Some of the Miami Hurricanes weren’t even sure of where they were going in November when the team bus left campus for a road trip to some place called Florida Gulf Coast University.
“Honestly, I heard a little bit about them,” said Miami center Kenny Kadji, “but, no, I didn’t know what that school was or how small the gym was and things like that.”
Barrelling back home from Fort Myers later that night, swallowed up by the darkness of Alligator Alley and the gloom of a 63-51 loss to Florida Gulf Coast, the Hurricanes knew they had a smudge on their schedule that might be impossible to erase.
Then came Friday and an even great surprise. The NCAA tournament, assassin to all logical assumptions, served up one of the great upsets ever, 15th-seeded Florida Gulf Coast over No. 2 Georgetown in Philadelphia. Consider it a whiff of Hoya paranoia for every team in the field, no matter how high the seed, and a dab of relief for Miami.
“It kind of makes us say, ‘Told you so,’ ” said Reggie Johnson, who grabbed 10 rebounds in that long ago Gulf Coast loss but found that wasn’t enough. “It wasn’t a bad loss. I mean, we felt bad about it and all, but they’re still a pretty darn good team, an NCAA team who beat a two seed.
“That’s Georgetown’s problem now. We’re over and done with it.”
Don’t look now, but its conceivable that FGCU could be a headache for Florida, too.
If both teams make it past their games Sunday, (FGCU against San Diego State and the Gators against 11th-seeded Minnesota), they will bump into each other next in the South Region’s Sweet 16 round at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
That sort of crystal-balling is not the focus now, and it shouldn’t be, but can Billy Donovan at least use Georgetown’s catastrophe as the freshest and most specific example of the mean streak that runs through March? He said no to that question Saturday, implying that it isn’t really necessary.
“The same Florida Gulf Coast team that beat Georgetown also beat Miami,” Donovan said. “Our players, they live in that world, they understand that.
“These things happen all the time. It’s just that the nation’s watching it now and maybe the nation hasn’t been watching as closely at other times of the year. I think our guys understand. We have lost to a Jacksonville team who came into our place (early in the 2010-11 season) and beat us. We lost to South Alabama (early in 2009-2010). Our players have experienced that. They have gone through that.”
That may be how Billy sees it, and how it preaches it, but it’s a stretch to think that the same strong perspective runs all the way through any college roster. While this current crop of Gators was still in grade school, for instance, another Florida team entered the 2004 NCAA tournament as a No. 5 seed and lost in the first round to Manhattan. By 15 points, too.
Let’s just agree that FGCU did both Florida and Miami a major favor the other day.
In the Gators’ case, Georgetown’s exit leaves only No. 1 Kansas as a higher seed than Florida in the South bracket. Nothing wrong with that, considering Florida has the opportunity to make it all the way to the Elite Eight round without playing anyone higher than a No. 7.
For Miami, it’s more personal. The low point of the Hurricanes’ season just got lifted out of the realm of the bizarre and into the category of just plain competition.
“Everybody on this team on their brackets chose Florida Gulf Coast to win the Georgetown game,” Kadji said. “We knew they could really match up with Georgetown. We really thought they had a chance.”
When that guess got validated, all the old Miami grudges concerning that anonymous school on the other side of the Everglades gave way to smiles.
“We all just laughed,” Hurricanes guard Durand Scott said. “Every time we see something about Gulf Coast, people are saying that their best win was against Miami. They’re just a basketball team, and their game has nothing to do with our game. I wish the best for them, and I’m pretty sure they wish the best for us.
“Anybody can be beaten, even us. We’re a two seed. Georgetown was a two seed. We’re in the same position as them. We need to go in prepared, more prepared than Georgetown was, I believe.”
That belief is stronger now, not because a coach said it but because FGCU, in only its second season of eligibility for the NCAA tournament, actually made a miracle happen.
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