Florida enters the National Championship game off of a terrifically impressive offensive performance against UCLA. The Bruins reached the Final Four by making a pair of good offensive teams (Pittsburgh and Kansas) extremely impotent in San Jose. On the season, I have Florida as being slightly less than 10 percent better offensively than either Pittsburgh or Kansas. In their respective tournament games against UCLA, Florida was more than 31 percent better than either Pittsburgh or Kansas. This despite Taurean Green’s 2-9 FGA, 1-7 3PTA performance and Al Horford and Joakim Noah combining to make just 7 of 16 free throw attempts.

The Florida Gators are the best offensive team in college basketball.

I can make that statement unequivocally because the Ohio State Buckeyes eliminated the other contender for “best offensive team in college basketball (unofficial and subjective)” in their semi-final. Ohio State’s defensive performance against Georgetown was every bit as impressive as Florida’s offensive performance against UCLA.

Tonight, though, Ohio State will not get the benefit of facing 39 minutes of scoreless bench play (and not just scoreless, Georgetown’s reserves attempted only 2 shots in that time). Barring a Dan Werner cameo, at no point will Florida have a player on the court who is not both a capable and efficient scorer.

Ohio State will have to play various offensive lightweights (David Lighty, Matt Terwilliger, and, on his current form, if not his ability, Daequan Cook) for upwards of 20 percent of the game. This could be a deciding factor as Ohio State, despite being the better of the two teams defensively, will need a good offensive performance as well (as they had against Georgetown) to beat the Gators.

In their losses, Florida has struggled to guard athletic forwards. Julian Wright, Darrell Arthur, Al Thornton, and Derrick Byars each made significant contributions in their teams’ victories by attacking Horford and/or Noah individually. Ohio State doesn’t have a player like that on the roster. Both of the Florida big men are more effective using their length and athleticism as help defenders or as part of a zone than in one-on-one situations. Greg Oden will provide a different sort of defensive challenge, but I expect that Ohio State will rely a great deal on Mike Conley, Jr. using dribble penetration to create scoring opportunities for his teammates.

FIRST 5 GAMES ADJ. EFFICIENCY

EFFICIENCY PREDICTIONS

• Full Season Prediction … Florida 76, Ohio St. 68
• Last 10 Prediction … Florida 70, Ohio St. 69
• Vs. Good Prediction … Florida 70, Ohio St. 69
• Trendline Prediction … Florida 73, Ohio St. 72
• Tourney So Far Prediction … Florida 78, Ohio St. 77

UPDATED GRAPHS

Florida team capsule

Ohio St. team capsule