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Florida Gators are now the most storied program in college basketball
Mike Bianchi
SPORTS COMMENTARY
8:35 PM EDT, March 19, 2011
Another day, another defeat for basketball aristocracy.
Another NCAA Tournament, another victory over UCLA.
This is getting to be monotonous, isn't it?
Can we just go ahead and say it: The Florida Gators own the most storied program in all of college basketball.
Once again, U-FLA knocks UCLA out of the tournament it once ruled.
The program that was once coached by John Wooden, the Wizard of Westwood, simply cannot beat the program coached by Billy Donovan, the Guru of Gainesville.
"Any time a storied program like UCLA comes walking out on the floor, they expect to win," Donovan said after his Gators advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16 with a 73-65 victory over the Bruins. "That's what their program represents. Hopefully, we're building an expectation level at Florida that we expect to win, too."
Two years ago, Donovan received the John Wooden "Legends of Coaching" award in Los Angeles – the last recipient of the award before Wooden died at age of 99. And now Donovan and his Gators have won three consecutive postseason games over the Bruins of Coach Ben Howland.
The Gators destroyed UCLA by 16 to win their first national title in 2006. They beat the Bruins by 10 in the Final Four the following year on their way to yet another national championship. And now this – a program-reawakening victory for Donovan, who after a three-year reconstruction following those back-to-back titles, might very well have a team that can get him to another Final Four.
And don't think the basketball bluebloods out West aren't bothered by the fact that they have become tournament fodder for that Gator-chomping football school down South.
"You have no idea," former UCLA player Lorenzo Mata-Real, who played in both of those Final Four losses to Florida, told the Los Angeles Times heading into Saturday's game. "… There isn't any Bruin I know who doesn't want to finally beat them."
Maybe next year.
Here's all you need to know about how the dynamic of college basketball has changed. Now it's UCLA's coach – Howland – who is facing a Florida legend.
"Billy Donovan is a Hall of Fame coach," Howland says. "The University of Florida is lucky to have him."
Spring football fever will have to wait in Gainesville while Gator fans dust off their basketball pom-poms and jump on the Billy bandwagon once again. After all, how can you not embrace a team that takes its lead from Erving Walker, a point guard who is listed at 5-foot-8 but is actually closer to 5-6.
"He's the smallest player on the floor with the biggest b---- on the floor," UF sophomore Erik Murphy said of Walker, who led UF with 21 points and scored 10 of the Gators' final 12 points.
Murphy was speaking specifically of one play late in the game in which Walker dauntlessly drove into the 325-pound body of UCLA's Josh Smith. To say Smith is huge would be an understatement. He's so big that when UCLA landed in Tampa, Smith immediately became the largest freestanding edifice in Hillsborough County, surpassing both Raymond James Stadium and the Sun Trust Building.
In contrast, Walker tips the scales at 170 – or about the same poundage Smith consumes for his post-game meal. And yet Walker didn't flinch when he drove into Smith, tried to draw a foul, bounced backward and sank a one-handed, fall-away prayer that inflamed the team and gave UF at 63-58 lead.
"Erv is fearless," UF senior Chandler Parsons said. "He just has a knack for hitting big shots. Anytime he shoots the ball, I think it's going in."
Parsons, the Lake Howell High product and SEC Player of the Year, scored only seven points on 3-of-8 shooting, but it didn't matter. Not with this team. You see, on this team, everybody contributes. When Parsons, the biggest man on campus, has an off game; the smallest guy on the floor picks him up. A senior like Alex Tyus (13 rebounds) comes up big as does an ultra-talented freshman like Patric Young, who came off the bench for eight points and two rim-rattling, crowd-igniting dunks.
"Nobody in this locker room thinks they're more important than anybody else," Young says.
Somewhere, even though the Gators yet again beat his Bruins, John Wooden must be smiling. One thing the iconic coach loved was unselfish players who didn't care about their own stats. The Wizard of Westwood would love the Guru of Gainesville's Gators.
After all, as Wooden himself once said, "The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team."