Florida's Joakim Noah gives a kiss to teammate Corey Brewer (2) after the Gators defeated UCLA 76-66 in Atlanta on Saturday.
Boston Globe
April 1, 2007
ATLANTA -- Hey, we saw this game last year.
UCLA overwhelms most opponents with its defense and then figures out a way to score enough points to win.
But Florida isn't most opponents.
And so what happened a year ago in the national championship game happened again. Florida did the blitz thing when the time came and the Bruins had no response. Last year the final was 73-57. This year it was 76-66, but pay no attention to that.
What all this means is that Florida may now employ the "R" word. Florida has avoided framing the 2006-07 season as one in search of a "repeat" championship, but that's what it would be if it can find a way to defeat a very good Ohio State team tomorrow night.
"We worked very, very hard these last several days to get ready for this game," said Florida coach Billy Donovan, who may be coaching his last game for the Gators before heading to Kentucky if the indicators can be trusted. "I thought out guys' focus and preparation was very good for this game."
A monstrous Georgia Dome crowd of 53,510, some of whom sat in seats that can only be described as absurd, went home bearing witness to the complex nature of the defending national champs. The Gators shrugged off a slow start (no field goals in the first 7 1/2 minutes) and eventually imposed their will on the Bruins with a patented 15-2 second-half spurt that rendered the final 13 minutes a perfunctory exercise.
The Gators (34-5) went into the locker room leading, 29-23, but it was not a shaky 6-point lead. For in the half's final seven minutes, there was every evidence that Florida was on the verge of an explosion.
And that's exactly what happened when senior guard Lee Humphrey (14 points) took an inside-out pass from center Al Horford to ignite the game-winning surge. That was the first of his three inside-out 3-pointers in the run, which also featured the fourth 3-pointer by junior forward Corey Brewer, who carried the offensive load in the first half by scoring 15 of his team-high 19 points.
A Florida run is a thing to behold, since it invariably features either a block or a seriously altered shot by both Horford and the effervescent Joakim Noah, who really is that rare player who could go scoreless for 40 minutes and yet be deemed an indispensable force by his coach.
The great beauty of Florida on offense is that anyone and everyone can hurt you. The starters average between 10 and 13 points a game. The first half belonged to Brewer, the least heralded of the three Band of Brothers who decided a year ago to postpone their NBA careers to make an attempt to be the first repeat national champions since Duke in 1991-92. With UCLA's stifling defense creating 10 turnovers and with Florida only able to attempt 16 field goals in the first 20 minutes, Brewer's 4-for-4 shooting, including three 3-pointers, was vital.
Humphrey had gotten off the schneid with a transition 3-pointer on a fast break triggered by a classic Noah rebound that didn't really belong to him, and then Humphrey buried UCLA (30-6) with those three threes.
"The difference in the second half was that I made the same shots I was missing in the first half," Humphrey explained. "I couldn't ask for better looks than I had in the first half."
UCLA will no doubt be lamenting the fact that 18-points-per-game scorer Arron Afflalo spent all but five minutes on the bench with foul trouble during the first half. His 17 points were exclusive garbage. All UCLA had to offer by way of offense during the first half were the penetration feeds of Darren Collison and some nice inside-outside play by forward Josh Shipp (18 points). But the Bruins' halftime shooting numbers (9 for 29) pretty much say it all. In most circumstances, the Bruins can work around that. It doesn't work when they play Florida.
It was 32-28 following a Michael Roll 3-pointer when the Gators shifted into high gear. The big run began with the first Humphrey inside-out three, and it ended on a rare Humphrey foray into the lane that resulted in a 4-foot floater. By then it was 47-30, Gators, and the Bruins are constitutionally incapable of coming back from a 17-point deficit against a team as good as Florida. That's just a fact.
Bob Ryan can be reached at ryan@globe.com.
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