Al Horford
From Hoopedia
Al Horford (born June 3, 1986 in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic) is a basketball player. He is the son of former NBA player Tito Horford. He attended Grand Ledge High School in Grand Ledge, Michigan, and was a star player for their basketball team. He was a starting center for the Florida Gators basketball team, which won the 2006 and 2007 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournaments, as well as the 2005, 2006, and 2007 SEC Tournaments. Horford would have likely been a top 10 pick in the 2006 Draft, but he and teammates Joakim Noah and Corey Brewer announced at the championship celebration that they would return for their junior season.
In December of 2006, Horford missed a series of games. Coach Billy Donovan held him out of a game against Stetson University in hopes that he would be adequately healed for a December 23rd showdown in Gainesville against the #3-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes. One day before the game, Donovan announced that Horford would be unable to play. Surprisingly, however, Horford entered the game from the bench to guard Ohio State superstar Greg Oden, a highly-touted 7'0" 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 perhaps the best game ever played by a Gators team at the Stephen C. O'Connell Center.
On the final home game of the season, on March 4, 2007 against Kentucky, Al Horford became the fourth on his team to score 1,000 career points, on a free throw in the second half. He needed fourteen points during the game to reach the one thousand mark and scored exactly fourteen points.
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.
On June 28,2007. Horford was Drafted by the Atlanta Hawks as the Third overall selection in the 2007 NBA Draft.
