Looking To The Past To Overcome The Present

Now that Florida has won its second national title in a row, everybody's an amateur historian — which is good, because sports would be no fun if it has professional historians. The big question: Are the Gators one of the best teams ever? The answer of course is that there is no answer, which is why we ask the question; there aren't any more games to watch for a while, so we have to discuss theoreticals.

Another reason we need to lean on hypotheticals the day after the national championship game? The title game was like the rest of the tournament; uninspired and never much in doubt. Watching the "One Shining Moment" video, we realized that the most memorable moments of the tournament were Greg Oden's monster non-slam in the Final Four against Georgetown ... and Joakim Noah's weird Officer And A Gentleman deal with his mom after the victory. (Seriously, man ... we're all for loving your mom, but, well, we dunno ... seemed like a bit much.) The biggest upset was VCU over a weak Duke team, and we never had that true epic game.

So we talk about history, and context, and then we look forward to next year, thinking that maybe having a George Mason around isn't so bad after all.

Florida: Best. Team. Ever. (But I'll Settle for "Best of '07") [DanShanoff.com]