Florida, Butler meet again

By Dave Curtis - The Orlando Sentinel     Mar 23, 2007

Florida's Joakim Noah, left, and teammate Al Horford loosen up. The Gators practiced Thursday in St. Louis in preparation for tonight's regional semifinal against Butler.

? On 2000’s “One Shining Moment” video, the annual recap of each NCAA Tournament, Florida’s Mike Miller blows past Oklahoma State’s Doug Gottlieb to sink a layup.

And there’s Miller again, at the bottom of a Gator pile, celebrating the most pivotal shot in Florida basketball history.

But the shot itself, Miller’s flailing, falling-down five-footer re-enacted that summer on playgrounds from South Florida to South Dakota, is nowhere to be found.

“That’s amazing,” Miller said on the phone this week. “That shot changed my life.”

That shot, which gave Florida a 69-68 overtime victory over Butler in the first round of the 2000 tournament, changed lives on both benches.

It also changed two programs, sending one toward permanent national prominence and sparking the other’s run to ranking among the top mid-major teams in America.

Tonight, Florida and Butler reconvene, this time in a Midwest Regional semifinal. But the 2000 buzzer-beater remains a fresh topic; some of the characters are the same, the matchup is similar in scope and the shot’s effect lingers today.

“Sometimes plays like that propel you,” UF coach Billy Donovan said this week. “Any time there’s a chance to advance and help your program, it does a lot of great things.”

Said Joel Cornette, a Butler freshman in 2000 and now the Bulldogs’ director of basketball operations: “Even when we lost, that game gave us a lot of national attention. And the sting of losing that game probably did more to help us than anything.”

Florida used that victory to start a five-game surge to reach its first national-title game, where it fell to Michigan State.

“We really jelled after that day,” said Brett Nelson, a Florida guard in 2000 and now director of basketball operations at Virginia Commonwealth. “That was the start of a lot of good things for Florida.”

Butler, which missed out on its first NCAA tourney victory since 1962, received a boost as well. The Bulldogs broke the victory drought in 2001.

“They weren’t just happy to be there,” Lickliter said Thursday of the 2000 players. “They wanted to advance. It drove them to compete at a higher level and prepare well.”

Game day in 2000 doubled as St. Patrick’s Day, and Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Winston-Salem, N.C., had a near-capacity crowd for the midafternoon Friday tipoff. Talk around the arena and in UF’s team hotel was of the history Florida faced, history that hinted the Gators would lose.

For 11 consecutive NCAA Tournaments, a No. 12 seed had knocked off a No. 5 seed. By the time Florida tipped off, No.5 seeds Kentucky and Texas already had advanced.

“I remembering hearing a lot about the 5-12 stuff,” Miller said. “Everybody kept waiting for one of those five-seeds to lose.”

Andrew Graves, whose younger brother A.J. is the 2007 Bulldogs’ leading scorer, drained a three-pointer over Miller to put Butler up 68-65 with 29 seconds left in overtime.

A layup by Kenyan Weaks cut the lead to one, and with 8.1 seconds left, UF fouled Jordan, an 83 percent foul shooter. Jordan back-rimmed the first free throw, then stepped away from the line as Teddy Dupay was subbed for Nelson.

“The great thing about coach Donovan is that he had us ready for a situation just like that,” Nelson said. “We didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, but we knew we could get a shot.”

Jordan, now a Butler assistant, saw his second shot rattle out. Dupay took an outlet pass and drove downcourt, crossing the three-point line and kicking to Miller on the left wing. Miller ball-faked, took two hard dribbles and flipped a short jumper toward the basket, losing his balance as he landed.

“Florida wins! Florida wins!,” CBS’ Jim Nantz yelled on the air. “Mike Miller wins it at the buzzer.”

Cheers went up in all outposts of Gator Nation. Bar patrons celebrated along University Avenue in Gainesville, and in a motel room in Rapid City, S.D., where Miller’s former high school team was waiting to play a state tournament game, coach Gary Munsen let out a roar of his own.

“It was a huge deal for Mitchell (S.D.),” Munsen said. “We’re a small town. We’ve never had a kid do something like that.”

Dupay reached a prone Miller first, and the rest of the Gators soon jumped on him as well. Donovan stood near midcourt, asking reporters if the basket beat the buzzer.

“If we all had do-overs,” Jordan said here Thursday, “life would be a little different, wouldn’t it?”

If there were do-overs, then Butler advances to play Illinois and further accelerates its rise to mid-major darling. If there were do-overs, Florida falls in the first round, never reaching that title game. And Donovan’s critics raise their volume.

But there’s none of that. There’s only Miller, at the bottom of the pile, celebrating what then was the brightest shining moment in UF basketball history.

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