Jacksonville Sports News, Sam Kouvaris - SamSportsline.com

Houston, You Have A Problem

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It’s hard to believe that Charley Casserly has enough sway and enough juice inside the organization to make the kind of moves he has over the last year, but he must. From getting rid of Dom Capers to switching tracks at the top of the draft, Casserly has his imprint on the Texans franchise. The problem is, the franchise isn’t very good, and it’s not going to get any better.

For now. Mario Williams is a good player. He’s probably worthy of a first round pick, and maybe even the top pick. But not versus Reggie Bush. Bush is a once-every-ten-years player. Williams comes along every year with some kind of comparisons to Julius Peppers and Lawrence Taylor. But Bush with his versatility and explosiveness gives you a home run hitter that has to be recognized every time you snap the ball.

Let alone the ticket selling potential and the “buzz” factor.

Bush apparently was trying to milk the Texans for an extra $6 million or so leading up to the draft during the negotiations. Casserly balked at the number and moved to Williams, perhaps because of his “signability.”

“We thought there were two number one’s in this draft, Reggie Bush and Mario Williams. We couldn’t make a deal with Reggie so we signed Mario,” is how the Texans General Manager explained it. If I were a Texans season ticket holder, I’d be pretty angry. Angry enough to try and sell my tickets, or burn them in front of Reliant Stadium when I knew that Owner Bob McNair was watching.

Everybody in Houston apparently wanted the Texans to draft Vince Young from Texas. But Casserly said the team “assessed the situation and decided that we didn’t need a quarterback so we moved in another direction.”

So David Carr is their quarterback and they decide that Mario Williams is worthy of the top pick. Surely they will take an offensive lineman at the top of the second round! But no! Instead they go defense again, taking DeMeco Ryans, a linebacker. Can he block? Carr certainly hopes so.

Jacksonville Sports News, Sam Kouvaris - SamSportsline.com

Gators: National Champs

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It could be more exciting, but I doubt it. The first half of the Championship game had everything you could ask for in a basketball game. Up and down play, physical match ups, unparalleled intensity and a packed, enthusiastic house. The only thing it didn’t have was good shooting. UCLA hit 29% while Florida was a 44%. The Gators were tough on defense though, contesting every shot and making it especially difficult near the basket.

In the first half, Joakim Noah had 5 blocks, the most in one Championship game for any player. And it wasn’t just Noah. Al Horford, Chris Richard and especially Adrian Moss were big for big men in the first half. Moss, the somewhat forgotten senior on this young team lead the Gators with 9 points in the first half. He added 5 rebounds and the Gators lead 36-25 at the half.

The second half started much like the National Semi-final with the Gators hitting threes and increasing their lead. Lee Humphrey and Corey Brewer hit back-to-back threes to give Florida an 18-point lead at the 17-minute mark. They maintained that lead at the 15-minute mark after a monster slam by Noah. It looked like a walk, but he stepped forward and back and forward again with his left foot and hammered it home right-handed. Al Horford and Chris Richard worked a double-team pass underneath with a thunderous two hand dunk to give the Gators a 20-point advantage.

At the nine-minute mark, Florida lead by 17 after UCLA’s second three pointer of the night. The Gators are running some clock on each possession and UCLA is pressing all over the floor, trying to create turnovers. Another three cut the lead to 14, but Noah followed with a slam and the Gators were up by 16 with just over 8 minutes to play. They’ll trade baskets with UCLA at this point, but the Bruins are finding their shooting touch. The Gators held things together despite some frenetic play by the Bruins. They took some wild shots but were patient enough to run some clock when they needed to.

Al Horford hit two free throws to give the Gators a 14-point lead, and Lee Humphrey backed that up with a three pointer putting the lead at 15 with a minute and a half to go. The Gators beat the press and finished it off with a dunk by Noah to lead by 17 with one-minute left to play. Florida finished it off by being aggressive and “going to the rim” as Billy Donovan told them and won their first National Championship by a 72-57 margin.

