The No. 1 seed overall and a top seed for the first time in school
history, the target on their backs won’t be anything unusual for these
Florida Gators.
I was talking to one of UF’s assistants
during the SEC Tournament and he was kind of hoping Florida would be a
two seed just to use it for motivation. But that was before the Gators
cemented their top-seeded status with a third straight SEC Tournament
title.
The Midwest bracket is not an easy one. The opening game will be.
Jackson State has a tremendous scorer in 6-foot-5 Trey Johnson, who
averages 27.1 points a game. The Tigers start two seniors, two juniors
and a freshman. And their tallest starter is 6-7, so the Gators should
be able to dominate inside.
Next up will be either Arizona
or Purdue. Arizona has talent, especially on the bench with Lute Olson,
but little depth. The Wildcats went 3-7 against ranked teams. I’ve seen
Purdue play a couple of times and was not impressed. This is a deep
team with two really good players in seniors Carl Landry and David
Teague.
In the Sweet 16, there’s no telling who the Gators
will play because we know about upsets in March. the team Florida
should fear the most the rest of the way is not second-seeded
Wisconsin, which can’t score enough to beat Florida, but red-hot
Oregon. If the Ducks survive, they could give Florida trouble.
Oregon comes in on a roll, blowing through the Pac-10 tournament. The Ducks have wins over Georgetown and UCLA this season.
I think Florida makes it to the Final Four and we come back to Atlanta.
Same city, same arena and even the same media hotel. I’ll probably get
the same room.
