All basketball season, and it took me until the Final Four to figure out that maybe a live open thread isn’t a bad idea. We’ll be doing it next season as well for football and basketball, but why not debut it now?
The Florida Gators are two games away from a national championship. They’re so damned close, after being turned away three straight times in the Elite Eight. Now that they’ve broken down that barrier, they want more.
This would be their third national title, all in the last nine years, and would lift UF into the same sentence as “UCLA, North Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky…” when discussing traditional basketball powerhouses. Merely appearing in the Final Four arguably does that anyway, but winning a third national championship unquestionably puts them in the upper echelon of college basketball: as of now, only eight schools have won three or more national titles, and Florida would be the ninth with two more wins. So it’s NOT ridiculous to say, “UCLA, UNC, Kansas, Kentucky, FLORIDA” in a conversation about the most prestigious basketball schools in the country as things stand right now; winning two more games would almost make the Gators’ inclusion into that top tier of basketball programs a necessity.
And a national title would make for some nice congruency with the football program; three national titles apiece, in the top ten among most basketball titles and the top 15 for most football titles. More importantly, a national title would guarantee that Florida has every single school in the country beat in the national championship count in either football or basketball.
So here’s your opportunity to post your thoughts. Where are you staying? When are you flying in? Who do you think’s going to be the difference tomorrow night? Who’s going to win Wisconsin-Kentucky? We encourage you to sign up for accounts if you don’t have one, but if you don’t want to, no problem. Just fill in your name and an email address, and post your comment that way. In any case, don’t hesitate to join in the discussion and let your voice be heard in our rapidly increasing Gator community!