Which team can impose its will? Which will prove more valuable, size or speed?
Those are the questions awaiting answers Sunday in an Elite Eight matchup between two teams with vastly different styles that are set to meet for the first time ever in the Midwest Region final at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis — the winner earning a trip to the Final Four in Atlanta next week.
There’s Oregon, the up-tempo, guard-oriented team that doesn’t start a player taller than 6-foot-9, 215-pound forward Maarty Leunen.
Then there’s top-seeded Florida, the defending national champions, which boast a lineup consisting of 6-foot-11, 232-pound Joakim Noah, the Most Outstanding Player from the Final Four a year ago, the 6-foot-10, 245-pound bruiser Al Horford and the 6-foot-9, 185-pound forward Corey Brewer.
“It’s going to be one of those games that who can kind of impose their will on the other,” Oregon coach Ernie Kent said. “It’s going to be an extreme, extreme test for us against this basketball team to try to hopefully impose our will upon them versus them making us make the adjustments.”
Oregon hopes to limit Florida’s inside presence, both scoring and rebounding, while the Gators hope to neutralize the Ducks’ quickness and halt a team that shoots the three-pointer consistently and consistently well.
Five-foot-six freshman guard Tajuan Porter is coming off a 33-point effort against UNLV in the Sweet 16 matchup Friday where he connected on 8 of 12 three-pointers and, at one stretch, had 17 straight Oregon points.
“They’ve got five players who can really put the ball on the floor and really shoot,” Brewer said. “They are the best team we will face all year.”
Horford, the Florida center and leading scorer, is coming off a 16-point performance in the Sweet 16 and one in which he bullied defenders on numerous occasions. He and Noah form one of the most potent frontcourt duos in the nation.
“They’re both great players on the inside,” Oregon guard Malik Hairston said. “They’re both very effective on both ends of the court.”
The Gators (32-5 overall, 13-3 SEC) enter the Elite Eight after defeating fifth-seeded Butler 65-57 on Friday and previously beating 16th-seeded Jackson State 112-69 in the first round and ninth-seeded Purdue 74-67 in the second round.
Oregon (29-7 overall, 11-7 Pac-10) has yet to play a seed higher than its No. 3 seed, having defeated 14th-seeded Miami (OH) 58-56 in the first round, 11th-seeded Winthrop 75-61 in the second round and UNLV, the seventh-seed, 76-72 on Friday.
The Ducks are back in the Elite Eight for the first time since a 2002 trip — a run that set the bar for Oregon basketball and included the likes of NBA veterans Luke Ridnour, Freddie Jones and Luke Jackson.
“That’s what you always think about when you think about Oregon basketball, at least in recent memory,” Oregon guard Bryce Taylor said. “We’re there right now, and we’re finally leaving some footprints on this program.”
The Ducks are seeking their first trip to the Final Four since 1939. To get there, they must find a way to counter the severe height disadvantage they’ll face from the Gators. Florida currently outrebounds its opponents by a margin of 8.1 rebounds per game and is led by the sophomore Horford, who averages 13.4 points per game and 9.3 rebounds per game, and is likely to be an NBA Lottery Pick as is the junior Noah, who averages 12.1 points per game and 8.4 rebounds per game.
“You can’t forget about one or the other because they’re both very dominant players,” said Leunen, who’ll likely draw the assignment on Horford with the 6-foot-6, 200-pound Hairston likely facing Noah. “Me and Malik are going to have to help each other out a lot and it’s going to be a great team effort in stopping both the guys on the inside.”
Though Kent said he wouldn’t hesitate to use taller reserves in 6-foot-10, 275-pound Mitch Platt, 7-foot, 235-pound Ray Schafer or 6-foot-8, 230-pound Adam Zahn along with key reserve and 6-foot-6, 225-pound freshman Joevan Catron, the Ducks have taken pride in their smaller lineup.
The Ducks used it effectively to defeat Roy Hibbert and Georgetown early in the season and against the pair of seven-footers, Brook and Robin Lopez, at Stanford, among others.
“Florida is a lot like Georgetown…they’re big…and their offense is a lot like Stanford,” senior point guard Aaron Brooks said. “We played both those teams and were successful, so we’re anxious to see what we can do (against Florida).”
The smaller lineup naturally lends itself to more outside shooting and not many have done a better job than the Ducks in that category, a major concern for the Gators.
Along with Porter, who, for three pointers in one season, owns the school record, the Pac-10 freshman record and is just 14 shy of the NCAA freshman record, Oregon as a team has made 342 three-point shots this season, shattering the school and Pac-10 record of 304 the Ducks set back in 2002-03. The Ducks have hoisted 875 total three-pointers this season, also school and Pac-10 records.
“If you look at their personnel, and you see what they do individually, it’s almost scary,” Noah said. “They are a team that can score from every position, 15-20 points easy, one through five.”
Florida extended its defense against Butler to force difficult perimeter shots but that strategy might not be as effective against Oregon, Florida coach Billy Donovan said.
“One thing we felt with Butler, with their players, was that we wanted to try to have them finish over the top of some of our big guys,” Donovan said. “This is a different team in Oregon because of their athleticism and their speed and their strength that maybe it was more challenging height-wise for Butler to finish over our guys. But I think this team, it’s going to be a heck of a challenge because they do have a great ability to shoot the ball off the dribble, which is maybe a little bit different than Butler.”
While the height disadvantage poses problems on the defensive end, the Ducks say they welcome it on the offensive end as an opportunity to use their quickness to exploit taller defenders.
“Their big guys are definitely versatile to come out and guard our guards,” Brooks said. “But we’re a little quicker on the outside than them. So we could use that as our advantage. And we just got to get after them and play hard on offense and move the ball and kind of exploit it that way.”
Tip-off is 11:40 a.m. PDT.
Notes: The Gators are looking to win their 16th-straight postseason tournament game…Brewer needs just six points to become Florida’s all-time leader in NCAA Tournament points, surpassing Udonis Haslem’s record of 157…Porter’s 33-point effort Friday makes him the first freshman in Oregon history to surpass 500 points in a season…Porter also set the school record Friday for points in an NCAA Tournament game by breaking the previous high of 32 set by Freddie Jones back in 2002 against Kansas…Oregon improved to 14-4 in games decided by eight points or less and now have 29 total wins, which is good for second most in school history behind a 1944-45 squad that won 30.
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