March Madness: Just That Quickly, It’s All Over For Florida

And that quickly, it’s all over for the Gators.

In what would have been the game of the tournament any other year, Florida fought valiantly all day before going down to BYU in Double OT. Too many turnovers, too many deep threes launched too early in the shot clock, and two squandered opportunities to win at the buzzer, and UF is going home.

Kenny Boynton and Jimmer Fredette put on one heck of a one on one battle. Boynton gave him all he wanted all day, but Fredette was great. He got to the rim constantly with his nasty cross over and his deadly scoop shot. But Boynton made him work.

Boynton was also a scoring machine from three points all day. In fact, the Gators shot very well from downtown most of the game.At times it was their undoing.

Florida could score almost at will whenever they got the ball in to the big guys down low. They did not, in my opinion, exploit this enough.

And it cost them in the end.

Both in regulation and in overtime, Florida had the ball in a tie game with time to run a play to win. Both instances they dribbled the clock down and left themselves a tough shot with no time for an offensive rebound.

But all in all, the Gator fans should have no complaints. The goal this year was to make the Big Dance. Anything after that was icing on the cake. They got in and did not get embarrassed at all. In fact, I think the people who thought they didn’t belong are rethinking it now.

Now Florida has to regroup for next year. If there are no early leaving players, the only one the Gators will lose will be Dan Werner. If UF has a good year in recruiting, and it is already off to a good start, then the Gators could be a team to be reckoned with next year.

This NCAA tournament will be a positive experience for this group. Now they’ve been there, and know they belong there. And they know the pain of losing a close one. This should fuel them in the offseason. This team lost 13 games, and were competitive in all 13 of them. One more guy, and those games could turn into wins.

Just think if even half of them do.

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