Embedded With the Gators: Monday morning
Monday, March 19, 2012 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
MONDAY MORNING
OMAHA, Neb. -- What a weekend for University of Florida sports. If you follow the Gators, you probably know all about it. If you don't, @CoachWMuschamp, whose football squad open spring practice Friday, told you about it Sunday via Twitter.
Great day for #Gators - baseball and softball sweep, men and women's hoops win in NCAA Tournament and women's golf wins!
My colleague, @GatorZoneScott, is with the women's basketball team in Bowling Green, Ohio. Follow him for insight and coverage of Amanda Butler's squad, which showed some toughness down the stretch in fending off home state Ohio State to close out the Buckeyes. The ladies' reward is a date with No. 1 and undefeated Baylor and Brittany Griner. Good luck.
Meanwhile, @GatorZoneChris (that would be me), stuck around with Billy Donovan and his team here in America's heartland following their trouncing of 35-point Norfolk State in Round 2 of the West Region.
[Great stat: Florida became the first team in NCAA Tournament history to score 70 or more points and allow 50 or fewer in the first two rounds. #domination]
With the quick-turnaround -- Sunday game to Thursday night game -- and the distance between sites, Donovan opted to stay here in Nebraska overnight and zip to Phoenix, site of the West Region Sweet 16 games. No. 25 and seventh-seeded Florida will take on 11th-ranked and third-seeded Marquette.
Things looked complicated, travelwise, there for a while. 
UF operations folks, in conjunction with the NCAA, tried to make contingency plans for travel before Sunday's game. The NCAA originally had UF -- assuming the Gators won -- flying commercial through Denver to Phoenix after the game. Never a great option.
That got straightened out.
Now, the Gators will depart the hotel around noon today for a charter flight to Arizona. The team hotel is in downtown Phoenix.
Players got to hang out a bit with family and friends last night, but were up and at 'em this morning. Sort of. No practice or individual instruction scheduled today, but strength and conditioning coach Preston Greene took them to a gymnasium here in town operated by an old friend, Laura Binetti, a former world-champion body-builder.
Yeah, that's her, back in the day, pictured right.
And that's the Gators posing with her earlier in the week (up top).
The Monday plan is to get to Phoenix, check in, settle in and later tonight get the so-called “first look” at Marquette. The first of many looks.
And call this the first of many “Embedded With the Gators” entries this week.
Follow me on Twitter @GatorZoneChris for photos, mini-blogs, random stats and whatnot.
Off the desert.
