Florida Gators win the National Championship.

The Florida Gators become the first team to win back-to-back National Championships since the Duke Blue Devils did it in the 1991-92 season. I think the MOP(most outstanding player) should go to Al Horford, he was clutch down the stretch. The Gators were able to outlast the Buckeyes, 84-75.

More coming tomorrow morning.

Update:

Well, it isn't the "morning" like is when I said I would update, but i'm lazy and a procrastinator, and I like to be fashionably late, 10 hours or so. That's how I roll. Anyway, to the game. The Florida Gators really dominated the tempo of the game and for a good portion of the game it almost seemed that they could do what ever they wanted to. Coming up with big threes, steals, rebounds, etc...But surprisingly the Gators didn't dominate down low as I expected them to. No, in fact Greg Oden out played both Joakim Noah and Al Horford in the paint, well, at least offensively.

The big story of this game was really how Florida was able to capitalize on Ohio State's poor three-point shooting. The Buckeyes shot only 4-23(17%) from the three-point line while the Gators were very impressive behind the arc hitting 10 of their 18 attempts(56%). Another are where the Gators were able to dominate, as I expected they would, was rebounds. They out rebounded the Buckeyes, 38-27 and that was a big reason why they were able to hold of the relentless Buckeyes on route to a 84-75 victory. One stat that won't show up in any box score was how Florida was able to wear out Ohio State and it was evident by the fact that they weren't able to get the ball after each one of Oden's 4 blocks, OSU couldn't even keep up with Taurean Green late in the game.

Oden was stellar, dominating the paint offensively and seemingly scoring at will, if the his teammates were able to hit a few timely 3-pointers, then they would've surely be hoisting the trophy and cutting down the nets. Oden finished his collegiate career(???) with 25 points, 12 rebounds and 4 blocks. Mike Conley Jr also had a good game, scoring 20 points, 3 rebounds, 6 assists and 4 steals. He did however get into early foul trouble and it caused him to spend some time on the bench.

Florida's starters were great, four of the five scored at least 13 points(Noah scored 8) and besides Noah, they all played in at least 34 minutes. Obviously Noah didn't have a great game and it was due to foul trouble and fatigue. This had to be the only game, that I had seen at least, that Noah wasn't running the court. He played in only 21 minutes of the game and in those twenty-one minutes he did play he was usually struggling to catch a breath. Noah finished with 8 points, 3 rebounds and 1-6 from the field. Like I had mentioned earlier, I thought the MOP should've been Al Horford. He was clutch in the final minutes of the game, scoring at will, crashing the boards, etc. Horford led the team in both points and rebounds with 18 and 12 and he also led them in blocks with 2. In my opinion if Horford wasn't awarded with the MOP(which he wasn't) it should have been Taurean Green. Green was the one who had Conley and Lewis chasing him all around the court, melting time off the clock and he was a very accurate shooter, hitting 3-3 from the three and 5-5 from the charity stripe. He was 4-6 from the field overall. He ended up with 16 points, 6 assists and 3 rebounds. It was Corey Brewer who won the Most Outstanding Player. He had a great game, but i'm just saying he would've been my third choice. But no harm done. He had 13 points, 8 rebounds, 3 steals, 1 block and 1 assist. Oh and Davey would like everyone to know that those are "Grant Hill numbers". But wait, he didn't break a femur or pop an achilles, so you see, it wasn't quite a Hill performance. Chris Richards was also huge coming off the bench, he locked down Oden and was able to score 8 points and 8 rebounds(5 offensive) before fouling out of his final game as a Gator. Oden had this to say about Richards...

"They had four bodies running in at me," Oden said. "Chris Richard, I swear he plays on the football team."

So the Gators were able to become the first team in 15 years to succeed at defending their National Championship, and they will have their work cut out for them next year because I anticipate them losing their top 6 scorers from this year. I'm not sure if the stocks of guys like Joakim Noah, Taurean Green, Al Horford and Corey Brewer can get any higher(well maybe Green), so I feel they will all be entering the draft, but if Billy Donovan does stay at Florida(which he needs to) maybe he could talk them into trying to go for a three-peat.