ollege basketball hasn’t crowned a back-to-back champion since Duke won consecutive titles in 1991 and ’92. The dry spell is longer than any in the NBA, NFL, NHL, college football or Major League Baseball.
Entering the weekend, just four wins stand between Florida and its second straight national championship – and CBS college basketball analyst Billy Packer believes the Gators have a great shot of accomplishing the feat.
“When you take everything into consideration, Florida is the best team,” Packer said. “They have not only the right blend of talent and the athleticism, but they have a coach that has taken the same group of players through an NCAA Tournament before.”
Packer likens this Florida team to those ’92 Dookies.
“There is a parallel there, between [Duke head coach Mike] Krzyzewski taking that Duke team in the 90’s to what Billy Donovan has done with the Florida team,” Donovan said.
But the similarities don’t stop there.
“I think that [former Duke star Christian] Laettner was an incredible leader and obviously a gifted college player,” Donovan said. “You couldn’t say that there’s anybody on the Florida team who would be Laettner, but there is a combination in Al Horford and Joakim Noah. Horford gives you a competitive performance every time he plays, and Noah’s got a very vocal, strong leadership quality.”
Packer also sees shades of Duke legend Bobby Hurley in Florida guard Taureen Green.
“Green is not as decorated as Hurley was, but they both came up big in big games,” he said. “Green is also an excellent ball-handler, and he knows what his team is supposed to do.”
However, for all the similarities, Packer does identify one major difference between the two teams.
“I don’t think that Florida has anybody that’s as gifted in all phases of the game as Grant Hill was,” Packer said.
But that difference, along with the changes in college basketball, could make Florida’s feat even more impressive than Duke’s, should the Gators capitalize.
“It becomes much more difficult in this day and age to develop a program that is gonna be consistent year-in and year-out,” Packer said.
“More than anything, what can stop Florida is themselves – worrying about repeating and people not giving them any respect. They need to just concentrate on playing the game and having fun doing it, like they did last year.”
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