GAINESVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Florida coach Todd Golden never really planned to open the season in Tampa, the site of one of the most painful NCAA Tournament losses in program history.<\/p>\n
It just sort of worked out that way.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, facing No. 14 Miami at Benchmark International Arena on Monday night should provide the top-ranked Gators a chance to purge eight months of bitterness.<\/p>\n
Winning a second national title in three years would be the ultimate atonement for a stunning, 73-72 loss to ninth-seeded Iowa in March \u2014 the one that wiped out any shot at winning back-to-back championships.<\/p>\n
For now, though, Florida will use a return to Tampa as motivation while essentially trying to pick up where it left off last season and reignite its chase for another crown.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s awesome; I love it,\u201d guard Urban Klavzar said. \u201cI love going back there, and we\u2019re definitely going to have a different result. I don\u2019t think we should think too much about (being) in the same city, same arena. I think we should take it as, \u2018just remember the loss.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s impossible to forget.<\/p>\n
Florida had a three-point lead and the ball with 1:30 to play. But All-American Thomas Haugh shot an air ball and missed a 3-pointer on one possession. Isaiah Brown missed a free throw on another. And the Gators had a defensive lapse in the final seconds that led to Alvaro Folgueiras\u2019 3-pointer from the corner.<\/p>\n
Golden\u2019s group had one final chance with 4.5 seconds left. Xaivian Lee drove the length of the court and into the paint before delivering a low pass to Haugh that bounced off his legs as time expired.<\/p>\n
Haugh and several Florida teammates were in tears after the final buzzer, which sent the Hawkeyes and their fans into a frenzy. Haugh called it the most distraught he\u2019s ever been after a game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI may have watched it a couple times, but that was like right after it happened,\u201d Haugh said. \u201cThat feeling is still deep in our hearts somewhere with everybody that came back, and we\u2019re not going to let that happen again. That\u2019s why we came back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rueben Chinyelu, Alex Condon and Haugh started contemplating a return to Florida a few weeks later. All of them credited that loss as the catalyst for wanting another year \u2013 another title shot, really \u2013 in college.<\/p>\n
Florida made it happen, spending roughly $25 million to bring back four starters and retain nine of its top 11 scorers.<\/p>\n
And the setback that defined last season \u2014 and set the stage for this one \u2014 has been a driving force ever since, whether it was on the court or during 6 a.m. workouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us to achieve what we want, we have to come out every day and give it our all,\u201d Chinyelu said. \u201cAnd every guy, from the coaches today, last month, they understood that, and every day they bring it up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Florida and Miami played early last season in Jacksonville and had discussed making it an annual series that moves to other neutral sites around the state. Orlando and Tampa were obvious options.<\/p>\n
Tampa made more sense because of how last season ended. Florida State and Florida A&M will play in the first game of a double-header.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great venue,\u201d Golden said. \u201cIt\u2019s been good to us, and we\u2019re not going to let one poor performance dictate whether we play there again or not. Just something that everything kind of aligned for us to be back there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GAINESVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Florida coach Todd Golden never really planned to open the season in Tampa, the site…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-443746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}