Coming into this edition of March Madness, Florida felt as safe a team as any to make it out of the first two rounds and advance to the Sweet 16. The floor for Florida seemed like it was just too high to envision an eight or nine seed pulling off an upset and knocking the Gators out early.
But the beauty and the curse of March Madness is that it only takes one game for things to go wrong for the dream to die, and Florida’s dreams of repeating as national champions went up in smoke in Tampa as the Gators fell to Iowa 73-72.
Florida’s season ends in Tampa
In our pregame prediction, we had said we expected Iowa to score 71 points. On that front, we were dead on the money.
The problem is, we predicted Florida would score 82 points, and they only scored 72.
Oops.
The headline shocker of the game was Rueben Chinyelu being rendered as ineffective as he was. Even when he could have come back in down the stretch, Todd Golden elected to leave Chinyelu on the bench. That, in turn, led to the feeling that Florida’s size advantage felt largely neutralized for large chunks of the game.
Alex Condon did have 21 points, and Thomas Haugh had 19, but Haugh also did it off 3-11 shooting while Condon was 5-9 from the free throw line. Iowa also had more offensive rebounds than Florida, something we wouldn’t have predicted coming into the game.
And with the game on the line, Boogie Fland, who had been an effective on-ball defender all night, lost his man on the inbounds, which eventually led to a wide-open three and the dagger.
Add it all up, and Florida lost a game in which it was a 10.5-point favorite coming in.
Had Florida made it to the Elite Eight and fallen to Houston, it would have been frustrating, but it is what it is. Losing to Iowa puts a sour taste on a season that should otherwise be largely celebrated. Florida won the SEC regular season title for the first time in a decade. For the first time in program history, the Gators earned a No. 1 seed in back-to-back seasons.
But the magic Florida used during last year’s run didn’t materialize for this year’s run.
Florida finishes the season 27-8.