Gators step to front

1 Florida is good but not scary good.

Just because they returned all five starters from last season’s national championship team, everybody seems to expect the Gators to steamroll each opponent.

It doesn’t happen that way. As coach Billy Donovan said: “That’s not a large separation between our team and anyone we play. Our margin for error is small.”

What Florida does possess is memory of how to win. At one point early in the second half against Purdue during the second round of the NCAA tournament Sunday at the New Orleans Arena, the Gators were shooting 32 percent from the field.

They were 13 of 17 after that, and the Gators hit 16 of 19 free-throw attempts.

This is not just the ability to turn it on when you feel like it. It’s making clutch plays when it counts.

Taurean Green was having a rough day (two assists, five turnovers) against the Boilermakers and was 0 for 4 on 3-point attempts. But on his next two shots, he hit consecutive 3-pointers.

Caution: The last nine national champions have all won their first two games by double digits. The Gators defeated Purdue 74-67.

2 How good is Memphis?

Yes, the Tigers have won 24 in a row by an average of 18.7 points, but 19 were against teams from Conference USA, none of which made the NCAA tournament or NIT.

Memphis does have depth in the frontcourt and backcourt that allows it to survive things like Chris Douglas-Roberts’ ankle injury against Nevada in a second-round game at the Arena.

The Tigers will be tested this weekend in a virtual road game against Texas A&M in San Antonio. If Memphis gets past the Aggies, it could face No. 1 Ohio State in the Elite Eight.

Win those two, and then you will know how good Memphis is.

3 Ohio State looks vulnerable.

If not for a missed free-throw attempt that would have put Xavier ahead by four with 9.3 seconds remaining in regulation, Musketeers coach Sean Miller’s brain lock not to foul and Ron Lewis’ 3-pointer to force overtime, the Buckeyes would have joined their football counterparts as a team that failed to win the big one.

At least the Buckeyes men advanced. The fourth-seeded Ohio State women lost to Marist in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

4 UNLV is this season’s George Mason.

Yeah, back in Tark’s time, the Rebels won a national championship, but they’ve been off the radar screen for more than a decade since going on double-secret probation.

Can anyone name the school’s seven coaches since Jerry Tarkanian or who the Rebels played in their two one-and-done NCAA tournament appearances since they last made the Final Four in 1991?

That could be because UNLV’s games are seen on Versus, CSTV and The mtn. You’d have to have a fifth-tier digital satellite level to get all of those channels.

What the Rebels do have is outstanding point guard Kevin Kruger, playing for his father, Lon, thanks to a since-rescinded rule that let him transfer from Arizona State without sitting out a year, and impressive forward Wendell White, who had 22 points in Sunday’s upset of No. 2 seeded Wisconsin.

For the first time since 1995, no double-digit seeds made it out of the first weekend, so at No. 7, UNLV is the lowest remaining seed.

5 Southern Illinois and Butler aren’t George Masons.

The Salukis and Bulldogs might hail from midmajor conferences, but they are No. 4 and No. 5 seeds, and thus don’t meet the criteria of coming from nowhere like the Colonials did last season.

6 If there is a scary-good team, it’s Kansas.

Texas’ Kevin Durant might be chosen the national Player of the Year, and Texas A&M’s Billy Gillispie is going to claim some national Coach of the Year awards, but the Jayhawks are the team that won the Big 12 and were the most impressive No. 1 seed of the weekend.

Brandon Rush, Mario Chalmers and Julian Wright are all future NBA players. Point guard Sherron Collins and low-post players Darrell Arthur and Darnell Jackson don’t start, but some feel they are the team’s best at those positions.

Plus, Kansas is driven by two consecutive years of first-round elimination.

“There’s no real weakness on their team,” coach Tubby Smith said after the Wildcats’ 88-76 loss to the Jayhawks in the second round in a game that didn’t seem that close.

Amen.

7 Tubby Smith has to go.

Certain jobs just aren’t meant to be occupied for more than a decade.

