Noah grins, bears it

NEW ORLEANS – Early this afternoon, Florida plays Purdue in the NCAA tournament’s second round. For Florida’s wonderful junior, Joakim Noah, that doesn’t just mean another game showing why he returned to school last spring instead of grabbing a heap of NBA money.

It also might mean hearing the worst of humanity.

Maybe, since this is Louisiana, fans will chant, “Cave-man,” every time he touches the ball, like LSU fans did this season.

Maybe they’ll chant, “Ug-ly,” at him like the Georgia fans did.

Florida State fans held up pictures of his girlfriend accompanied by a word that won’t make the newspaper. Kentucky fans held up a poster of him with the words, “This is what a girl from Florida looks like.”

“Another Kentucky fan dressed up as a gorilla with a sign that said, ‘I showed Noah how to chest bump,’ ” Noah said Sunday afternoon in the Florida locker room. “That one was at least funny. We laughed about that one, didn’t we?”

A couple of teammates beside him smiled.

“See?” he said. “But when you’ve got people four people away from you talking about your mother or yelling the N-word, that’s harder to laugh about. I’ve seen a 60-year-old woman yelling, ‘Noah, show some class,’ and using the ‘f’ word.

“I’ve never experienced some of the stuff I had to this year. A couple of times it definitely got to me. But I feel I’ve learned a lot about myself through this.”

This is the strangest of stories. Noah isn’t top-of-the-class like Greg Oden or Kevin Durant. He doesn’t play at a hated basketball school like the game’s previous lightning rod in Duke’s J.J. Reddick. But he has achieved Cosell-ian status as the least- and most-liked player around.

Because in addition to all that he’s as popular as any player in Florida history (yes, football included). His ponytail and chest-pounding energy became symbols of Florida’s championship run last year. And he’s fun. He’s glib. He’s goofy-in-a-good-way.

He’s really everything to love about college and basketball.

Certainly Noah offers hecklers a list of openings: His hair, his antics, his French tennis-star dad in Yannick Noah (“U!S!A!” was a high-school chant at him) and Miss Sweden mother (“Those are the worst ones,” Noah said).

But why is he always at this crossroad of fun and games and a harsher reality? A Kentucky cheerleader pushed her pompoms in Noah’s face and shook them this year because, well, she could. ESPN’s Dick Vitale, in an interview he thought was off-air, said coach Billy Donovan had told him teams would be crazy to draft Noah over teammate Al Horford (which is true).

Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings refused to hand Noah the ball after it had bounced out of bounds in one of the more bizarre scenes of the season.

“How do you want me to answer why this stuff happens to me?” he said. “I can’t answer that.”

Donovan explains the attention to Noah by saying, “He’s got this longer hair, he’s got great enthusiasm and he’s very, very vibrant. But I think if you get the chance to come in contact with him, he’s so giving and caring. He’s very rare.”

Noah was asked after Thursday’s win if the Jackson State band’s loud music had affected him. He laughed. “After all the things I went through this year, the band?”