I got a chance to stand on the court as the team celebrated and cut down the nets. It was fun to see such sheer joy among the players, young men playing a game, and among the coaches and administrators, older men trying to shape lives. Florida was never the media darling or the people’s choice in this tournament. They were always the upstarts, the team that was playing over their head and about to get beat.

When did you think, “Hey, we can beat these guys,” I asked Chris Richard in the post-game locker room. “At the tip,” he quickly answered. “Everybody was talking about UCLA and their athletes and their defense and we wanted to show everybody that we were the best defensive team in the country. We gave them a little bit too much respect, but we jumped on them early and never let up.”

“Right when the game started,” Al Horford chimed in. “We knew they were a good team, but we executed what we wanted to do and there wasn’t anything they could do about it.”

“It’s never been about the other team,” Joakim Noah added. “It’s about playing basketball, possession by possession and doing the little things right. When we play our game, it doesn’t matter who the opponent is, we’re not going to get beat. The Gator boys are hot!”

Billy Donovan met us outside the locker room and echoed his team’s comments. “I wanted them to want to play. Not to look at the clock and wish the time away, because then you stop competing. I told them, ‘we want to play like we don’t want this to end. Stay aggressive, go to the rim. Like we say, ‘lay-ups, dunks and Lee Hump!”

Florida’s second half line reflected that aggressive attitude: Nine dunks, one lay-up, four threes and six free throws.

“It’s not so much that I wanted them to “earn it” although I did use that word, I wanted them to go out there and be what they could be. It’s not about the National Championship. That comes after the game. It’s about this challenge, this opponent, and this game. A lot of people were saying ‘how’s Florida going to score, what are they going to do,’ after seeing UCLA on Saturday, but not a lot of people were talking about what we could do. We wanted to show them who we were tonight, and I think we did that.”

I got a huge kick out of Florida winning this title, partly because it makes my friends and family happy and partly because of my affection for Billy. Knowing the kind of work any successful college basketball coach puts in, and knowing the kind of guy Billy is, it was fun to watch him and everybody else associated with the program enjoy it so much. Plus, in a tournament, it happens right in front of you, not through some disembodied vote.

So congrats to the Gators, National Champs!

Jacksonville Sports News, Sam Kouvaris - SamSportsline.com

Billy Donovan’s World

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“It’s not about me,” is how Florida Head Coach Billy Donovan began his answer. One of the hundreds of scribes covering the Final Four in Indianapolis wanted to know just what it would mean to him to win the National Championship. “That’s something I want to make very clear,” Donovan continued. “It’s not about me, it’s about the players, the University, the fans, it’s about the process. I’m just a part of it.”

You might know that Billy Donovan is one of my favorite people in all of sports. He might be at the top of the list. He does all of the things I think are right about sports at any level, particularly at the collegiate level. He’s passionate about what he does; he follows the rules, and stretches them to his advantage. He’s not too worried about what everybody else is thinking about him or his program. And he cares deeply about his family, his players and the people he works with.

Donovan is not universally liked in his profession or among the media. Some claim he’s a cheat. Others say he’s on the fringe of breaking the rules at all times. I don’t think he’s either of those. I think he just went out and figured out how to do things differently and a little better. He out-worked a lot of coaches and they didn’t like that. They wanted to sit back and keep the pecking order the same. You know, Kansas, North Carolina, Duke, etc, etc. But Donovan didn’t buy into that, instead going around the country targeting guys who would fit into his program at Florida, regardless of who else wanted them.

He endured a lot of criticism and ire of other coaches when he signed Mike Miller out of South Dakota. Miller to Florida? Donovan must have cheated to get him. Actually, Billy was there before everybody else, 12:01 on the first day he could talk to a player, arranging to meet him and his family in the middle of the night. During a “no contact” period, Donovan would stand across the street from a player’s school, just to wave at him as he left class. That’s what it takes to separate you from the pack. \That’s what it takes to build a program.

