It is amazing to see where UF basketball is vs one year ago. SEC Tournament Championship and NCAA Championship. The team heading into next year is one of the best in the country. I am still waking up every day wondering how this happened
Based on our improvement arc from the year before, I think most of us thought that the Gators would be good enough to be a 2nd-weekend team in March. We easily surpassed that level. To think that we ended up as the BEST team in the SEC (yeah, deal with it, Awbie) in a year that the SEC was its best ever, the best conference in the nation, and possibly the historically best nationwide ever, is mind-blowing. We also won the strongest regional bracket, and topped it off by winning the strongest Final Four ever. Sure, you need a little good fortune to win it all, but we exceeded our loftiest ambitions. This was epic. Can't wait for next season.
We got another 8 months of being called reigning National Champions and rubbing it in our rivals’ faces.
I too remain amazed at what this team did. 13 players and not a single one ranked in the top 100 coming out of high school! Think about it. And that come-from-behind run of game after game in the NCAA tourney was incredible/historic. I believe it should be talked about on Sportcenter all day every day, forever. Gotta really, really, really appreciate that Natty. Incredible.
A combination of a TREMENDOUS amount of good fortune and a team that could make it's own good fortune produced a team of Destiny! One doesn't have the kind of resilience this team had without dogs on it. TG will continue to give Gator basketball a chance. After that it is good fortune and made fortune.
Nobody ever talks about the fact we beat Houston playing in it's home state for the championship...how often has that happened?
Yes we did get some fortunate misses on the free throw line and 2 wide open 3 looks in the last 3 minutes of he game by Texas Tech. This years team figures too have more depth and firepower at the bigs. we will see how Haugh works out at the 3..if his dribble drive is strong in the same way Clayton was we will be potent on offense. But I think Thmas is most productive as a 6th man solid at all aspects and clutch at crunch time.
The Dance is a crap shoot. In 2006 LSU did us a huge favor taking out both Duke and Texas and George Mason took out UConn. The path was cleared. When we made the Final Four with UCLA, LSU and George Mason I thought we had the best chance to win it all. In fact I cancelled my Tuesday morning classes after the Championship game before I left town to attend the Final Four. I told them they would be celebrating all night long.
Indeed, and not only that, we beat them playing Houston style basketball, low scoring, physical rock fight. I can't quote the exact stat but Houston was unbeaten all year in games statistically similar to the final. UF reused to Wilt the entire tournament despite falling behind by double digits numerous times. Team had an incredible mental fortitude and physical toughness. So proud to be a Gator basketball fan!
This is part of what makes this year's run so awe-inspiring. It seems like each previous Gator FF run saw some upsets clearing the way. Not only did this year's squad come back time and time again, they did it against the toughest draw possible (I rate TxTech higher than St. Johns). How many times has the FF been four 1seeds? The draw before the FF was brutal too, facing the 2x national champs who hadn't lost a tourney game in 13 tries, in the second round. I'm still in the pinch me stage.
Pessimist, huh? Honestly, I think there’s probably too much uncertainty on how the whole new backcourt will come together to say that being reigning champs for the next 20 months will happen. But it’s a possibility.
Actually, I think we were going to cut down 2006 nets no matter what. As the season got late, I thought we should be a 2 seed, or maybe the 3 we got, but anyway we were clearly good enough to be a serious contender, and I took a good look at the likely 1 seeds. I wanted Duke; that team couldn’t handle two bigs in the paint. UConn was the pride of the national press all season long, called the best talent 1-5 and bench, but they just didn’t play well together (and I wasn’t conceding 1-5 superiority). Villanova scared me; good, deep backcourt, and our clearest vulnerability was Taurean off the court from fatigue, fouls, or injury. Memphis/UCLA (choices for West 1 seed) looked like good teams, but I liked us better. When the “bad” draw came, I went ahead and took the good guys all the way, taking out UConn in the Final Four. I remember early in the Villanova game, one of their guards got called for real aggressive, physical guarding on Taurean out in the open court. The guy put his hands on his hips and looked at the ref like “that’s the way you’re going to call this?” I thought it was a clear foul, but had seen enough Big East to know maybe not, and I remember just relaxing back onto the sofa. I’m not much of a gambler, so all I had to show for the winning bracket in a small office pool was lunch. But it was very tasty.
On the other hand, after watching a bunch of games in that tournament, I felt that we were the best team in the entire field. Don't overlook the fact that we dominated the 1-seed in our region, Villanova. After the season and after he learned that our entire starting five would be returning, Jay Wright said that he hoped he didn't have to face us again because we were the best team he'd seen or played all season. This coming from a coach in a loaded Big East. Also, don't undervalue that George Mason team. To reach the Final Four, they beat Michigan State, Wichita State, North Carolina, and UConn. You don't do that by accident. UCLA was a 2-seed, by the way. They beat the 1-seed, Memphis. Then we bullied them. It was laughable.
