How UF completed puzzle, in 4 not-always-easy steps

By JOHN ROMANO
Published March 31, 2006

INDIANAPOLIS - The route, by now, has become recognizable. The Gators have been on a journey to greatness, and have arrived here two steps shy.

You imagined it when Corey Brewer hit the game-winner against Georgetown. You believed it when Villanova began misfiring on 3-pointers.

But what of the earlier steps? The games, the weeks, the months before? How many moons had to align, and how many moments had to turn out perfectly for a team such as Florida to get itself in this position?

"That's why you count your blessings when you get here," Florida assistant coach Anthony Grant said. "You realize how fortunate you are."

We tend to look at the NCAA Tournament as an isolated event. Three weekends, 13 sites, 63 games and countless memories.

Sometimes, we forget the months that preceded it. The offseason workouts. The struggles in the classroom, and the bonding of teammates.

We focus so much on the Final Four, we miss all that preceded it.

So consider this the First Four. Four events that had to pass in order for Florida to reach a season's final moments.

The fourth of the 04s

It is the best recruiting haul in Florida history. Four, mostly nondescript, players from four states. Two shooters and two post players who, when added together, equaled a Final Four.

And, truth be known, it almost didn't happen.

Oh, the first three came rather easily. Taurean Green was not heavily recruited, and committed to Florida long before the rest. Brewer, wooed by Grant, picked the Gators over Tennessee. Joakim Noah was fast becoming a hot prospect after some summer camps, but Florida had a huge lead in the recruiting race and got him easily, too.

It was Al Horford who was the problem.

The Gators saw Horford as a necessary piece of the puzzle. He was a banger. A hard case. A player willing to do the dirty work on defense.

Grant and coach Billy Donovan had just made a trip to Grand Ledge, Mich., to visit with Horford and his parents at their home. The trip, by all indications had gone well. They were planning to bring him down for a campus visit, but were already counting on Horford as one of their own.

Then they saw on the Internet that Horford had made an oral commitment to the Wolverines.

Looking back, Horford said he felt pressured to commit to a state school. Soon after, Horford said, he began having doubts. His parents called Michigan coach Tommy Amaker and asked him to come by the house, where Horford explained his misgivings. Then he picked up a phone and called Florida.

"We had other options," Grant said. "But, I'll say, we were very, very happy when he made the call to say he was still interested in us."

Donovan called Amaker to make it clear he had not gone behind his back to steal a recruit, and then arranged to bring Horford down for Midnight Madness. Six weeks after his commitment to Michigan, Horford signed with UF.

"I committed to Michigan because that's what everybody wanted me to do, but it wasn't what I wanted," Horford said. "Once I got to hang around the guys down here, I knew where I belonged."

Left behind, and moving ahead

The whispers were true. The warnings were accurate. Anthony Roberson and Matt Walsh were leaving Gainesville early for a shot at the NBA.

So Florida would be without its top two scorers.

Could the news have gotten any worse?

Yeah, Walsh and Roberson might have stayed.

"Nothing against those guys because they were great players, but I don't think we could have done this if they were here," forward Chris Richard said. "All our roles changed when those guys left. We all got an opportunity.

"I know other people saw all our scorers leaving and figured we'd be a horrible team, but we knew better."

The youngsters had bonded as freshmen, insisting on playing as a group in pickup games against the upperclassmen. The differences were cemented when Brewer decked Walsh during an impromptu game after last season.

"I think to create chemistry, as a coach, the players have got to be willing to accept one another for their faults," Donovan said. "It's easy to like somebody because of the good things they do. The true sign of love and affection is to show that commitment when they get under your skin."

Florida was a good team with Walsh and Roberson, but never a great team. The Gators were too one-dimensional when the two guards were the focus of the team, and it's hard to see how it would have been different this season.

Roberson insisted on playing point guard, but never spread the ball around. With Roberson gone, the offense became more diverse. All five starters average between 7.5 and 9.2 shots. Roberson averaged 13.2 shots last season.

"The offense would have been geared toward them if they stayed," Horford said. "Maybe we could have still made this run, but it wouldn't have been the same team."

Taking it to the streets

The most recognizable player in this weekend's Final Four was doing his best to disappear at this time last year.

Having played just a couple of minutes in the first two rounds of the 2005 NCAA Tournament, Noah was an emotional mess. Still weakened from a bout of mononucleosis, he could only watch as his freshmen roommates got more and more playing time. His friends from New York would call, asking Noah what he was doing on the bench. His parents would try to console him.

Finally, when the school year ended, Noah took off to visit his grandfather's home in Cameroon, where he could escape the disappointment of his first college season.

Then, when the time was right, he returned home to New York. He began playing basketball in Rucker Park, where frailty is a curse. He began mixing it up with some of the toughest street players around.

"Playing in Harlem, playing in the playground, just helped me get my swagger back a bit," Noah said.

By the time Noah returned to Gainesville, he had regained the weight he'd lost from mono. More important, he had regained his love for the game.

"Some of those players in New York have made a name for themselves in those parks and I guess Jo played pretty good against them," Richard said. "You know how street ball is, there's no referees. It's a tough game. So when he came back from there, his confidence was through the roof. He was a tougher player. He was ready for anything."

The final lesson

Once the season began, everything seemed to fall into place.

The Gators played hard and played unselfishly. They were winning at a record pace, and were turning heads around the country.

Only Donovan seemed wary of it all.

The Gators still had flaws. They weren't dedicated enough on defense. And they weren't particularly strong in close games. It wasn't overconfidence that worried Donovan, it was a lack of understanding the tough times ahead.

"When we were winning, he was addressing the same problems after every game," Horford said. "He'd say, "If this doesn't happen, if this doesn't happen, then this is going to happen.' We'd always look at him like, "Coach, we won the game, why does it matter?' Then we started losing."

It began as a blip. It blossomed into a slump. After starting 17-0, the Gators went 5-6. They dropped from No. 2 to No. 17 in the polls.

A team meeting was called after the Alabama loss on Feb. 26, and the players discussed the improvements that had to be made.

They have not lost since.

[Last modified March 31, 2006, 22:35:02]