Standing on the biggest stage in college basketball, Walter Clayton Jr. held both his past and his future. In one arm, the senior guard raised the national championship trophy, the reward of all his competition joys and struggles. In the other, his daughter, Leilani Clayton, his self-proclaimed “new why.”
Clayton Jr., woefully underrated before becoming Florida’s first-ever first-team All-American, lifted his team to postseason success. Since the start of March, he ended more than two-thirds of his games in that span with at least 20 points, scoring 30 against Texas Tech and 34 when he faced Auburn. It’s a far cry from his freshman season at Iona University, when Clayton — the NCAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player — started four games.
With Clayton leading the charge, Florida’s national championship roster was composed of seven transfers who transformed the team. Once skirting above .500 in 2022, Florida brought home a title for the first time since 2007. It’s also indicative of a dream the Gators believed in long before the rest of the NCAA did: a then-36-year-old coach and his nonconformist players.
The credit belongs to head coach Todd Golden arguably just as much as the players who showed out throughout the season. In 2022, more than 1,600 Division I basketball players entered the transfer portal. Out of the hundreds of options, Golden saw glimmers of talent and placed his bets. Three years later, it paid off.
Golden and the team greeted a rambunctious crowd wedged into Flavet Field and the surrounding streets the afternoon of April 8. Most of the players had celebrated throughout the night before and on the plane ride home. Exhausted, they walked across the stage to the delight of fans, some of whom had waited since 10 a.m.
"This is amazing, absolutely amazing," Golden said. "I know you guys have been out here for a while. You guys have been amazing all year. Your support has carried us to the highest level. I know myself, my staff and our players appreciate you more than you know.”
It’s been a long season for the team. Florida faced Title IX allegations and harassment accusations against its coaching staff. Even though the university cleared Golden of any Title IX violations, assistant coach Taureen Green’s investigation remains ongoing. Though serious, the news was overshadowed by Florida’s win, highlighted by the rambunctious championship celebrations on University Avenue.
The road has perhaps been the longest for senior guard Alijah Martin, who previously competed with in-state rival Florida Atlantic University. With the Owls, he averaged 15.2 points and 4.4 rebounds in the team’s 2022-2023 Final Four run. To cap off his collegiate career, Martin transferred to the Gators, helping form the Noah’s Ark equivalent of a basketball team: each position with two highly competitive and competent players.
Martin didn’t score much — only a meager seven points — against Houston, but his previous experience in the postseason helped Florida overcome two pressure-point obstacles on the road to the national championship: the Auburn and UConn games.
He retired the Huskies first with a second-chance dunk electrifying Florida’s bench with 41 seconds remaining on the clock. Against the Tigers, he put on a dunk fest, at times launching across nearly half the paint to slam the ball.
“Alijah — he could have gone anywhere… He's a winner, leader, competitor. Had Final Four experience,” Golden said earlier this season. “And when we were able to get him to jump in last spring, we're like, 'All right, we feel like we have a really, really tough, physical, mature backcourt that we can play with and see what happens.’”
While Martin took a backseat in the championship, senior guard Will Richard helped carry the team, especially as Clayton missed every shot he attempted in the first half. Richard ended his collegiate career cemented in UF history, shooting a perfect 4 for 4 at the free throw line while notching 18 points.
His time in Florida lasted longer than Martin’s or Clayton’s. He spent only one season elsewhere with Belmont in 2021-2022. His numbers there, though not poor, have only ticked up in Gainesville.
Florida fans, however, witnessed Richard step into a leadership role. During the final game of the season, the senior checked Rueben Chinyelu after the sophomore center spiked the ball against the court and received a technical foul.
“The kid is an incredible light bulb, an incredible human being,” Golden said in San Antonio. “We looked at his numbers at Belmont — incredibly efficient as a freshman, high-usage player, great rebounding rates, great steal rates, great block rates … We're like, ‘If we can get 13 Will Richards on this roster, we're going to make the Final Four.’”
Florida was unable to clone one of its star senior guards, but its coaching staff collected high school talent to fill the gaps remaining beyond the portal. On a team of transfers, players like junior guard Denzel Aberdeen looked almost out of place. But even for the ones who have stuck around in Florida their entire career, there’s still a story.
Take Thomas Haugh.
The sophomore forward seldom scored double digits at the beginning of the season, where his biggest game was a blowout against Southern Illinois University. In an instant — or, rather a mid-February South Carolina win — the Pennsylvania native established himself as a threat.
Come tournament time, he kept Gainesville’s hopes alive in the Elite Eight against Texas Tech. There, he hit back-to-back 3-pointers to jumpstart a 10-point comeback, sending the Gators to the Final Four.
With the pinnacle of collegiate basketball, the biggest challenge now for Florida will be replacing its superstar seniors. If its head coach’s history is indicative of anything, the transfer portal will be a large part of Golden’s plan to rejuvenate the now-defending national champions.
Contact Liana Handler at lhandler@alligator.org. Follow her on X @handlerliana
Liana is the Gators gymnastic beat reporter for the Alligator and a junior sports journalism major. In her free time, she likes to play dominos and listen to Celia Cruz.