Kentucky is one of them.

Smith won a national championship in 1998, and for many Wildcats fans, the fact he hasn’t done it again is unacceptable. The Big Blue hasn’t been back to the Final Four, and for the first time since 1992 Kentucky has failed to reach the Sweet 16 two years in a row.

The Wildcats didn’t lose to Kansas on Sunday because Smith did a poor coaching job. There was just too great a talent gap – a result of Smith’s lack of passion for recruiting.

Smith, as good and decent a man as there is in the profession, said he plans to be back next season, but he sounded like someone who knows it’s time to move on.

8 The Volunteer State rules!

From the land of Elvis (Memphis), to the Grand Ole Opry (Vanderbilt) to Rocky Top (Tennessee), no state has as many schools that still are dancing.

9 Rick Barnes is the new Mack Brown.

Has anyone had as much talent – T.J. Ford, LaMarcus Aldridge, P.J. Tucker, Daniel Gibson and now Kevin Durant – in the past few years with so little to show for it?

Sunday’s blowout at the hands of Southern California only reinforces the notion that Barnes is a great recruiter but a poor in-game coach.

Unlike Brown, who had quarterback Vince Young for three years, Barnes probably has Durant for one season.

!0 Tim Floyd is back where he belongs.

He might have had no chance with the Michael Jordan-less Bulls and was the wrong fit for the Hornets, but Floyd has things going at Southern California.

The Trojans play lock-down defense as well as any team in the country, and they put all five starters in double digits against the one-man show that Durant became for the Longhorns.

For one day at least, freshman forward Taj Gibson was every bit the player as Durant.

Just think how good Southern California will be when and if top high school player O.J. Mayo is in the fold.

!1 North Carolina is growing up before your eyes.

The Tar Heels had some shaky regular-season showings and almost blew a 35-point lead to Eastern Kentucky in the first round, but they impressed by withstanding a challenge Saturday from a Michigan State team that might not have matched Carolina’s talent level but in Tom Izzo has a coach who knows how to win in the NCAA tournament.

Tyler Hansbrough, with or without his facemask, was dominant with 33 points and nine rebounds. Freshman point guard Ty Lawson had 20 points and nine assists against a physical Spartans defense.

This group could wind up as good as the Heels’ 2005 champions.

!2 UCLA and Indiana set college basketball back 40 years.

They might be two tradition-laden powers, but watching the Bruins and Hoosiers struggle to be the first team to 50 on Saturday was excruciating.

Indiana had 13 points at halftime and 18 with 14 minutes left in the game. Then, after the Hoosiers rallied to tie the score at 49 with one minute remaining, they couldn’t execute an inbounds pass and wound up losing by five.

Ugh.

!3 Oregon has no chance.

The Ducks’ best player is named Aaron Brooks.

‘Nuff said.

!4 Hall of Fame credentials don’t always win games.

Bob Knight, Mike Krzyzewski and Lute Olson entered last weekend with a combined seven national championships and 2,445 victories, but none of them was able to add to that total.

At least that’s better than fellow Hall of Famers Jim Boeheim and Jim Calhoun, whose teams didn’t even make the tournament.

Of the top 30 active coaches in career victories, only No. 14 Roy Williams has a team playing this weekend.

!5 Sixty-four teams is perfect. Not 65.

The play-in game deprives a No. 16 seed the true NCAA tournament experience.

Jackson State had no chance against Florida, but the Tigers, or to be precise, their Sonic Boom band, was the most entertaining part of last weekend at the Arena. It wouldn’t have been the same in Dayton.

There is no need for more BCS-conference teams that were at best .500 in conference play and have little chance of advancing past the first round. Five power conference teams were double-digit seeds this season. They went a collective 0-5.

!6 The Elite Eight are …

Florida, UNLV, Kansas, UCLA, North Carolina, Georgetown, Tennessee and Memphis.

Final Four: Florida, Kansas, North Carolina and Memphis.

National championship game: Florida and Memphis.

Champion: Florida.