Ohio State Seeks Sweet Revenge
In Title Game Against Florida

April 2, 2007 12:02 p.m.

In the first two installments of a budding rivalry between Florida and Ohio State this season, the Gators scored decisive victories. Tonight, the Buckeyes have a chance to even things in the men's basketball championship game.

What's that you say? These are two entirely different sports and the connection is strained? The Fix was inclined to agree with you until reading the words of Ohio State basketball players -- who are, after all, classmates and friends of the football players.

There really is a grudge here. That's what Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Bill Livingston found out9 when he asked Ohio State stars Greg Oden and Mike Conley, Jr., two freshmen who have quickly picked up school spirit. "You want to win the game for the football team. I have a lot of friends on the football team, and I know that hurt them," Mr. Conley told him. Mr. Oden added: "That really did hurt. We were watching that game and it hurts when you're driving down the street and somebody does that 'Gator bait' stuff to you. That takes the pride out of you, so you really don't want to lose."

Their teammate, Jamar Butler, received a text message from a Buckeye football player about the game, Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Downey reports. And a former Ohio State football player told hoops player Ivan Harris, "It's time for you to step up and win for us and get revenge."

"This situation is unprecedented," Mr. Downey writes10. "Never before have universities clashed for Division I championships in football and basketball in the same school year. No Duke football team ever put its basketball team in a position like this, that's for sure. UCLA and UNLV gridiron guys never did this to a John Wooden or Jerry Tarkanian squad."

But this situation may repeat itself, with success in one of the two high-earning college sports breeding success in the other -- and the have-nots falling further behind.

"Football is the cash cow that feeds everything," Paola Boivin writes11 in the Arizona Republic. "Ohio State and Florida take charter flights to every away game. The Arizona schools don't. The Buckeyes and Gators stay at nice hotels with pillow mints the night before home games. The Sun Devils don't, and the Wildcats do only occasionally. Although those perks don't make the sole difference between wins and losses, they help. Coaches drop that information while recruiting. The odds of being rested for a game after a charter flight or hotel stay are better than a two-connection trip or a dorm room."

ESPN.com's Pat Forde agrees12 with the Megaprogram thesis, and suggests five other schools that could make a run at national titles in other sports -- something accomplished by just seven schools, including just one private university (Syracuse) and both of tonight's contestants.

* * *

Florida advanced to the title game Saturday by beating UCLA, in a rematch of last year's championship-game rout13 that was no closer, despite the deceptively close final score of 76-66. Florida's four star sophomores famously returned for a junior-year attempt at another championship, in what columnists are calling a victory for the college experience.

"With each passing conquest, these '04s are reminding us suitemates can prosper without jealousy or resentment, that it's OK for college guys to play with stuffed animals and that there are still some young athletes willing to put the collective good ahead of immediate gratification," Mike Berardino writes14 in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Hartford Courant columnist Jeff Jacobs adds15, "Deep down we know the four junior roommates … represent everything we would want for ourselves and our children from the college experience." (One of them, Joakim Noah, is participating in that traditional college activity of making political pronouncements; here's SportsLine's Dennis Dodd16 on the polarizing Gators star.)

Messrs. Oden and Conley of Ohio State are comparative neophytes, but after their 67-60 defeat of Georgetown in the other Saturday semifinal, the two rookies and high-school teammates have a championship streak of their own to preserve: They last lost in a tournament four years ago, as freshman at Lawrence North in Indianapolis. "Counting the traditional school season, youth leagues and the current college season, the two have played about 800 games together," Jeff Rabjohns writes17 in the Indianapolis Star. "They've lost 13 -- five during the summer travel season, six at Lawrence North and two at Ohio State." Birmingham News columnist Kevin Scarbinsky checks in18 with UAB's Robert Vaden, one of the stars on the last team to oust the freshman duo from the tournament. He's rooting for the Buckeyes tonight.

For UCLA, the loss to Florida was a painful reminder that the Bruins lack championship-level offensive firepower, Bill Plaschke writes19 in the Los Angeles Times: "The Bruins definitely need to alter a philosophy that creates the playmakers who can carry them on only one end of the court. With all those great defensive stars eligible to return, next season could be a balanced blast."

The Washington Post's Thomas Boswell sees similar hope for Georgetown next season. The Hoyas' defeat reminds him of Maryland's Final Four loss in 2001; the Terrapins won the national championship the next season. "They call this clambake 'March Madness' for a reason -- one the Hoyas may now grasp," Mr. Boswell writes20. "Sometimes you have to experience it once, and be its victim, before you can return, keep your sanity and claim the prize."

我最怕英文了，能作的是义务顶贴。

"The best combined football/basketball season they have ever had ended in the same way"