“Coach (Rick) Pitino advised me not to take the Florida job when I was at Marshall,” Donovan explained. “Too much work and maybe not enough understanding of what it’s going to take to built a program.” Pitino might have been right, but he underestimated both Donovan’s ability and resolve, and Athletic Director Jeremy Foley’s awareness of what it would take.

By necessity, Donovan deals with the underside of college basketball when it comes to recruiting, keeping in touch with the people “on the ground” when it comes to the pipeline of the best players in the country. But notice there aren’t a lot of “projects” on the Florida roster, either as players or as people. Not that Donovan hasn’t had those in the past. But he’s looking for guys who are willful and of course, talented.

“I want us to do well, but I’m as concerned about how these players develop as people, as husbands, fathers, coaches, whatever they become. I want them to enjoy each other, practicing together, being part of a team. But their development as people is more important. I want them to look back on their time at the University of Florida and think that it was a positive part of their life where they learned a few lessons and I helped them along.”

How many coaches are going to give that soliloquy when asked about the impact of a “National Championship.”?

As a basketball coach, Donovan is trying to build a program. One where the alumni players come back and support what he’s doing. In his first ten years, he hasn’t had many players he’d want to come back. But this team, the 2006 squad, he loves. And rightfully so. Even if they never win it, they’ll be the foundation Donovan builds his program on, being contenders each year and sending guys out into the world ready for what it might throw at them.

Jacksonville Sports News, Sam Kouvaris - SamSportsline.com

Gators In Indy

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Having seen Florida play a couple of times during the regular season, when they showed up in Jacksonville for the first and second round I wondered, “what’d they do with the Gators?” They played OK during the regular season, starting with seventeen straight wins but going 7-6 in the next thirteen games to become an afterthought when it came to the post season.

But along the way, the Gators became a team, defined by that philosophy, especially with their potential stars rejecting individual accolades. They played better and closer in the SEC tournament and became a big media darling in the tournament. Beating South Alabama was a given, and getting past UW-Milwaukee was a test of resolve based on the Panthers senior-laden team. All of the sudden, they were a team to be reckoned with and Georgetown and Villanova posed no threat to the Gators’ run to the Final Four.

Now they’re the favorite.

Seriously, when was the last time a team starting four sophomores and a junior was a favorite in the Final Four?

I’ve been here in Indianapolis for a couple of days and have been impressed with the Gators demeanor since arriving on Thursday afternoon. “People say we’re a youthful team,” Joakim Noah noted when asked about team play. “But we’ve been through a lot together. We’re not young as a team any more. We might be young in years, but not as a team.”

As I’ve said before, he’s the most improved athlete in one year I’ve seen in my entire reporting career. But he also is one of the most settled “young” athletes I’ve been around. He’s rejected his rock star status in favor of creating a “team” concept. He accepts his duties to work with the media and be a team leader, but says all of the attention “doesn’t help us win basketball games.”

His answers are polite and thoughtful and set the tone for the rest of the team. In fact, this team is fun to cover. They make it easy with their genuine answers and willingness to be a part of the process. A lot of credit for that goes to Noah who doesn’t separate himself from his teammates and never utters the word “me.” The rest of the credit goes to Billy Donovan for creating an atmosphere where Noah and the rest of the team can flourish.

Nobody’s talking about Florida here except as the team that George Mason has to beat to continue their Cinderella run. The Gators are the villains, not an unfamiliar role for them, but with all of the attention on Mason, Florida’s not the central focus they could be. In fact, if Mason weren’t here, the Gators would be the Cinderella story.

But I think the carriage will turn into a pumpkin before midnight tonight for the Patriots. Florida’s play against Villanova, especially on defense showed they can defend the three-point line without giving up a lot of easy drives to the basket.

One thing’s for sure; they won’t be awed by the situation.