Just for fun and memories sake. "As Good as it gets. Florida is your national champion!" "Florida takes it's place in history. Back to back!" "It's over! Florida is back on top of the basketball world! Championship madness! It's a great day to be a Gator!"
Thanks for sharing. i’ve re-watched all 3 games since Monday. In ‘06 we beat UCLA soundly beginning to end. Up by 20 at one point, they managed to close it to 16 but that is still however a sound beating. They were ranked higher than us and we still schooled them. In ‘07 we were the #1 overall seed so no one would be ranked higher than us. We still beat OSU by 9 and they were a #1 seed as well. Led by double digits very late but an Ohio State 3 cut the lead to single digits. Not a beating like the year before but still won comfortably. Monday we pulled it out at the end. Game was there for the taking, we took it. Our rivals and haters will point to flaws in each title but who gives a hoot. The beauty of the Big Dance is you have to beat the 6 teams in front of you if you want to be called National Champions. You can control your seeding via your record, but you cannot control who the other 6 jokers are. In ‘06 we faced Villanova as a #1 but they were not your typical #1. This year we faced two #1s ranked higher than us. Again, beat the 6 in front of you and you’ve got it. We did it….3 freaking times!!!!!! Go Gators!!!
Funny story from the 04s championship runs and I don't remember if it was the UCLA or OSU game. A close friend and UF roommate worked in the athletics tutoring program (he still does) working closely with the athletes. He has many stories, but my fave is about Joakim. After the title game, my friend was talking to Noah and said "Man, that one dunk was really amazing." Jo said, "ohh you mean the one where I went up all two-handed?" My friend: "No. The one where [whatever opponent player] went over your head and leapfrogged you." I remember the dunk, which was quite impressive, just don't remember which year or who the player was.
64 teams and pretty much 63 of them end the season with players crying on/off the court. It's just amazing to think that FL avoided that scenario this year and was the one team to rule them all, while avoiding the kind of emotional heartbreak that invariably hits teams/players/fans.
We have had our share this century of defeats in the Elite 8 and once in the Final 4. Our program is no stranger to heartbreak.
I still can’t believe we won it all. Just crazy to think about all the good teams we beat. And we won the sec tournament in one of the toughest years ever. This team is not loaded with top 50 players, that’s what makes this even more ridiculous. I’m going to enjoy this one for a while. A looooong while. We better lock Golden up. SS struck gold with him. Golden beat: Pearl x2 Oats x2 Barnes x2 Calapari Chris Beard Dan Hurley Kelvin Sampson
Maybe it’s my age and new appreciation for how rarely these things come along, but this one has felt entirely differently to me. I was 17 and 18 during our first two and thought at the time it’d be a matter of time before our next. But nearly two decades went by. This one was such a relief to get to experience the feeling again. Not letting go of this feeling for a long time.
That 2006 season was something real special - apart from it being our first Title, we pretty much were not getting much attention through the tournament. George Mason was the cinderella - getting all the media attention, until we crushed their glass slipper in the final 4. Then it was all the focus on the UCLA legacy, until we surprised everyone and dominated them. What a fantastic year.
My words to my son as our team was showing the inklings of the capacity for a deep run: "The far and away most likely outcome of this season is that this team will break our hearts at some point. Only one college basketball team's season ends with a glad heart." His response, "I just want ours to break later than most." I'd say it worked out for the best this year.
