Florida wins NCAA men’s title

By: Larry Fitzgerald
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 4/5/2006

  

After one hundred years of the NCAA going to the bank, not much has changed; they are still doing things the old-fashioned way, making multi-billions of dollars under the guise of amateurism. For the third time in the last four years, no number-one seeded team played in the NCAA title game. That’s okay with the University of Florida, who dominated from beginning to end Monday night, beating UCLA 73-57 for the school’s first-ever NCAA Men’s Basketball crown.

 

Remember the name Joakim Noah, the talented 6’-11” super sophomore mixing talent with energy in leading the way with 16 points, nine rebounds, and an NCAA Championship game-record six blocked shots. Noah did something that Bill Russell, Lew Alcinder, Patrick Ewing and Bill Walton had not — he blocked an NCAA tournament record 29 shots in six games and 10 blocks in one Final Four.

 

He was simply sensational; with him and 6’-8” Corey Brewer and 6’-9” forward Al Horford, the Gators were too big inside for the Bruins, who lost their second NCAA crown in 13 games. Guard Taurean Green had eight assists as he broke the tough UCLA press and dictated the game’s tempo, allowing the Gators to get inside for easy dunks.

 

Florida made things tough for UCLA all night long. Noah was selected the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. His father, Jonick Noah, the great professional tennis star and last Frenchman to win the United States Open Tennis title, was on hand to see his son play for only the third time.

 

For the 32nd straight year, Billy Packer called an NCAA championship game. He has gained a mixed reputation among fans, who think he’s excessive, but he doesn’t let that worry him.

 

“The only thing that ever bothers me when I leave the house — I’m involved with a lot of different businesses — is if my wife is angry or if there is something going on in my family that upsets me, that bothers me,” said Packer. “Anything outside of that I look at as almost comical.”

 

Packer of CBS Sports has been recognized by many as the best at what he does. As CBS Sports’ lead college basketball analyst, Packer has made a fortune as the voice behind the bouncing ball of the Men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament.

 

For the first time since 1980, no number-one seeded team reached the Men’s NCAA Final Four from the field of 65 teams. The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is one of the biggest revenue-generating sports. Year in and year out, the tournament generates many billions of dollars for the NCAA. In fact, 95 percent of all the revenue generated by the mighty NCAA is returned to member institutions, and all the revenue is generated on the backs of amateur athletes.

 

Packer has been quite vocal in his support of the NCAA, which last year settled out of court a multimillion-dollar lawsuit from the National Invitational Tournament (NIT), which accused the NCAA of having a Microsoft-like monopoly. All the NCAA did was buy out the NIT and the challenge went away.

 

No team this year from the Big Ten Conference even made the Sweet Sixteen! What does that say about the Big Ten? “One of the things about the NCAA Tournament, it is a report card on your season,” said Packer. “Not necessarily on your conference in general, but it certainly is on your season if you’re one of the power conferences, of which almost all of them get four teams or more in the NCAA Tournament.

 

“You get a real judgment,” Packer said. “You’ve got to put your teams on the line. You can’t schedule your way forward. They’ve got to win tomorrow night’s game. In this particular case, without question the report card on the Big Ten this year is not good. They lost the ACC matchup where again you can’t schedule your way through.

 

“It’s head to head — you’re playing all of their guys and they are playing all your guys. Then you put six teams in the NCAA Tournament, [and] after the first week none of them were around. So it’s something that everybody has to take a realistic look at. It’s not about opinions, it’s about here’s what you did and you have to live by that. I don’t think anyway it detracts from the fact that the Big Ten without question has a lot of outstanding players, teams and coaches, and certainly should be back.”

 

Recently for the first time, the NCAA and the NBA finally met over the issues of athletes leaving early and eligibility. “The NCAA and the NBA, as hard as this is to believe, met face to face for the first time about three months ago,” said Packer, “to have any discussions whatsoever as to the coordination of basketball between those two entities. Everything up to that point has been done between the NBA and the NBA Players Association.

 

“The NBA, in fairness to them, would have a lot of positive things that they could help the college game with, and the colleges never ask them for it, and vice versa. The colleges never get involved in what the NBA does, which is rather ludicrous since they should work together very closely.”

 

In many ways the game of basketball has become the outlet that far too many Blacks, particularly from our inner cities, focus on as an outlet from the crime and despair of life in the city, dreaming of being the next Michael Jordan. “I think it’s unfortunate,” Packer said, “for — and you point this out — that maybe the kid that can least afford to take his sights off of a well-rounded life as a youngster, where he gets involved academically, where he gets involved socially, he gets involved with his athletics and loses some kind of balance. And in case things don’t work out in that direction — and they do for so very few, that the game of basketball will not be something that uses him but something that he can use instead. I find that very disturbing.”