College Career
Horford accepted an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where he played for coach Billy Donovan's Florida Gators men's basketball team from 2004 to 2007. He was a member of the Gators' 2004 recruiting class, together with fellow incoming freshmen Joakim Noah, Taurean Green, and Corey Brewer. He made an immediate impact as a Gator, starting at center in the front-court with David Lee. He helped the Gators win the 2005 Southeastern Conference (SEC) championship.
He started his sophomore season without many expectations. Many people did not believe that the Gators would be very good in the 2005–06 season, losing three starters from the previous year's team. The Gators, with Horford's help, surged through the season, winning the SEC Championship. They entered the 2006 NCAA Tournament as a number 3 seed. Horford showed great leadership as he and the Gators swept through the first four rounds to reach the Final Four. The Gators beat the Cinderella story of the tournament, George Mason, to reach the final. Then they beat UCLA in the championship, where Horford had 14 points and 7 rebounds.
Horford and the Gators started the 2006–07 season with the goal of repeating as national champions. In December 2006, Horford missed a series of games due to an injury. Coach Donovan held him out of a game against Stetson University in hopes that he would be adequately healed for a December 23 showdown in Gainesville against the third-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes. One day before the game, Donovan announced that Horford would be unable to play. However, Horford entered the game from the bench to guard Ohio State player Greg Oden, a highly-touted 7'0" (2.13 m) freshman. Horford tried to contain Oden, holding him to just seven points (well below Oden's season average of just over 15). Horford himself scored eleven points, adding eleven rebounds in limited action. The Gators beat the Buckeyes in what is now regarded as not just a great game, but also one of Florida's best-played games at the O'Connell Center.
On the final home game of the season, on March 4, 2007 against Kentucky, Horford became the fourth on his team to score 1,000 career points, on a free throw in the second half. He needed 14 points during the game to reach the milestone, and scored exactly the number needed.
On April 2, 2007, Horford and the rest of the Gators became the first team to repeat as national champions since the 1991–1992 Duke Blue Devils, and the first ever to do so with the same starting lineup. Then in May 2007, Horford, Taurean Green, Joakim Noah, and Corey Brewer all announced they would leave early for the NBA.
According to an interview on Rome is Burning with Jim Rome on March 18, 2009, Horford said that he finished his degree at Florida in the summer after his rookie year in the NBA.
Read more about this topic: Al Horford
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