AD...overlooked again...

Florida beat Ohio State 84-75 in a game that was never really close…Greg Oden was phenomenal scoring 25 points (on 10-of-15 from the field), with 12 boards and had four blocks in 38 minutes, but it was not enough to match the balanced attack of the Gators (6 players with at least 8 points)…plus the Buckeyes could not hit anything (4-of-23) from 3-point range, while the Gators hit nearly everything (22-of-25 from the free throw line…some interesting additional notes from the post game NCAA press release:

The Florida starting lineup of Corey Brewer, Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Taurean Green and Lee Humphrey is the first starting five to repeat as national champions.

Florida guard Humphrey connected on 4-of-7 3-pointers against Ohio State, extending his NCAA Tournament career record for made 3s to 47. The previous mark was 42 by Duke's Bobby Hurley. In his four career Final Four games, Humphrey shot 18-of-32 (56.3 percent) from 3-point range.

Horford (18 points), Green (16), Humphrey (14) and Brewer (13) scored in double figures for Florida, marking the second straight national title game in which four Gators had at least 10 points. In 2006, Brewer, Horford, Humphrey and Noah were all in double figures.

In the two title-game victories, Florida held UCLA (2006) and Ohio State (2007) to a combined 7-of-40 (17.5 percent) from 3-point range. The team with the higher 3-point field goal percentage is 17-4 in title


Oh my…the Hall of Fame is once again the Hall of Shame…seriously, the game is about a lot of things, but primarily it’s about the players…and yet, when this years list of the new HOF’s was announced yesterday, there was nary a player in sight…Look, Phil Jackson (nine NBA titles, including three separate three-peats) is a no-brainer…the 1966 NCAA champion Texas Western team is a good selection (although the Loyola of Chicago team the year before had 4 black starters, but I digress)… Roy Williams as a kind of a lifetime achievement award is a stretch (only 1 title and several masterful choke jobs in the Tourney), and you can slot four-time WNBA championship coach Van Chancellor, international coaches Pedro Ferrandiz of Spain and Mirko Novosel of Yugoslavia into the category of “Whatever” and longtime NBA Referee Mendy Rudolph into the must get guys with odd first names into the Hall…thanks god annoying mouthpiece Dick Vitale and longtime NCAA cheat coach Eddie “the Emory Envelope” Sutton did not get in…meanwhile, deserving players like Adrian Dantley, Artis Gilmore and Bernard King did not get in…I could prattle on endlessly, but ESPN.com columnist Ken Shouler does a great job of it here:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=shouler_ken&id=2822048&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab2pos2

and here

http://proxy.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?id=2394981

Don’t look now, but Yao Ming’s leg is feeling better…In his first 15 games since returning from his broken leg, the 7’5” center is averaging 31 points and 10 rebounds while leading them to a 11-4 record…

Talking with a friend about who the most impressive Raptor has been this season…I think you have to pick the coach, Sam Mitchell…after starting the season 13-19, the Raptors have gone 28-13 and Mitchell’s ability to motivate and juggle a lineup where his best players have been out with injuries has been nothing short of remarkable…to wit, aside from Rasho Nesterovic, four of the Raptors starters have missed 6 games or more this season…Chris Bosh, the Raps top score and rebounder missed 12 games, but the Raptors went 6-6…T.J. Ford, the Raps leading assist man, missed 7 games, and Toronto was 4-3 without him…The Raptors were 4-4 Anthony Parker, 5-1 without Jorge Garbajosa, and even 6-3 without Andrea Bargnani…simply a masterful job from a coach who’s come a long way from challenging Reefer Alston to a fistfight in the locker room…