Indianapolis ? UCLA’s players looked into the crowd and saw Bill Walton.

They looked into the crowd and saw Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

They looked into the crowd and saw Reggie Miller.

The Florida Gators could only look within themselves to find greatness. And they did just that Monday night – burying the ghosts of UCLA past, demoralizing the players of UCLA present and hoisting a national championship banner that symbolizes the emergence of Florida’s future.

The Florida Gators are national champions. Did you hear what I said? The Florida Gators are national basketball champions!

Take that, UCLA. Take that, Indiana. Take that, Kentucky. Take that, North Carolina and Duke. Take that every hoity-toity hoops highbrow who thought Florida was destined to always be a basketball barrio oppressed and overwhelmed by a slumlord named football.

This wasn’t just Florida stomping UCLA, 73-57. This was much more significant than that. This was basketball ability overthrowing basketball nobility. This was tenacity trumping tradition. The Gators, the school of no national basketball championships, absolutely annihilated the school with 11 of them.

Ten years after he arrived and inherited a downtrodden program, Billy Donovan has his first national championship at a younger age than any active coach other than Bob Knight. A decade of dominance comes to fruition. A decade of Donovan comes to fulfillment.

Build a statue for him. Name the court after him. The Donovan Dome. The Billy Bowl. Whatever. And give him a raise that makes him the highest paid coach on campus. Yes, he should make more than Urban Meyer because, by gosh, he’s done more. In fact, when is some sports writer from New York or Boston going to ask Meyer how it feels to be coaching football at a basketball school?

And make no mistake about it, Florida is a basketball school. Starting with the 1999-2000 season when Donovan first took the Gators to the Final Four, the Gators’ winning percentage in the last seven years is .754. Florida football, during that same time span, is .633.

What is a basketball school except a place where you sell out your gym, lure the best recruits and have a chance to go to the NCAA Tournament every year? The Gators, the first school to appear in two national championship games this decade, have all that. And now they have a national title, too.

“Is Florida a basketball school?” Donovan mentor Rick Pitino said amid a jubilant postgame celebration. “Look around you. This is the stuff of fairytales. Of course Florida’s a basketball school.”

Added Florida Athletic Director Jeremy Foley, wiping tears from his eyes: “Billy Donovan put Florida basketball on the map and tonight was the exclamation point.”

The victory Monday night should go down as the greatest collegiate sporting accomplishment in state history. Florida has produced beaucoup national championships in football, but we expect such things. But a basketball team? This is unprecedented.