Before the tourney started I mentioned how the ESPN crew had nobody picking Gators for anything close to Final Four, except the infamous Dick Vitale who had them going to Elite 8. I came across a Jay Mariotti confession:
"Who heard of Florida's pigtailed Joakim Noah until a few weeks ago, and if you did, did you make a connection that his father is former tennis star and current Afro-reggae pop star Yannick Noah?"
But alas, the Gators are one of the programs that slips off the radar. People including the AD Jeremy Foley say we don't have a storied past in hoops. But, in the span of 1994-2006 we have been to the final four three times. Others similarly don't view us as a hated threat :
"I can't root against Florida, because how can anybody root against a school whose most famous basketball product is Dwayne Schintzius?" That would be three times, this being the second time with Donovan. The first time with Lon "On the Move" Krueger.
If anyone in your office pool picked these Final Four teams, they should be in Vegas more regularly. Noted today on the Mike and Mike ESPN radio show, of all the brackets filled out, only two brackets had these four teams. In a pool I signed up for that allows for the computer to pick the games, the bracket that is in line to win is the one that the computer picked the games.
Talk about some trends among these four teams, New Editor says each of the Final Four teams has on their resume this season a dual loss against the same team:
"George Mason was beaten twice by Hofstra, going 0-2 against them;
LSU was beaten twice by Florida, going 0-2 against them;
UCLA was beaten twice by Washington, going 0-2 against them;
Florida was beaten twice by two different teams -- Tennessee, going 0-2 against them -- and South Carolina, going 1-2 against them."