SAN ANTONIO — The strong safety in Walter Clayton Jr. came out just in the nick of time.
The former prized football recruit displayed his closing speed to help Florida prevent Houston from attempting a potential game-winning shot in the final seconds of Monday night’s national title game.
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Sensing danger when Houston’s Emanuel Sharp used a pair of staggered pin-down screens to free himself at the top of the key, Clayton sprinted to make up the 15 feet between him and the open shooter. Clayton leaped at Sharp just as he rose to shoot, forcing the Houston guard to drop the ball to avoid getting his shot blocked.
The ball bounced once, twice, three times outside the 3-point arc with Sharp at risk of being called for traveling if he picked it up and no other player on either team anywhere near it. Finally, Florida’s Alex Condon dove at the ball and snatched it off the ground as the final buzzer sounded, signifying that the Gators had won, 65-63.
“We work on it in practice, closing out, jumping to the side so you don’t foul the shooter,” Clayton said. Ever the master of understatement, Clayton added with a smile, “Ended up being a good play.”
While a giddy Clayton untucked his shirt and leaped into the arms of one of his teammates on the court after the game, Sharp knelt on the floor for several minutes, tears in his eyes, head buried in his hands. Several Houston teammates patted Sharp on the back and Clayton even interrupted his celebration to give Sharp a hug, but there was no consoling the redshirt junior after his turnover doomed the Cougars’ bid to win head coach Kelvin Sampson his first national title.
Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. has plenty reason to celebrate after the Gators’ win on Monday in the national championship game.
(Jamie Schwaberow via Getty Images)
The goal of Houston’s final play, according to Sampson, was to “get Emanuel to shot fake and get downhill.”
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“Probably should have shot-faked that,” Sampson said. “Clayton made a great play. That’s why you shot fake and get in the paint. Two is fine there.”
Houston’s inability to get off a shot on its final possession served as an anticlimactic ending to an otherwise compelling Final Four. All four No. 1 seeds advancing to San Antonio produced three games decided by a combined 11 points, tied for the third-smallest margin in Final Four history.
TV viewers bemoaned Houston’s final possession as “the most anticlimactic way to end a national championship game ever.” They complained about the lack of big moment or big shot with Houston turning the ball over on its last four possessions and neither team making a shot from the field with 2:29 to go.
Florida won’t see it that way. To the Gators, it was beautiful.
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“Down the stretch, we made some big-time winning plays defensively,” Florida coach Todd Golden said. “That last play was just an absolutely amazing play. Walter recovered, closed out and, as he said, flew by his right side to not allow himself to foul. Just an incredible moment and something I won’t ever forget.”
Houston once again has failed to shed the unwanted label of men’s college basketball’s greatest program never to win a national title. The Cougars have now made seven Final Fours and three title games without experiencing the joy of cutting down nets.
In the late 1960s, Elvin Hayes led Houston to back-to-back Final Fours, only to twice get swatted aside by Lew Alcindor and the UCLA dynasty. Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler and the Phi Slama Jama teams made three straight Final Fours in the early 1980s, the most bitter loss coming against NC State in one of the NCAA tournament’s most stunning upsets.
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This time the heartbreak came at the hands of a Florida program that entered rarified air on Monday night. The Gators became just the ninth men’s college basketball program to capture three national titles. Only the bluest of blue bloods — UCLA (11), Kentucky (8), UConn (6), North Carolina (6), Duke (5), Indiana (5) and Kansas (4) — have more.
That Florida rallied from a 12-point deficit early in the second half was a fitting way for the Gators to finish this memorable run. They trailed by six or more points in the second half in four of their six NCAA tournament victories. They fell behind by nine points against Auburn early in the second half of Saturday’s Final Four matchup and by as many as 10 points against Texas Tech in the Elite Eight.
The Florida Gators celebrated the program’s third national championship win after beating Houston in the title game on Monday in San Antonio.
(Brett Wilhelm via Getty Images)
“We didn’t point fingers, didn’t start to make hero plays, gambling defensively,” Golden said.
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Added guard Alijah Martin, “We never blinked. Now we’re national champs.”
The most impressive part of Saturday’s victory was that the Gators found a way to win without Clayton scoring a point for the first 25-plus minutes. The tough-shot specialist who had piled up 123 points in his first five NCAA tournament games could not get even a sliver of air space against Houston’s aggressive, trapping defense.
Will Richard helped keep Florida in striking distance with 18 points and four massive 3-pointers. Clayton became a facilitator in the first half, dishing out seven assists. He then lived up to his reputation as college basketball’s best closer, delivering 11 points over the final 15 minutes before making a game-clinching closeout that won’t soon be forgotten in Gainesville.
“Walter’s defense in the second half was great,” Golden said. “They just found a way to win the ballgame.”
