Something special for UF basketball started in Atlanta

The scene was set the night before outside the Georgia Dome. It was 16 hours before Florida and Kentucky would face off for the SEC Tournament title, but already the line outside the booth that would offer tickets to Wildcat students was thick with blue-clad fans.

A few yards over, there were two Florida students camped out.

That was what Florida would be facing in the 2005 final, a deck stacked against the Gators the way it always seemed to be at the conference's annual clambake. They called this Cat-lanta for a reason, a scene dominated by UK fans who viewed winning the tournament as a birthright.

And when Kentucky made a run midway through the second half of the championship game, you knew it was over.

Except it wasn't.

Behind Matt Walsh and David Lee, Florida not only rallied but won its first SEC Tournament Championship, an accomplishment that brought UF athletic director Jeremy Foley to tears after the celebration.

It was more than one win, more than one pyramid-shaped trophy for Billy Donovan's office.

It was the start of something special.

“I think that was really big for us,” said Al Horford, who played for those Gators and would win two more tournament titles. “Before our class got to Florida we had struggled against Kentucky. We beat them the first time at home, then beating them that second time I think it really gave us that confidence and put us as one of the top SEC contenders.”

Nobody on the current Gator team that begins play tonight against Alabama was around for that championship Sunday and the guys who were the major players in that win were gone a year later.

But that win changed the program.

The Oh-Fours who played small parts in that championship realized that all things were possible. While the accomplishment didn't play out in the NCAA Tournament that year (Florida lost in the second round), it fed the streak that is still alive today. Florida has won nine straight SEC Tournament games coming into today and 18 straight in the postseason.

“It was a breakthrough game,” Donovan said. “There was definitely some carryover to the next season even though three guys (Lee, Walsh and Anthony Roberson) were gone. The rest of the team had experienced that breakthrough and they knew it could happen.”

The year before, Florida had reached the final only to be demolished by the Wildcats. They limped off the court, Walsh with blisters on his feet, as just another statistic in Big Blue's path.

So there was no reason to expect anything else in ’05.

But there was no reason to expect what was about to happen during a magical run.

This is where it started, in Atlanta's Georgia Dome on a perfect Sunday afternoon.

“Kentucky was always first and we were second,” said Horford, who now plays down the street for the Atlanta Hawks. “After that win, I think that was a big statement for us that changed our program.

“You look at the teams we played in the SEC tournament at the time — Mississippi State was a really good team from the West, then we beat Alabama, then beating Kentucky, three of the top teams in the SEC and pretty much rolling through the tournament.”

Until that game, Florida was a wannabe. The Gators were good, but never great. The 2000 run to the final was considered almost flukish by the college basketball world because of Florida's early exits from the tournament the next four years.

But that one victory changed everything. Wins fed wins, championships fed championships.

Sometimes one game can set the table for the future. Donovan is still looking for the breakthrough game for this young team. He's looking in the right place.