Jax-bound Gators set sights on S. Alabama

Shortly after the Florida basketball team won the SEC tournament championship by beating South Carolina, Joakim Noah, the hero of the win, said, "We are the SEC champions, and we are definitely going in the right direction."

The direction the Gators are heading will be about an hour northeast of Gainesville, right to Jacksonville. When they get there, they will be running into an old friend.

When the NCAA tournament field was announced Sunday night, Florida was given a No. 3 seed and sent to nearby Jacksonville, the site for games to be played Thursday and Saturday.

The Gators were matched up against the University of South Alabama Jaguars, an opponent coached by John Pelphrey.

Pelphrey, now in his fourth year at South Alabama, coached at Florida for six seasons as an assistant for Florida coach Billy Donovan. He also coached with Donovan for two seasons at Marshall and played at Kentucky for Rick Pitino when Donovan was an assistant coach there.

"I am very happy for John, he's done an absolutely fantastic job with his team this season," Donovan said in a statement Sunday night. "It's always difficult playing a game at this level against such a close friend."

The 14th-seeded Jaguars are 24-6 with an 8-game win streak.

South Alabama reached the NCAA tournament by beating Western Kentucky in the Sun Belt Conference tournament championship game.

"I think the NCAA has a funny sense of humor with regards to pairing us up with Florida," Pelphrey said. "They did the same thing to my old roommate, Travis Ford, last year when he had to play Kentucky in the first round.

Ford, currently the coach at Massachusetts, was the coach at Eastern Kentucky last year. His team lost to Kentucky 72-64 in the first round of the NCAA.

The Gators had already secured a spot in this year's NCAA tournament before beating South Carolina Sunday in the Southeastern Conference tournament championship game, but the win erased any doubt that they would get a spot in Jacksonville. Not only will Florida college basketball team be able to play in front of a friendly crowd at Jacksonville's Veterans Memorial Arena but the team will have a short trip, which will help offset the fact that they will play Thursday after completing a run of three straight SEC tournament games with the final on Sunday.

"We're certainly excited about our seeding and looking forward to staying in the state of Florida and playing some place very convenient for our fan base," Donovan said. "That being said, the games are still based on performance. Being in Florida doesn't assure us of anything. We need to go out and perform."

The Gators, who have made the NCAA tournament eight straight years, have not advanced beyond the first weekend since reaching the national championship game at the conclusion of the 1999-2000 season.

"It is a big lift to play not too far away from home," Florida forward Adrian Moss said. "We will probably have a lot of fans there. But, again, fans don't win basketball games. We appreciate them and love them but fans don't win basketball games. We've got to go and prepare."

12:45 PM - Mar. 13, 2006