1 » Now that his brother has set a course for greener pastures in the NFL, Florida Gators junior guard/center Mike Pouncey will play without him next to him for the first time in years. Rather than feel a sense of longing, Pouncey sees this as an opportunity to take on a leadership role. “I’ve got to lead this team,” he told The Gainesville Sun. “I’ve got the most starts on the team – just gotta go out there and prove everybody day-by-day that we’re going to be a good team this year. […] It’s going to be weird [not having Maurkice there], but I’ve been with these guys on the offensive line for three or four years. I feel ike they’re all my brothers, so they’ll be there for me.”

2 » Though acquiring a tougher schedule was somewhat of a mandate by the Southeastern Conference, the Gators’ willingness to do so may very well be what separates their 2009-10 campaign from that of the last two seasons. “I don’t know if there’s any exact science, but certainly we’re really, really loaded up on our schedule competitively,” head coach Billy Donovan told The Sun. “What kind of dividends that pays for us remains to be seen.” While the opponents may have been tougher, Donovan believes his team is better than it has been since the Oh-Fours departed. ‘Probably a couple of years ago, we weren’t even in position to beat a Michigan State or a Florida State or go on the road and win some of the games that we’ve won,” he said. “This team has certainly played a much, much more difficult schedule and probably as difficult a schedule as we’ve played in quite some time.”

Two more BITS on recruit Brandon Knight and the Horfords…after the break!
Continue Reading » FOUR BITS: Pouncey, schedule, Knight, Horford

Tags: Al Horford, Atlanta Hawks, Billy Donovan, Brandon Knight, Jon Horford, Mike Pouncey, NFL, Oh-Fours, SEC

1 » Florida Gators basketball fans may have noticed that freshman forward/center Erik Murphy’s minutes have diminished over the last few games. After a pretty awful performance against the Arkansas Razorbacks to games ago, Murphy only received two minutes of playing time against the South Carolina Gamecocks on Saturday. Head coach Billy Donovan denied claims that Murphy’s injury was hindering his performance or affecting his minutes. “I’ve got total confidence in Erik,” Donovan said. “He’s a freshman, he’s going to be a very, very good player. You know I think this is great opportunity for him to rebound as a player to understand that you know the last two games, maybe he didn’t play a great game against Arkansas and didn’t get a chance to play in the second half against South Carolina. But we still need him and he can still make a really positive impact on our team.”

2 » Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated wonders where former hoops dynasties like Florida, the North Carolina Tar Heels and the UCLA Bruins have gone in his latest column. He then goes on to make many of the same points that OGGOA has in the past about the Gators’ recent struggles in recovering from the departure of the Oh-Fours.

Tags: Arkansas Razorbacks, Billy Donovan, Erik Murphy, North Carolina Tar Heels, Oh-Fours, South Carolina Gamecocks, UCLA Bruins

1 » Florida Gators forward/center David Lee, in his fifth NBA season, is playing at an All-Star level. Averaging a career-high 18 points per game, Lee is also usually good for double-digit boards every game, putting him in the rare category of a player who averages a double-double on a nightly basis. Though New York Knicks fans have fallen in love with Lee, the organization is in danger of losing him after the season. Lee is currently on a one-year contract and is playing at a level so high that he could command top dollar after the 2009-10 season is in the books.

2 » Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Percy Harvin, who has been dealing with migraine headaches his entire life, recently visited the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, NY, for further examination. According to head coach Brad Childress, Harvin had a “good” visit and is back at practice ready to play on Monday Night Football against the Chicago Bears. “Yeah, it’s a relief,” Harvin said after returning from his doctor’s visit. “Without going into [specifics], we had a great visit and came up with a great plan. I saw great doctors and it should be good from now on. I’m all good.” Still, Harvin’s chronic migraines continue to have his coach, teammates and Gators and Vikings fans worried.

3 » Veteran NBA writer Steve Aschburner has written a terrific piece for NBA.com on the Oh-Fours. Centering on Atlanta Hawks forward/center Al Horford, the article suggests that he is “still the leader of [a] special group of Gators” also including Chicago Bulls F/C Joakim Noah, Minnesota Timberwolves F Corey Brewer and AEK Athens B.C. point guard Taurean Green. Aschburner’s article is an absolute must-read but here is just one quote from Horford: “We have a saying, the guys who came in with my class: ‘04’s For Life,’” Horford said. “Any time that we talk to each other or whatever, that’s always brought up. Jo will send me a text and [type it]. I’ll send the same thing to him or the other guys. We go all the way back to that. I think we’re the type of group, we’ve always been happy for each other. Back in college, we didn’t really care who was scoring 20. At the end of the day, we were winning and we were all doing it in a big way. I think we’ve kept the same attitude [in the NBA].”

