Gators or Buckeyes?

Repeat or revenge? Well, only revenge for the millions of Ohio St. alums who are still replaying the football game in their mind every day (and believe me, there are plenty of those people). Florida is 40 minutes from making history. On the other side, Mike Conley and Greg Oden are 40 minutes from winning another championship together.

What's going to happen?

When Ohio St. has the ball:
Ohio St. must make this a half-court game and pick and choose when to get into transition. In the first meeting, when the pace became more frenetic, Florida had the edge. Mike Conley must be able to dictate the pace of the game, so he must be able to penetrate and score or create for others. If he can't penetrate, OSU will be settling for jump shots, which has been their downfall, including the 2nd half of the Florida game. Ron Lewis will have to go against Corey Brewer. In December, Lewis was just 3/10, 1/4 from 3; Brewer was 7/13. And of course, Greg Oden has to find a way to not get into early foul trouble, which has happened in OSU's last 4 games. Without Oden, OSU has to rely further on Conley to penetrate, which is a lot for one guy to handle against a good defensive team like Florida. Oden has to come up big in order for OSU to have a chance. In the first meeting with one hand basically, he was just 2/6 shooting, scoring 7 points to go along with 6 rebounds and 3 blocks. He didn't get his first rebound of the game until very late in the 1st half. He will go against all of Florida's bigs because I don't think they will mind getting caught on switches since Florida's bigs all bring something different to the table. Horford and Richard are physical while Noah is long and can block shots with regularity.

When Florida has the ball:
If Green and Humphrey make shots, Florida wins without question. Green must be able to handle Conley's ball pressure. I looked at the stats from the 1st meeting and divided it into two parts: the 40-40 game, then the 46-20 Florida run to end it. In the first 23 minutes that were even, Green was 3/6 shooting, but had 4 turnovers to just 1 assist. During the Florida run, he was 6/6 shooting, including 3 triples with 1 assist and 0 turnovers. Humphrey will be guarded by Butler and must make shots. If he puts the ball on the floor, he's a turnover waiting to happen. I don't see OSU playing zone unless Oden gets in foul trouble and I don't see them double teaming the post either (did UCLA learn anything from last year?). If Florida takes care of the ball and their guards make shots, I just don't see them losing.

Ohio St. has to play their best game of the year to win. Florida doesn't, their margin of error is bigger than OSU's. If Green and Humphrey can't hit shots and they turn the ball over, then it will be close, but Florida can still win. But if Oden gets in foul trouble and Conley can't dictate the pace of the game, OSU can't overcome that.

One thing Florida won't be familiar with is how well OSU is playing now with/without Oden, they've learned to better balance the inside/outside game. And OSU is quick, especially on the defensive end, they can give Florida's guards trouble as they did for some of the 1st meeting.

But Florida can smell it, and they've gotten better with each game in the tournament. One big advantage they have on the Buckeyes is their size. Florida put on an offensive rebounding exhibition last night and they could do it again with OSU's lack of frontcourt size. During Florida's 46-20 run in the 1st meeting, the Gators shot 19/24, OSU was just 8/26. They had 9 assists in those last 17 minutes, equal to the 9 they had in the first 23 except they committed just 4 turnovers during their run compared to 12 in the first 23 minutes.

If both teams play their absolute best, Florida will win. OSU will have to try and do something to bring Florida down to their level.

By the way, OSU should send Jeff Green a thank you card for not showing up last night. How can the Big East player of the year take just 5 shots?!?!?! OSU had no one who could guard him. David Lighty did a pretty good job on him, but Green is a junior while Lighty is a freshman. Green should've been demanding the ball more. He didn't get shut down, he shut himself down. I did think OSU's quickness bothered Georgetown, but some of their turnovers weren't caused by OSU's defense, Georgetown was very careless with the ball.

The second game was well, a lot like last year's title game. Florida didn't put on a clinic, but they played awfully well, except for the last few minutes when they lost some of their working margin. UCLA played great defense at the start, not allowing Florida to make a shot until the 12 minute mark. But at that point, UCLA was only up 6-5. Uh oh. UCLA's big guns were in foul trouble and when they weren't in foul trouble, they couldn't score. UCLA thought they could win, Florida knew they were going to win.

Hopefully it's a good game tomorrow night. I'll be rooting for Florida since they're my bracket champ.