Noah, Gators Return to the Final Four After Taking Care of Oregon

ST. LOUIS — Go ahead, hate Florida all you want. But you can’t beat these Gators. Not in the NCAA tournament.Not yet, anyway.Inside, outside, early, late — the Gators find a way to get it done when there’s a title at stake.Joakim Noah and his buddies are heading back to the Final Four, looking for a second straight national championship that was worth more to them than NBA millions.Lee Humphrey made seven 3-pointers and finished with 23 points, and Taurean Green added 21 to lead the Gators to an 85–77 victory over third-seeded Oregon in the Midwest Regional final Sunday afternoon. It was their 16th straight postseason victory, a stretch that includes one national championship and two Southeastern Conference titles.“It’s so great because we were under a microscope,” said Noah, who finished with 14 points and 14 rebounds. “There was so much hate. But we know that what matters is what’s going on here.”Next stop for the top-seeded Gators: Atlanta, where they’ll play UCLA in the national semifinals in a rematch of last year’s championship Game.Florida won that one in a rout, 73-57, for its first national championship — and the first half of what would turn out to be the Gator Slam. When Florida beat Ohio State for the national football title in January, the Gators became the first school to be champs in both sports at the same time.Now Florida (33–5) would like to win both crowns in the same calendar year. And make a little history as the first team since Duke in 199–92 to win back-to-back basketball titles — and the first ever to do it with the same five starters.Oregon was trying to get to the Final Four for the first time since winning it all in 1939, the first year of the NCAA tournament. But the Ducks (29–8) were done in by foul trouble the entire game and Tajuan Porter going cold.Porter, the 5-foot-6-inch guard who went off for eight 3s and 33 points in Friday night’s regional semifinal, didn’t make his first field goal until there were 40 seconds left in the game. He finished with 10 points but was just 2-of-12 from the field.Aaron Brooks led Oregon with 27 points, and Malik Hairston added 18 and five rebounds before fouling out with 3:54 to play.The Gators have yet to play their best — or even a consistent — game in the NCAA tournament. They’ve had to come from behind in each game, and have yet to get a dominant performance from both their big guys and guards at the same time.But half a Gator team is better than most wholes. After Al Horford carried the Gators in the semifinal, it was Humphrey and Green doing the work Sunday.Brooks made a 3-pointer and followed with a layup to tie the game at 45 with 17:06 to play. But Green made a 3, then scored on a driving layup of his own that brought the Florida bench to its feet and gave the Gators a 50–45 lead with 16:18 to play.After a timeout, Humphrey hit a 3 to make it 53–47 with 15:35 to play, and Oregon never got closer than four rest of the way. Humphrey’s seven 3s gave him 280 for his career, a Florida record, and he’s made a habit of coming up big when the Gators need him most. He’s made at least two 3s in each of his last 10 postseason games, when he was 37-of-82 from behind the arc.The Gators being the Gators, though, they had to make it interesting.Florida didn’t make a field goal in the last 8:14 and missed seven free throws in the last two minutes, allowing Oregon to whittle a nine-point deficit down to four.

Noah, Gators Return to the Final Four After Taking Care of Oregon

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