MINNEAPOLIS – Joakim Noah spent the week leading up to Friday’s game airing his dirty laundry and venting frustrations about Georgetown, his former-favorite team, passing him over during the recruiting process.

After talking the talk, Florida’s sophomore forward walked the walk in the Minneapolis region semifinals, leading the Gators to a 57-53 win and ending the Hoyas’ bid for their first Elite Eight appearance since 1996.

In front of 22,000 spectators at the Metrodome, Noah scored nine of his 15 points and nabbed seven of his 10 rebounds in the second half to propel No. 3 Florida to the regional final.

Though Noah helped his team to get to a position where they could win in the game’s final seconds, it was a different sophomore forward, Corey Brewer, who completed a three-point play to give the Gators a 55-53 lead with 28 seconds left.

Brewer drove toward the basket and heaved the ball up after contacting the Hoyas’ senior forward Brandon Bowman. The shot fell and Bowman was charged with his third foul of the game, sending Brewer to the line.

“When I spun, I split them, and I threw it up and it went in,” Brewer said. “That’s the only time I was nervous on the stretch and my heart was in my throat.”

Head Coach John Thompson III used his last two timeouts to orchestrate the game’s final play, taking the final one with 20 seconds left after seeing Florida’s defensive setup.

With seven ticks remaining, fifth-year swingman Darrel Owens got an open look near the top of the arc but his shot rattled off the rim and ended up in the arms of Florida sophomore center Al Horford.

After being fouled, Horford sank both free throws to shore up the win.

“I had a good look at my last three and I usually make those shots,” Owens said. “It didn’t go down. I’m sure it’s going to haunt me for a long time, but I can’t look back a all the negativity right now.”

Asked if his team could have taken a better final shot, Thompson replied, “No. That’s just the nature of athletics, I guess. We got the shot we wanted for who we wanted to get it, and the ball didn’t go in.”

Florida’s defense, which had averaged 55 points allowed in the Gators’ first-round games, led the team to victory, as Noah recorded five blocks and Horford swatted down two shots by sophomore center Roy Hibbert.

The Gators held Hibbert to just four points in the second half, and the Hoyas only went to the charity stripe three times after intermission. Hibbert did not draw any shooting fouls for the duration of the game.

In addition, Florida had success taking away back-door cuts, allowing Georgetown just two all night.

“We had to guard 150 backdoors tonight, probably, and we did a real nice job taking that part away,” Florida Head Coach Billy Donovan said. “[One thing] we wanted to try to do was shorten the amount of time they could run offense.”

On the perimeter, Georgetown got off eight more three-point attempts (21) than Florida, but both teams found the bottom of the net five times.

The Gators came out flat, allowing the Hoyas to tear away to a 21-12 advantage. But Georgetown squandered its lead, letting Florida claw its way back and even take a 28-26 lead with just over four minutes to play.

While Georgetown kept Florida scoreless for the remaining minutes before intermission, the Hoyas came up empty on several possessions, only adding four points themselves to take a 30-28 edge into the locker room.

“Once we got to the half, I felt like we settled back and we got back to playing the way we normally have played all year long,” Donovan said.

As such, a 7-0 Gator run opened the second half, but Georgetown came back to tie the contest at 42 midway through the period as sophomore forward Jeff Green scored on a tip-in.

Both squads traded baskets and fifth-year swingman Darrel Owens sank a critical three-pointer to keep the Hoyas in the game at 49-all with 3:14 to go.

Bowman and senior guard Ashanti Cook added two points each, sandwiching a trey made by junior guard Lee Humphrey – Florida’s only non-sophomore starter – to give Georgetown a 53-52 edge.

But Bowman missed a layup and Owens’ shot fell aside, sending the Gators to their third Elite Eight appearance in school history.

And on Sunday, Florida locked up a Final Four spot, knocking off Villanova, the last remaining No. 1 seed. The Gators took a 75-62 victory and Noah was named most valuable player of the Minneapolis regional finals.

Green led four Hoyas in double digits with 15, as Cook added 12 and Hibbert and Bowman contributed 10 points each.

After the game, Georgetown’s sophomores insisted that this team expected to accomplish much more.

“It just leaves an awful taste in your mouth to finish out the season like this, because you expected to go so much further,” sophomore guard Jon Wallace said. “It’s time to go to work, because a type of loss like this only makes us hungrier.”

Hibbert added: “We’re not satisfied at all. We are not satisfied with just being in the Sweet 16 or just being in the NCAA tournament. We are here to win and that is the goal that every team that is in this place wants to do. . We are just going to have to work twice as hard next year.”