SAN ANTONIO — 134, 18 and one. Those are the numbers that sent Florida to the Final Four.
With three minutes and a 10-point comeback, the trajectory of a national contender drastically changed. But only 20 minutes earlier, it wasn’t even a thought. Dead in the water of San Francisco Bay, the Chase Center watched in a hush as Florida’s season neared an abrupt, unfulfilling end.
That’s where the numbers come in — and there are many more — presenting the final moments of Saturday night’s 84-79 win against Texas Tech that justified years of team building and months of training. The moments that pushed Florida one step closer to its ultimate goal: a national championship.
Here are the final moments of Florida’s Elite Eight victory.
134 seconds
With just over three minutes — 134 seconds, to be exact — left on the clock, Texas Tech sophomore forward JT Toppin scored a well-contested layup.
“Smack.”
Everyone in the first seven rows of the Warriors’ arena heard it. Todd Golden’s hand definitely felt it, making swift contact with the padding of the scorer’s table. But it had been that type of evening. At least for the last 16 minutes or so.
“[I wasn’t] confident in those moments,” Golden says, joking with Friday’s media scrum at the Final Four. “I'm talking to them at the under four [timeout], ‘We got to play pretty dang perfect down the stretch if we want to find a way to win this game.’”
Despite leading 40-37 at halftime, Florida now found itself trailing 75-66. While their defense surely wasn’t helping, the Gators couldn’t make a shot, knocking down four of their first 16 3-point attempts. Similarly, Walter Clayton Jr., a senior AP All-American guard and Florida’s typical offensive savior, had strayed from his tournament-starring 19.7 points per game, opening the game 1 of 6 from 3.
Golden’s right hand suffered the punishment, and with another aimless chuck from Clayton Jr., the 39-year-old coach turned in preparation to torture the limb again. That’s when Thomas Haugh, a sophomore forward, caught the ball.
In what was an otherwise uninspiring offensive evening, Haugh had been a bright spot with 14 points entering the final minutes.
“He's becoming an elite 3-point shooter, elite free-throw shooter,” his coach said after the game. “He just finds ways to impact the game and to help the team win the most.”
He had been strong throughout the tournament, averaging 11 points per game, but after he grabbed the offensive rebound, taking only a brief dribble before firing, he jolted himself into March Madness stardom. Or maybe his next shot would.
Golden called a timeout to provide his team with a clear message: “Don’t hesitate. Take this.” Texas Tech missed the front end of a one-and-one coming out of the break, and seconds later, Haugh hit another nearly identical 3-pointer to pull the Gators within three.
As Florida fouled Toppin again, the UF sophomore walked towards Golden with the pair smirking at one another despite the late deficit. Each had been told they shouldn’t be there: one as a youthful coach at an Ivy League school, the other as an ignored rural Pennsylvania recruit. They had already proved that wrong, but with each shot, they were only cementing their worth, along with the value of a modern system, in the evolving world of college basketball.
One deviation
Clayton Jr. joined Golden and Haugh in a brief huddle. It was a sight seen many times before — coaches desperately trying to pass something along to their players without the strain of burning a timeout. But Golden and his staff have been intentional with their communication, basing their in-game decisions on constantly adjusting analytics.
That approach dates back over a decade to when Golden took his first collegiate job as an assistant at Columbia in 2012. Under the guidance of now-Stanford coach Kyle Smith, Golden became acquainted with what Smith referred to as a “moneyball” approach to basketball. From there, Golden made stops in Auburn, San Francisco and, now, Florida, preaching the gospel of a numbers-based basketball strategy. The system always worked, but backed by the resources that come with being the head coach of a Power Five program, it’s bearing noticeable fruit.
“There’s stuff that we were doing that I think a lot of programs are doing now, that we were just on the forefront of,” Florida assistant coach Kevin Hovde told The Athletic. “We were tracking a bunch of different things within a possession.”
Only days after learning he was a finalist for Naismith Player of the Year, Clayton Jr. hadn't lived up to expectations on Saturday. Golden didn’t seem to care. In the abbreviated scrum, his directions were clear. Clayton Jr. needed to “take over,” and his next shot, by the percentages, gave Florida a better chance of winning.
The following moments have been thoroughly reported, eliciting collective roars from Gainesville to the Pacific Ocean. Clayton Jr. danced down the court, hitting a 3 that drew things even with Texas Tech, and moments later, after the Red Raiders took the lead again, returned to the east basket of the Chase Center.
That’s when, for the singular, sole instance, Golden deviated.
Clayton Jr. has been a 38.5 percent 3-point shooter this season, and on a night where he had only hit twice from deep, those percentages didn’t favor Florida. Golden knew that. Each of his assistants did as well, so much so that one of them motioned to the lead Gator as the senior dribbled back down the court. Golden swatted the plea away and watched.
Moments later, the crowd roared and Florida’s bench remained silent, justified and seemingly unsurprised.
“He's an incredible player,” Golden gushes after the game. “There's not another player in America you would rather have right now than Walter Clayton with the ball in his hands in a big-time moment.”
18 points
With an 18-point burst over the final three minutes, a statistically designed Florida squad rose, soundly placing itself back where it belonged atop the pillars of the college basketball world.
Maybe you should have known, though, that was the way the story would continue. Golden didn’t look concerned about his final decision, despite the analytics doubting him. And with the closing moments, his team knew it was designed to win, especially under such difficult circumstances.
With the flood of media availability fully underway on Friday, Golden took questions atop the dais of the press conference room under the Alamodome. It had to be the largest body of reporters he’d ever been interrogated by, but it was a student who inquired about his team’s will to win. How does Florida manage to escape death so consistently, arising victorious in four games this season that it trailed in by double-digits?
He took a minute to think, waiting so long that Will Richard jumped in.
“As long as there is time on the clock, we can give ourselves a chance to win,” the senior guard said. “That is what makes this team special, how hard we're going to fight.”
That tenacity, maybe more than the numbers, the stars or the unheralded recruits, helped to heave Florida through its strongest season since 2014. In San Antonio, the Gators have the opportunity to extend their record-breaking campaign against top-seeded Auburn on Saturday, but there’s more to it than just that.
Florida is amid its sixth Final Four, and considering its first NCAA Tournament berth came in 1987, wins this weekend could solidify it on the perennial top rung of the sport. It would be the program’s third national championship, which would tie it for the second most since 2005, and Golden’s sixth NCAA Tournament victory. That number, among the thousands of others he looks at and cites, remains pertinent.
Prior to this season, the youthful coach hadn’t won a tournament game, but backed by a decade of analytical sermons, three years of tabbing through overlooked recruits and a couple humanized miracles, things changed. In doing so, Florida is the closest it's been to a national championship in years.
So Saturday is just the next step.
“Our guys are not going to be satisfied going home Saturday night,” Golden says, confidently leaning forward. “The collective unity of this group as the main reason as to why we deserve to, and we'll do what we need on Saturday night to stay here.”
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.
