Coming into our national championship game, the Houston Cougars were 33-0 this basketball season in games in which they held their opponent under 70 points.
But to the credit of an incredibly resourceful Gator basketball team with a closer named Walter Clayton Jr., the Cougars are now 33-1 in that non-prescient category and national runner-ups for the third time in their heartbreak basketball history.
This was one for the ages.
A game even better than the two we witnessed on Saturday evening from San Antonio. This was a Final Four which for two nights made us who still love the game forget about the whoredom of mens’ college basketball with the Portal, NIL, and evaporating team rosters from season to season.
This Final Four was a basketball thing of beauty as Florida won the national championship by coming back from double digit deficits in four of their six games in the Tournament. This was a Florida group who beat defending champ UConn in a knife-fight, then beat street tough Texas Tech, and then overcame two No. 1 seeds in Auburn and Houston in the Final Four.
At the end of the day, here’s the simple truth…when it mattered most in the last 3:25 of this game…Florida out-toughed Houston. Florida not only won the game, they won the knife-fight against Kelvin Sampson’s gritty group.
Florida has now won their third basketball national championship and in the process crowned the SEC as the pre-eminent basketball conference in the land currently. The irony in all of this is the SEC in football this past season couldn’t advance a team to the national championship game. Nick Saban you’re sorely missed in Dixie, sir.
So with this third national championship it might be fair to say the Florida Gators are now a basketball blueblood, or at the very least right there at the door knocking loudly.
On a night when Walter Clayton Jr. didn’t make a field goal for the first thirty-two minutes of play… he was still the Gators’ MVP as he made every play his team needed in the final eight minutes to get them over the hump.
On the game’s final play, with Emmanuel Sharp and the Cougars needing a three to assume their place in college basketball history…. Walter Clayton Jr. donned his cape one last time and made certain Sharp’s shot never went airborne.
The very tragic truth is Kelvin and his group of street-fighters will have to live with for their of their lives…Florida only had the lead in this basketball game for 1:02 minutes of play. The Gators led briefly at 8-6, but never held the lead again until the final minute of play and will now hold it for the rest of their lives.
In the last 3:25 of play, Houston turned the ball over five times total with three of those gaffes coming in the game’s final minute of play.
So ironically, this Houston team now knows exactly how Duke felt on Saturday evening after their last minute collapse.
But collapse or not… Todd Golden and his Florida Gators out-toughed the Houston Cougars and are the rightful champions of the mens’ college basketball world.
Mike J