolina in the title game to make McGuire an emotional wreck.
Looks like the sobbing icon knew what the rest of us didn’t: That he truly wasn’t coming back.
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Joakim Noah: Love him or hate him?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As HoopHead wondered whether the exploits of a flashy college athlete are fair game for discussion, it didn’t take much flying through cyberspace to find out the answer to the question:
Is it proper to ask whether you love or hate Florida’s Joakim Noah? Should he be subject to the treatment reserved for coaches and pro athletes?
The matter is already being bandied about. Plenty. Has been for some time. And the junior All-American for the defending national champions hasn’t shied away in what has been a somewhat controversial season.
March Madness in Atlanta:
Check out the AJC’s Final Four page• PHOTOS: Joakim Noah’s Florida career
As the Gators arrived in Atlanta today to continue their quest for a second title in a row, there’s plenty being written, talked and blogged about regarding Noah. His appearance. His playing style. His exuberance. His many, many words on many, many subjects. Mostly about basketball.
Love him or hate him is the topic these days. He says the personal swipes do get him down.
He’s been called quite a few off-color things.
He’s been compared to Christian Laettner.
He’s been PhotoShopped in imaginative and tasteless ways, this Geisha girl being a rather harmless exception.
Fans at UCLA, which lost to the Gators in last year’s championship game and meet Florida again on Saturday, are having their own kind of fun with Noah.
Do you think some of this goes over the top?
Then again, Noah does enjoy the spotlight, and insists he and the Gators feed off the “hate” they receive.
After Florida won the SEC Tournament, Noah launched into a dance copied all over YouTube land. He insists it was all in good fun.
His own YouTube, in which he pumped up his “Gator Boys,” got to right to the point: “Love us or hate us we’ll give you 150 percent.”
What do you think of Noah and what he brings to the game? Is it proper for grown adults to heap scorn and abuse on a 22-year-old college athlete who says he means no harm?
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How far he will go being a benchwarmer in the NBA? Yay!!!... read the full comment by agjm | Comment on Joakim Noah: Love him or hate him? Read Joakim Noah: Love him or hate him?
I think Noah is a well rounded excellent player. the energy he brings to the game on the court is tremendous. i am absolutely proud of him and he will go far... read the full comment by moniuqe | Comment on Joakim Noah: Love him or hate him? Read Joakim Noah: Love him or hate him?
I think folks need to chill out and stop hating..gee….. Let the college kid have fun..heck he isn’t hurting anyone so why bother. This kid is talented and if genetics means anything, look up his dad’s Tennis history. As for those racists... read the full comment by Go Gators | Comment on Joakim Noah: Love him or hate him? Read Joakim Noah: Love him or hate him?
Wow, there are a lot of Noah haters here, aren’t there? Funny how a lot of the preceding comments liken him to a gorilla, or talk about him missing many generations of evolution. Sounds like a lot of jealousy to me. Listen, Joakim is not here to read... read the full comment by chidi | Comment on Joakim Noah: Love him or hate him? Read Joakim Noah: Love him or hate him?