SAN ANTONIO — As the buzzer rang throughout the corners of the Alamodome, Walter Clayton Jr. wandered into the back of the frame. In his line of sight were his teammates launching into the air in jubilation, ceremonially hugging one another amid a range of joyous motions, and the night in San Antonio seemed like it wouldn’t die. But for Clayton Jr., it was already over.
The senior guard awaited the line of celebratory players in the arena’s southeast corner, briefly exchanging the same message with each of them: “One more.”
That was one of the many snapshots that present Saturday night. The evening opened with a heavy-weight fight between the prepotent SEC’s two greatest giants, a fitting way to open the strongest Final Four field ever, and no player delivered more than Clayton Jr. His career-high 34 points, becoming only the 15th player in the modern era to score 30 in the Final Four, willed Florida past Auburn 79-73 to its first national championship since 2007, where it’ll face Houston. And “willed” might be too reserved.
“The togetherness of our team, the love we all got for each other, allows us not to break apart during adversity,” Clayton Jr. said. “We just stay together in those moments.”
The next frame comes moments earlier, with a minute and a half left in the second half. Clayton Jr. is on the ground, collapsed among the many photographers eagerly snapping photos of the weathered star.
The ball had gone in, and with a shove from Auburn senior guard Denver Jones, Clayton Jr. had to get up and head to the line. That made it a six-point game in the closing moments — Florida’s largest lead of the day — and yet he didn’t look amused. Maybe it wasn’t a hard enough shot? Six of his 11 makes on Saturday were layups, as the vaunted Auburn frontcourt, led by senior All-American forward Johni Broome, had no response when Clayton Jr. drove.
That was especially pertinent when Florida looked aimless and half-awake throughout the first half. The Gators couldn’t hold onto the ball, turning it over five times, but overarchingly looked sluggish. Their four second-chance points were most notable, which were abnormal considering Florida’s otherworldly 38.8 rebounding percentage. Amid the sluggish start, Clayton Jr. continuously served as a team defibrillator, scoring 10 of his UF’s first 21 points — the vast majority of which coming in the paint.
“He's incredible,” Florida sophomore forward Thomas Haugh said, taking a brief moment to define his thoughts. “We trust him in those situations. He knocks down big shots day after day.”
But it was his 20 second-half points that made the difference.
In this image, Clayton Jr. is in the air, rising gracefully, cementing himself in NCAA Tournament legend. That’s another stop-motion from Saturday night, and it came in the early moments of the second half. Florida trailed 46-38 at halftime, but with one of its patented scoring bursts — the ones that have guided Florida through an NCAA Tournament of comebacks — it surged back. That’s when Clayton Jr. hovers above the Alamodome court, “poised, calm and collected,” in fellow senior guard Will Richard’s words. The ball, as it seems to always do in the biggest moments, traveled on a string from his hand through the basket, and now Florida was within three.
That, as they say, isn’t normal. It also isn’t shocking.
Only a week earlier, it was Clayton Jr. who propelled Florida to the Final Four, knocking down a string of arduous shots to complete a 10-point Elite Eight comeback. It was hard to imagine the senior eclipsing that moment. Alas, who else’s last couple weeks have featured All-American celebrations, player of the year nominations and a 24.6 points per game clip in the NCAA Tournament?
So his performance on Saturday night shouldn’t come as a shock. It surely, however, deserves its flowers. Becoming the first player since Larry Bird (1979) to score 30 points in the Elite Eight and Final Four isn’t a small feat. Beating the top overall seed from the best college basketball conference — for a second time — isn’t either.
“Walter… stepped up late making big-time shots,” Golden said, staring into the crowd of hundreds of journalists after the game. “Which allowed us to pull out this victory.”
Saturday night checked a box for Florida. It had been shaky throughout the tournament, stumbling past UConn and Texas Tech, while Auburn largely hadn’t struggled. It also won the SEC Tournament without taking on the conference’s other goliath, the Tigers. But as the buzzer sounded in San Antonio, all those doubts dissipated. It was a championship, in some ways, solidifying itself as the cream of the SEC, which sent a record 14 teams to the tournament. In doing so, it inadvertently became the poster boy for an evolving college basketball world in which the SEC is establishing its dominance.
But now Florida has moved on to the real thing on the grandest stage.
That, in itself, is an accomplishment no one would have imagined entering this season, as Florida began the year outside the top 25 in KenPom — the widely respected and utilized college basketball metric site. It surely wasn’t expected when Golden arrived in Gainesville three years ago.
While it boasts a pair of national championships and arguably the greatest modern stretch of college basketball, Florida had advanced to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament just once in its last nine postseason berths. Without Billy Donovan and his four Final Fours, Golden and Florida’s victory on Saturday would be a program-defining moment. And it should be celebrated as such.
“[It’s] a great accomplishment for our program to make it here to the Final Four,” Golden said. “I'm incredibly proud of these guys for getting this win. We're alive, man. We're playing for this national championship on Monday night.”
Golden rebuilt Florida using the numbers, making each and every roster and in-game decision with a glance down at his clipboard. Or maybe, more precisely, a portfolio of spreadsheets. But his well-documented analytical beast will take on another of the same cut.
Houston and Florida used all 40 minutes to dance past Duke and Auburn, needing eight-plus-point comebacks to get the job done. That, to some extent, was to be expected. There hadn’t been a Final Four made up entirely of top seeds since 2008, and this one was even a rung above that. All four semifinalists finished the year with a KenPom adjusted efficiency margin above 35. Before this season, only four teams had eclipsed that number since 2002.
The Cougars are a methodical, slow-paced unit that relies on their defense to suffocate opponents (first in KenPom adjusted defensive efficiency). As national championship fate would have it, Florida is nearly the exact opposite. Just as Clayton Jr. so dutifully presented on the national stage on Saturday night, the Gators aim to drown teams offensively, especially from behind the arc.
That contrast will make for a battle of pace of play, but taking things slower might not be an issue for Florida — at least not for Clayton Jr.
As the Final Four court cleared rapidly to make way for the second semifinal, the senior walked into the tunnel, looking down. With hands reaching from the stands, looking to get a momentary brush of the budding NCAA star, he was unfazed, murmuring his same statement from before: “One more.”
This isn’t the finish line. There’s still another.
“I guess you could say I haven’t really had time to reflect on what I’ve been doing,” he said. “I’ve just been focused on us winning games with these guys.”
Contact Noah White at nwhite@alligator.org. Follow him on X @noahwhite1782.
Noah is a Spring 2025 Assistant Sports Editor and Copy Desk Chief. He's a second-year journalism major who enjoys reading and shamefully rooting for Tennessee sports teams. He is also a Liberty League Women's Soccer expert.
