UCLA Bruins (30-5) vs. Florida Gators (33-5) Preview

This will be the second game on Saturday night. The winner of this game will play the winner of the game that was played earlier between Georgetown and Ohio State.

Florida has been waiting to get back to the Final Four ever since they won the National Championship last year. And now here they are facing the very same team they beat in the Championship Game last year, the UCLA Bruins.

Last year’s game wasn’t very close. Florida won it easily behind the play of Joakim Noah. But this year may be a little different.

UCLA plays very good defense and the defense they play either leads them to victory or defeat. So the Bruins will try to slow down the Gators high-powered offense. The last thing UCLA wants to do is get into a running contest with Florida.

Florida has great size and their big guys, especially Noah and Al Horford, can run and handle the ball. That is what makes Florida so tough to beat. They have a lot of size and a lot of talent.

But in the last few games Florida has had a tendency to start slowly. If they do that against UCLA then they may find themselves in a lot of trouble. If UCLA builds a decent lead they will clamp down on defense and slow down the game. The Florida Gators will have to try to press the tempo and that could very well play right into the hands of the Bruins.

UCLA certainly has the athletes to compete against the Gators. They are very quick, especially on the defensive end of the floor. They will try to trap the ball handler and force Florida into turning the ball over.

It’s likely that UCLA will try to spread out the Gators defense. They will want to draw the Gators big men away from the basket so that other players can penetrate to the basket. By doing this they will hope to take away the Gators’ size advantage.

Florida will want to take good care of the ball when they have it. They’ll try to push the ball up the floor quickly so that UCLA doesn’t have time to set-up any type of trapping defense. The Gators will want to run their offense around Horford and Noah.

Florida has a lot of confidence heading into this game. They are the defending champs and they beat this UCLA team last year. But UCLA has revenge on their minds. They want to get back at Florida and win another Championship for the storied Bruins program.

This game should be a lot of fun to watch.