4 » Looking at the most valuable teams in college sports, Forbes magazine found that the Texas Longhorns earned that distinction by raking in $59 million in profit in 2009 for a total valuation of $119 million. Behind the Longhorns, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Penn State Nittany Lions, Nebraska Cornhuskers and Alabama Crimson Tide are the Florida Gators – with a value of $88 million and $41 million in profits this year.

Tags: AEK Athens B.C., Al Horford, Atlanta Hawks, Brad Childress, Chicago Bulls, Corey Brewer, David Lee, Joakim Noah, Minnesota Timberwolves, Minnesota Vikings, NBA, New York Knicks, NFL, Oh-Fours, Percy Harvin, Taurean Green, Texas Longhorns

Chicago Bulls forward/center Joakim Noah is an unabashed Florida Gators fan. Considering he is a two-time National Champion who stayed in school an extra year (even with the potential to be the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft) because he loved Gainesville, FL, so much and wanted to play another year with the Oh-Fours, Noah’s fandom should not be a surprise to anyone.

ESPN Chicago’s Nick Friedel caught up with Noah before the 2009 SEC Championship game two weeks ago and spoke with him about a number of Gator-centric topics. For OGGOA‘s purposes, we found his answer to a question about senior quarterback Tim Tebow to be the most interesting. Friedel asked Noah, “Could [Tebow] play basketball if he wanted to?”

“I think he could play anything he wants,” Noah replied. “People always say that Tebow won’t be a pro quarterback and there’s a lot of doubters, but I think that his character’s going to get him through so much. And I think he’s going to become a very good quarterback in the NFL when he’s done with anything. Because of his character and what he’s made of. He’s not going to let go. He’s going to just keep fighting until he reaches his ultimate goal. I think that character means a lot in sports and I think that people underestimate that a lot. And I think that he got it.”

Tags: Chicago Bulls, Joakim Noah, National Championship, Oh-Fours, SEC Championship, Tim Tebow

Sports Illustrated came out with a number of college basketball All-Decade lists on Wednesday, and Florida Gators players earned their way toward a few notable distinctions. On the main list, where SI went over the “highlights and lowlights of the decade,” Florida’s “Oh-Fours” were named the 2000s’ best recruiting class. An obvious choice.

“When Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Corey Brewer and Taurean Green all signed with Florida, nobody heralded this quartet as the Fab anything,” Seth Davis writes. “Yet, by the end of their junior year, they had led the Gators to back-to-back national championships. All except Green had the opportunity to be first-round draft picks as sophomores, but they came back for the chance to make history — and that’s exactly what they did. They were known as the Oh-Fours.”

Noah’s name was also mentioned on two other SI lists, as a reserve forward for SI’s All-Decade Team and at No. 1 in the “10 signature college basketball moments of the decade.” Of Noah’s entry on the All-Decade Team, Grant Wahl writes, “The most memorable team acts of the decade were Illinois in 2004-05 and Florida in 2005-07, and their all-time chemistry explains why so few of their individuals are making this All-Decade list. But if you’re going to pick one guy from these teams, you have to pick Noah, who could do so many things on the court and took over the 2006 NCAA final.”

As for the second distinction, SI recounts Noah’s now-famous dancing celebration after winning the 2006 SEC Championship. “Noah’s spastic, post-SEC tournament celebration on Selection Sunday did not go down in the annals of dance, but it did capture the essence of the star of Florida’s dynasty. Noah, the son of a French tennis and pop star, was brash and widely reviled by opposing fans — yet he was an unselfish player who admirably passed on the NBA draft as a sophomore, and backed up his antics by winning back-to-back national titles. After a shocked Verne Lundquist ceded the CBS stage by saying, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Joakim Noah,’ Bill Raftery asked Noah a question about seeding. The Gators, who’d slipped a bit down the stretch in ’06-07, were likely to enter their title defense as a No. 2 seed. Noah’s response? ‘Who cares! At the end of the day, it’s yours against mine — we’ll see who gets it!’ For two straight NCAA tournaments, the Gators got it.” They sure did.

Tags: Al Horford, All-Decade, Corey Brewer, Joakim Noah, Oh-Fours, SEC Championship, Taurean Green