All Gators: Florida achieves its only possible '07 goal

They finished with a 10-game winning streak and haven't lost a postseason game in 18 tries, counting sweeps at the Southeastern Conference tournaments the past two seasons.

But all teams, no matter how good, need something to fire them up. On Sunday, the Gators found it when Ohio State's Ron Lewis labeled Florida only "good," not "great" or "excellent."

Lewis probably shouldn't have gone there.

"Great teams never lose to good teams," forward Chris Richard said. "It's special and it speaks for itself. We're now part of history."

All season — including in the 86-60 victory over Ohio State in December — the Gators have morphed into whatever kind of team they needed to be to win, and this one was no different.

Stopping Oden figured to be the key, but really it was more complex than that. The 7-foot freshman, who may be one-year-and-done with the NBA beckoning, stayed out of foul trouble and played 38 minutes — just what the Buckeyes figured they needed to have a chance.

Florida's focus, however, was more on stopping the rest of the team. Oden drew mostly single coverage when the ball went into the post. Donovan played a lot of zone and mixed his big men in and out. Horford, Richard and Noah all took turns, and 6-10 freshman Marreese Speights was added to the mix to give Florida five more fouls to play with.

"They had four bodies running in at me," Oden said. "Chris Richard, I swear he plays on the football team."

Oden had to work for his points and Ohio State couldn't take advantage of any other matchups, especially on the perimeter. Ivan Harris was the only Buckeye to make a 3-pointer over the first 39-plus minutes of the game, and he finished 2-for-8. Mike Conley Jr. finished with 20 points for Ohio State, but lots of them came late after the Buckeyes were playing big-time catch-up.

Meanwhile, one thing Florida has always been able to do is shoot the ball — a nation-leading 53 percent this year — and Monday night was no exception. The Gators went 10-for-18 from 3-point range.

And Florida also had quicker hands.

How frustrating it must have been for Ohio State to watch Oden block shot after shot, only to see the Gators grab the rebound and feed back out to Lee Humphrey for a 3.

That happened twice in the second half, both times when an Oden block looked like it might spark Ohio State, which kept the game in reach but couldn't get the deficit below six.

"The difference was they made some incredible plays, and we took away what we wanted to take away," OSU coach Thad Matta said. "They were shooting runners in. When you're playing a great team like Florida and those guys step up and make the plays, there's not a lot you can do. They made some incredible plays on us."