Florida makes Gator bait of Oden, critics
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- By the time Greg Oden knew what happened, Joakim Noah was gone, already at the other end of the court, jumping, hollering, showing the kind of emotion we've come to expect from the reigning Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four.
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| Joakim Noah is not intimidated by freshman phenom Greg Oden. (US PRESSWIRE) |
Noah had chest-bumped with Oden.
Noah had stunned that big kid named Oden, the freshman phenom who'd rarely been confronted, attacked or punked by an opponent prior to Saturday's showdown between Florida and Ohio State.
"Nobody on this team was scared of him; people should be scared of us," Noah later explained, smiling that somebody noticed his not-so-accidental bump of Oden that symbolized all things past, present and future of the Gators' 86-60 rout of Ohio State. "He bleeds, too. He's a human being. He was coming into our house, and we had to show him."
The Thad Five were skinned alive.
That's the simplest way to explain what happened when the third-ranked Buckeyes and fifth-ranked Gators got together here at the O'Connell Center. The battle of heavyweights was a convincing knockout for Florida, the kind of performance that left little doubt about which team is the defending national champion and which has a ways to go before it's ready to make a serious run at that title.
The older, wiser, more enthusiastic Gators dominated in every aspect, from inside, outside and all points in between. It was a total dismantling for a national television audience, a blowout that turned silly in the second half and into a clinic complete with dunks and 3-pointers and a record crowd of 12,621 going bananas.
Game in hand, Noah was on the bench smiling.
Game out of hand, Oden was on the bench frowning.
A classic match-up?
Try absolute mismatch.
Afterward, nobody was denying it.
