Walton’s words inspire Noah

Credit Bill Walton with an unwitting -- and almost certainly unwilling -- assist.

Florida’s Joakim Noah said he was inspired Saturday by watching the HBO documentary “The UCLA Dynasty” on television before the game.

“You know what’s crazy, what got me really hyped up today was watching Bill Walton at UCLA,” Noah said. “I just loved it. So much was going on at that time, the Vietnam War, and Bill Walton took a stand.

“I knew everybody said he had been a hippie, but I didn’t know that Bill Walton had stood up for his rights.”

Noah said he was impressed that Walton had publicly disagreed with Coach John Wooden about the war.

“I see Bill Walton talking on TV, but I didn’t know all that,” Noah said.

“So thanks, UCLA.”

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He buried pull-up jumpers, soared for a breakaway dunk and glided effortlessly across the lane for a reverse layup.

Josh Shipp put together such an inspired first half that it seemed as if he had been waiting 100 years for this opportunity. In fact, the sophomore swingman had been deprived of only one Final Four appearance after sitting out most of last season because of a chronically sore hip.

But when teammate Arron Afflalo picked up his third foul with 11:26 left in the first half, Shipp knew that the Bruins needed him more than ever.

“When he went down, somebody had to step up,” Shipp said.

Shipp rattled in a driving layup and then made a pull-up jumper to bring UCLA to within 14-13. After Florida extended its advantage to 10 points and threatened to put the game out of reach before halftime, Shipp responded with a layup and a breakaway dunk.

He made two free throws shortly before halftime to trim the Bruins’ deficit to 29-23.

“I thought he was terrific in the first half,” Florida Coach Billy Donovan said of Shipp, who had 14 points in the first 20 minutes. “He really did a great job of taking over and making some drives and some jumpers and some threes to keep them in there.”

Shipp finished with 18 points, five assists, four rebounds and four steals. “I tried my best but we couldn’t get it done,” he said. “It’s not the way we wanted to end our season.”

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Texas freshman Kevin Durant was in town to pick up some national player-of-the-year awards and said he was pulling for Georgetown because he has friends on the team.

But Durant, who is from the Washington, D.C., area, also dropped a bit of a bombshell that took back UCLA recruiters when they heard it.

“I wasn’t a Georgetown fan growing up. I was a UCLA fan,” he said. “It’s a weird reason. I really like their colors. And I really like Los Angeles.”

UCLA assistants Donny Daniels and Kerry Keating said they were never deeply involved with Durant, and he never expressed a fondness for blue and gold to them.

“They didn’t think I’d go that far from home,” Durant said.

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Keating is a candidate for the vacant jobs at Long Beach State, Santa Clara and Hawaii, but told officials from those schools he would wait to speak to them until after the Final Four.

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Times staff writers Robyn Norwood and Ben Bolch contributed to this report.