Regretfully, Billy Donovan’s Gators are a more iconic team than UConn’s consecutive national championships.
All due respect to the UConn Huskies, who dominated March Madness and went on to win a second straight national title, but their tale does not compare to that of the Florida Gators from 2006–07.
Naturally, there are parallels after UConn’s victory over Purdue on Monday night, when the club became the first since coach Billy Donovan’s Gators to win back-to-back national titles, 75-60.
Since John Wooden’s legendary run at UCLA in the 1960s and 1970s, only three teams have won the national championship twice: Dan Hurley’s Huskies, Donovan’s Gators, and Coach K’s Duke Blue Devils in 1991–1992. Although each of those three teams was exceptional in its own right, the 2007 Gators, in my opinion, stand apart. Not only are they the first basketball program in history to win consecutive national titles at a football school, but also because of the atypical, remarkable, and incredibly selfless circumstances surrounding their repeat performance.
Don’t get me wrong; given that the Huskies won each of their six tournament games by a minimum of 13 points and averaged a record-breaking 23.3 points per game, one could argue that this year’s UConn squad is the most dominant national champion in history. However, the focus of this piece is on the sacrifices the Gators made in order to win their national championship, not on the number of points the Huskies won in their rematch.
In addition to their talent, the Gators’ success was largely attributed to their commitment to one another, their love for their university, and their selflessness in delaying their NBA aspirations in order to spend more time in college with their basketball brothers. Legendary UF players Joakim Noah, Al Horford, and Corey Brewer did just that following their announcement at a jam-packed O’Connell Center pep rally that they would return for their junior seasons after winning the national title in 2006.
It’s difficult to believe that one college star, much less three, would turn down the opportunity to be selected first overall in the NBA draft in order to play one more year of collegiate basketball in this one-and-done, NIL, transfer portal era.
Following the 2006 campaign, Noah, Horford, and Brewer were all thought to be lottery picks for the NBA, and Noah was a great favorite to be chosen first overall. They shouldn’t continue their college education, would they? Remember to strike while the iron is hot. Why take a chance on the potential for harm, you ask? I mean, what more needed to be proven, really?
“What UConn accomplished was incredible, but don’t confuse that with three NBA lottery picks who decided to play for each other and the name on the front of the jersey,” says Chris Harry, the resident basketball historian at FloridaGators.com. Harry is a former colleague of the Sentinel who has covered UF for many years. “The Gators of 2007 belong in a box by themselves.”
Even today, renowned former UF athletic director Jeremy Foley becomes emotional when discussing how Noah, Horford, and Brewer decided to postpone their NBA aspirations in favor of another chance at a national title.
Foley promises that such an incident won’t occur again. “They loved Billy, they loved each other, and they loved being at the University of Florida.” They were unquestionably Gators.
As members of the 2004 recruiting class, Noah, Horford, Brewer, and point guard Taurean Green established a history that has earned them the nickname “Oh-Fours” in Gator culture. Even more astounding is the fact that these players persuaded Donovan that it was a great idea for them to return, not the coach who tried to persuade them to stay. Like other coaches, Donovan simply thought it was the right move to go straight to the NBA and start making money.
Donovan failed to account for the fact that children occasionally just want to be children for as long as possible. We rarely get to hear the actual song of intercollegiate athletics amid the crazy dash to advance in today’s sports. The majority of very skilled college basketball players are deprived of the opportunity to encounter what many of us learn with nostalgia years later: that our four years in college may have been the best years of our lives.
“They made the choice to return,” Donovan stated at the time. It was they who first brought it up to me. Simply put, I believe they are unique among children. They’re enjoying themselves. They are young. They’re having fun at college.
They had the best college season ever combined, but before that, Horford would end up as the third overall choice in the 2007 draft, followed by Brewer in seventh place and Noah in ninth. Both in Gainesville and around the country, they were national treasures. They embraced, high-fived, danced, and pranced their way to yet another national championship as everyone was staring at them.
Although not nearly as much as the Gators in 2007, UConn did face some pressure to repeat as national champions this season. The Oh-Fours were regarded as the nation’s preseason favorite team when they decided to come back, and their season would have been a failure if they hadn’t won it all. Comparatively, UConn entered this season ranked No. 6 in the nation despite losing five of its top eight scorers from the previous campaign.
This post is only a reminder, not an attempt to disparage what UConn recently accomplished. Let us never forget the once-in-a-lifetime story of the Oh-Fours, a basketball brotherhood that transcended the margin of victory and reminded us of the timeless values of friendship, unity, loyalty, and love. As we celebrate the Huskies’ dominance following their second consecutive national championship,.