Here is a distillation of dozens of Florida fans on Twitter in the minutes after the 2013 edition of "One Shining Moment" wrapped up the NCAA Tournament: "WHY WEREN'T THERE MORE FLORIDA HIGHLIGHTS WE ONLY MADE A THIRD STRAIGHT ELITE EIGHT SO MUCH DISRESPECT FROM CBSPN!"
That's only a little bit of an exaggeration, I promise, and it's a shame. There's been an undercurrent of Rodney Dangerfielditis was fueled in part by tweets like this (wrong) one from ESPN's Edward Aschoff:
Only #OleMiss represented the #SEC in One Shining Moment ... Awkward for Florida and Mizzou
— Edward Aschoff (@AschoffESPN) April 9, 2013
Aschoff admitted he missed it with an oops, but it was really easy to miss: Florida only gets one highlight, Scottie Wilbekin throwing a halfcourt alley-oop to Casey Prather against Florida Gulf Coast (it's at 1:22 in the above video), and gets Will Yeguete's head in the shot while Glenn Robinson III hammers down his alley-oop at 1:41. (Adam Silverstein thinks it's a Dazzler in the second shot of the thing at 0:01; I'm not so sure, but it's about a three-frame shot, so if you blink, you literally will miss it.)
And those clips serving as the only memories of Florida in the NCAA Tournament is the cherry on top of a dish of discontent: After three years of Florida making and bowing out in the Elite Eight to little fanfare, and a 2012-13 season spent arguing that Florida was really, really good and slightly unlucky, it's not
I would be a lot more sympathetic to this thinking if Final Four team Syracuse didn't get five highlights, total: One is a pregame circle, one is a battle for rebounding position on a free throw, one is Jim Boeheim being Jim Boeheim, one is Derrick Coleman pointing at a newspaper, and the only one of real game action is a pass leading to a dunk against Michigan. There are other Syracuse shots, of the Orange getting dunked on and Brandon Triche being upset, but that Syracuse team made its first Final Four in 10 years, knocked off Indiana (which gets a highlight and voice-over for Victor Oladipo's ice-veined three against Temple), and nearly beat Michigan, something Florida can't even sort of claim.
Syracuse and Florida weren't the only teams slighted. Marquette knocked off the Miami team that seems as present in this "One Shining Moment" as Florida Gulf Coast (and staged a ridiculous comeback against Davidson), and got to the Elite Eight, but gets just about as much time as Florida, and no highlights of real game action. Former Minnesota coach Tubby Smith and former UCLA coach Ben Howland got a shot of them shaking hands as Luther Vandross sings "Time is short," which is unseemly gloating by the NCAA's biggest broadcast partner about two guys losing their jobs. (UCLA's highlights: A blonde cheerleader and Howland shaking hands. "And now it shows!" is totally not about student-athletes' hard work, I guess.) Illinois' great game against Miami is reduced merely to shots of Miami celebrating. The Mountain West's existence in "One Shining Moment" in one of the best years in conference history? Shots of Harvard and Florida Gulf Coast beating Mountain West teams New Mexico and San Diego State.
There's only one way for fans to be totally happy about "One Shining Moment," and that's for their team to win a title. Florida didn't do that this year. Fortunately, with the magic of the Internet, you can still watch ones from years that Florida did.
While watching the first video, consider that Greg Gumbel says Ben Howland has "restored the glory" to UCLA, and that he is now jobless. Since that video, Billy Donovan has won another title and been to three more Elite Eights. Donovan's supporters know that, and so do recruits; they're not making decisions based on how many times they see the Gators in a three-minute video that airs a little bit before midnight on a Monday night.
Nor are they making those decisions on your tweets or Facebook posts about it. For us, the fans, whatever ire this produces is relatively worthless, good for retweets and little more.
If anyone really wants to be aggrieved by this, I'd love for it to be Florida's players, the people who can actually do something about next year's version. When you're part of the team cutting down the nets, you stay in the highlights for quite some time.