Well, my LSU pick below certainly followed form with the rest of my bracket and blew up early. The Final Four games were a bummer, with neither one providing any real drama. But from a basketball standpoint, Florida and UCLA are certainly playing as well as anyone right now. I haven't seen the two teams play enough to give the kind of informed commentary you can get on the national sports talk shows, so I'll stick to looking at what the history books tell us about tonight.
History would give the edge tonight to the Bruins. For all the talk of March being the time for miracles, the national title is almost always won by a team that has established itself as an elite team all year long. Since Arizona's championship in 1997, every winner has won at least a share of the regular season title in their conference. And all but Syracuse have been seeded second or higher. (The '03 Orangemen shared the Big East crown with Pitt and came up a #3 seed). Florida finished behind both LSU and Tennessee in the SEC standings and is a #3 seed. UCLA is a #2, and the outright champs of the Pac-10.
I'm pullling for Florida though. The Irish Catholic in me has to embrace Billy Donovan, and I suspect that if he doesn't win it all this year, he probably never will. And continuing on the lessons from history, the Gators have a similar profile to that '97 Arizona team. A similar seed ('Zona was a #4 that year), and similar conference finish. And the final similarity? Arizona came to Indy to cut down the nets. A little historical hope for Gator fans as they look to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of their football national title with a crown on the hardwood.
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