Florida Chases Consecutive Crown
April 2, 2007— -- "A little more than an hour ago," said the reporter to Florida's Joakim Noah during Sunday's news conference at the Georgia Dome, "Ron Lewis was up there and described you guys as a 'good' team. A follow-up question was asked, [he] described Ohio State as great and referred to you again with the word 'good.' How do you feel about that assessment?"
Oh boy. Noah reacted as if someone had ordered him to report to a barbershop and ask for the Billy Donovan/Eddie Munster special.
"Oh my God!" the Gators forward said. "He said that? No! [Long pause] What a bad person."
"Anything else?" the NCAA moderator asked.
"I don't even know what else to say," a clearly astounded Noah said. "I really don't know."
"At least he said we were good," said Florida teammate Corey Brewer, trying to be helpful. "He could have said we were bad. Next question, please."
Duke in 1991 and 1992 is the last team to win back-to-back NCAA championships. Whooee! At last, an actual Final Four controversy. Ohio State guard insults defending national champions. Florida star invokes God's name.
Except that Lewis didn't actually say the Buckeyes were great, although he did agree with the description. And while several of his teammates showered the Gators with compliments, Lewis stopped short of genuflecting.
"They're a good team to me," he said. "That's all I can say about it." Lewis later qualified his grading system, saying "good" was at the top of his personal scale, unless you were talking about Michael Jordan's 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, who were great. Whatever.
Anyway, you have to give Lewis credit for having the stones to express polite, public indifference about Florida mania or, as Noah described the phenomenon, "Every single time the Gator Boys come to play, it's the circus." Even more impressive about Lewis' comments is that he was at Florida's O'Connell Center this past December when the Gators all but sent the Buckeyes back to Columbus in a brown paper bag. Florida won by 26, and Lewis couldn't hit the side of the O-Dome (3-for-10).
