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TAMPA \u2014It was 9:43 p.m. ET when the final first round game of the South regional tipped in Tampa, meaning reigning national champion Florida<\/a> had to wait longer than any defending champion in recent memory to take the floor and begin its title defense.<\/p>\n That was just fine with the Gators.<\/p>\n Patience has been a theme all year with this team,<\/p>\n The 5-4 start, with heartbreaking (Duke, UConn, Arizona) and head-scratching (TCU) losses demanded it. The new faces on the roster played like they needed it.<\/p>\n If you ask Todd Golden and his coaching staff, it\u2019s never been a title defense anyway.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s won is done\u201d became a theme for a championship program with a new team intent on writing its own story.<\/p>\n Golden never wavered in his belief in this group.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was a new team,\u201d Golden told SDS late last month. \u201cWinning is hard. I think it took me a little longer than expected to kind of figure out what the best way for us to play was. I think we had guys who were alphas at other places trying to figure out who would take what shot, who would finish possessions, who would take 3s. We had returners playing new roles. We have a lot of talented guys that were trying to figure each other out. It took time.\u201d<\/p>\n The Gators figured each other out, and by Friday night, this new team determined to write its own story looked ready for the big-time stage of March.<\/p>\n Florida jumped to an early lead, and while 16-seed Prairie View A&M used a flurry of 3-point jump shots to tie the game at 15 early in the first half, the Gators rattled off an 18-point run to put the eventual outcome to bed well before halftime.<\/p>\n As has been the case all season, the key for the Gators was magnificent defense.<\/p>\n Florida never let the Panthers find a rhythm, icing ball screens, denying post entry passes, and defending beautifully against a steady diet of Prairie View isolation actions. After Prairie View tied the game at 15 with 13:41 remaining in the opening stanza, the Gators put together a 45-6 stretch of basketball, limiting Prairie View to just 2 field goals on 21 attempts, forcing tough midrange jumpers, contesting late shot clock drives, and denying the 3-point line.<\/p>\n Florida then did what it does best, rebounding Prairie View misses and turning great defense into instant transition offense on the other end. The Gators made 16 layups and dunks in the first half, punishing an exhausted Panthers team playing for the sixth time in 10 days.<\/p>\n Florida scored at a staggering 1.71 points per possession clip in the first half and outscored Prairie View 38-0 in the paint. So thorough was Florida\u2019s dominance it created one of the all-timer lines in NCAA sideline interview history in its wake. Asked what the Panthers needed to do to slow Florida\u2019s momentum, Prairie View head coach Byron Smith lamented, \u201cWe need some help from the Lord. They are really good.\u201d<\/p>\n That the Gators are again really good \u2014 and absolutely a threat to return to Indianapolis and another Final Four \u2014 is a testament to a coaching staff that consistently imparts belief.<\/p>\n Replacing arguably the greatest backcourt in SEC history, many staffs might have panicked after portal additions Boogie Fland (Arkansas) and Xaivian Lee (Princeton) struggled out of the gate.<\/p>\n Golden and his staff stayed the course, adjusting the offense to play through big man Alex Condon more and reducing both the volume and workload on Fland and Lee to create and make shots.<\/p>\n It worked.<\/p>\n After an SEC opening night loss at Mizzou<\/a>, the Gators won 16 of their final 17 conference games, winning the top-ranked conference (per KenPom<\/a> and Bart Torvik) in college basketball by 3 games and earning a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive season.<\/p>\n During that stretch, the Florida guards have consistently delivered.<\/p>\n Lee buried a step back triple to seal a pivotal, momentum-shifting win at Vanderbilt<\/a> in January. Boogie Fland anchored the perimeter for one of the nation\u2019s top 5 defenses (per Torvik<\/a>) and after starting the season a miserable 18% from 3 through February 14, Fland has shot 43% (13-30) beyond the arc since, adding scoring punch to a Florida offense needing balance to be elite.<\/p>\n Throw in SEC Sixth Man of the Year Urban Klav\u017ear\u00a0and emerging wing Isaiah Brown, and suddenly the Gators were a complete team, one that could keep defenses honest from deep and punish you consistently inside.<\/p>\n That version of the Florida backcourt showed up on Friday night. Fland was sensational, scoring 16 points on a perfect 6-6 from the field, adding 4 assists and committing just 1 turnover. Lee was steady, burying 3 trifectas and dishing out 5 assists against 0 turnovers. And Klav\u017ear\u00a0and Brown combined 18 points on an efficient 7-9 from the floor, all while playing outstanding defense and taking care of the basketball.<\/p>\n That version of Florida\u2019s guards is very capable of being a winning complement to the dominant Florida frontcourt, just as Florida\u2019s frontcourt was to the brilliant backcourt a year ago.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s Florida\u2019s ferocious frontcourt that gives these Gators championship capable bite.<\/p>\n The trio of Alex Condon, Rueben Chinyelu, and consensus All-American Thomas Haugh were as advertised against Prairie View. Condon scored 13 points and had 5 assists, adding 3 blocks as Florida outscored the Panthers 64-10 in the paint. Haugh had 14 points, 7 assists, and 4 rebounds, keying Florida\u2019s game-clinching first half run with transition layups and passing. The best of all, though, was Chinyelu, who posted his school-best 19th double-double in the victory, with 14 points and 13 rebounds and a game-best plus-43 in box-plus minus.<\/p>\n The end result was the second-largest victory in NCAA Tournament history, a 59-point shellacking that felt like a statement of intent from the reigning champs.<\/p>\n You want the title? Come and get it.<\/p>\n It was also a needed confidence boost for Florida, which saw a season-long 12-game winning streak snapped by Vanderbilt in a lopsided semifinal loss at the SEC Tournament.<\/p>\n \u201cWe needed to play better,\u201d Todd Golden told the media after the win, referencing Florida\u2019s turnover-plagued, poor shooting weekend at the SEC Tournament. \u201cObviously as we\u2019ve talked about a lot back in Gainesville, we don\u2019t ever want to lose, to kind of learn from that and get better. We want to continue to win. But when you do, you\u2019ve got to take some things from it and find ways to improve, and I think we did that this past week. Our guys were really attentive at practice. They did a really good job of focusing on the areas that we as a staff thought we needed to improve upon. We played with great intent tonight. When we do that, we\u2019re pretty tough.\u201d<\/p>\n Florida will need to be tough on Sunday.<\/p>\n Iowa is an outstanding team, under-seeded according to predictive metrics and led by a no-nonsense rising coaching star in Ben McCollum and an All-American caliber point guard in Bennett Stirtz. The Hawkeyes turn you over and don\u2019t turn it over, and they impose their plodding, methodical tempo on games, magnifying the meaning of every possession and trauma of every turnover.<\/p>\n It will be a fight for 40 minutes.<\/p>\n
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