Buckeyes, Gators head field
Everything must go their way for the matchup to occur, but the heavyweights from the college football season – Florida and Ohio State – could be on course to meet in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championships title game April 2 in Atlanta.
The Gators, defending national champs in football and basketball, were picked as the No. 1 overall seed Sunday by the men’s selection committee and placed in the Midwest Regional. To get to the regional in St. Louis, they must travel through New Orleans, where a first-round game against Jackson State awaits them Friday.
North Carolina is No. 1 in the East Regional. Ohio State tops the South Regional, and Kansas is No. 1 in the West. Florida and North Carolina defeated Ohio State in nonconference play.
Coach Thad Matta’s Ohio State team has relied on a combination of sensational freshmen, led by 7-footer Greg Oden, and skilled veterans such as Ron Lewis, to create havoc in the Big Ten. The Buckeyes defeated Wisconsin handily for the Big Ten tournament title and have won 17 in a row.
“To be sitting at 30-3 and have won 17 straight games, and two of our losses are to No. 1 seeds that were ahead of us … I’m pretty excited with where we are today,” said Matta.
Florida faces a challenge from history. No national champ has repeated since 1992, and none has worked its way back into the following year’s title game since Kentucky a decade ago. And no champ has even been a Final Four repeater since Michigan State in 2001.
But the Gators have a way of proving conventional thinking wrong. There also were serious questions about them a little more than a week ago. They had lost three of four games heading into their regular-season finale March 4 at home against Kentucky, but then they crushed the Wildcats in Gainesville. Afterward, Florida’s Joakim Noah told fans the Gators were ready to step it up because it was tournament time.
“This,” Noah said at the time, “is our time of year.”
He and his Gators didn’t disappoint. They won three Southeastern Conference tournament games by an average of 19.7 points.
Their decisive 86-60 nonconference victory against Ohio State in December helped the Gators’ cause for a top seed, though Walters said the committee considered that Oden had just returned to OSU’s lineup.
Like OSU, North Carolina boasts some of the most talented freshmen in the country, led by Brandan Wright. They complement All-America candidate Tyler Hansbrough.
Kansas needed overtime Sunday to survive an onslaught by Texas’ Kevin Durant in the Big 12 title game, but the Jayhawks had secured a No. 1 seed anyway by reaching the title game, Walters said.
Kansas has been knocked out of the tournament in the first round the last two years, and coach Bill Self will look to exorcise those demons when his Jayhawks play Friday in Chicago against Tuesday’s opening-round victor between Florida A&M and Niagara.
Other intriguing plot liness in the tournament:
“Illinois coach Bruce Weber could face one of his outstanding proteges, Southern Illinois coach Chris Lowery, in the second round. For that to happen, Illinois must defeat Virginia Tech in the first round, and SIU, the top mid-major with a No. 4 seed, needs to beat Holy Cross.
“The Pacific 10 tied its best-ever showing with six teams, though UCLA fell from a possible No. 1 seed to a No. 2.
“Marquette coach Tom Crean will face one of his mentors, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo, when the Golden Eagles play the Spartans in the first round in Winston-Salem, N.C.
“Butler, the NIT Season Tip-Off champion, received a No. 5 seed. The Bulldogs looked like they were in contention to be in the top four but lost to Wright State in the final of the Horizon League tournament.
“Last year’s top mid-major conference, the Missouri Valley, earned only two bids this year. Creighton, the tournament champ, will join Southern Illinois. For the second year in a row, Missouri State missed out.
Last season the MVC had four berths in “the year of the mid-major.”
Mid-majors weren’t so fortunate this year, getting only six at-large berths overall.
“Last year … we had eight at-large so-called mid-majors in the tournament, and the impression was out there that the tournament committee had gone overboard by selecting mid-majors,” Walters said. “We were criticized to no end by any number of media with regard to that selection, when in fact there has been a range historically of mid-major at-large teams from 5 to 12.
“When we start our process we throw conference affiliation out the door. It shakes out where it shakes out. This year it happened to shake out with six at-large teams from the so-called mid-majors.”