Repeat?

With the final eight teams (six in a few hours) set we're finally able to see the finish line. No team has looked invincible but they have all shown the ability to win the entire thing. (Well maybe not Memphis or Oregon) With that being said I think it's finally time to consider if the Gators have enough talent and luck to be the first repeat champions since Duke did it about fifteen years ago.

The Pros:
They have the best starting five in the country. I don't care how good Georgetown's starting line-up is the Gators is better. Two possible top five picks and another possible lottery selection. Not to mention that their front courts height are 6-11, 6-10, 6-8.

They have a wealth of experience. Obviously winning the whole thing last year does something for you. Near the end of the Purdue game and the end of the Butler game when it was close the Gators just pulled away. Most of that was because they were just better athletes than their opponents but they still made the right decisions and made their free throws.

There's a Gator mystic that they can always come back and win the game. They won it last year, they blew out Ohio State this year, their football team won it all this year. There's just a certain moxy surrounding the Gators that is going to be hard to put away.

The Cons
They seem disinterested at times. It took them awhile to get going in all three games and two of them came down to the wire against far lesser competition. What happens if a team doesn't let them hang around and there down by 15 at half. Or what happens if it comes down to the wire like against Purdue and Butler only this time the team has similar talent to you? What happens when you feed it to Horford and his shot doesn't go down? What happens when the other team comes back and hits a three instead of missing it like Purdue and Butler did?

They aren't deep. They basically have a 7 man rotation with Richard and Hodge coming off the bench. If someone goes down or gets into foul trouble I'm not sure if Werner or Speights can handle the pressure. They haven't played many minutes and they're both freshman.

Humphrey seems to be in a permanent cold spell. If it were me I'd start Hodge and bring Humphrey of the bench. Against better competition Humphrey just seems too easy to guard. He's nothing but a pure shooter who can't seem to get open looks. Hodge is a better defender, better ball handler and makes better decisions with the ball. He's a good shooter and can create with the ball in his hands. Plus he always seems to know to feed it to the bigs inside. The only downside is that then you have no back-up point guard. In the crunch time though I'd definitely have Hodge in for Humphrey.

Bottom Line
All the teams have had their problems. Kansas couldn't seem to put away an over matched Southern Illinois team. UCLA has trouble scoring, Oregon just doesn't have the horses. Memphis hasn't played real close games since December, Ohio State should have lost twice, North Carolina fell behind by 16 to USC and Georgetown needed a bogus non travelling call to get by Vandy.

So much of this tournament depends on luck but considering the teams left I think they have the best team and the easiest road to the finals.

Can they get it done? Yes. Will they get it done? I don't know

So after all that I came to absolutely no conclusion. Writing at its finest.