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Walter Clayton found way to deliver Florida a national title even when his scoring was off
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- Walter Clayton found way to deliver Florida a national title even when his scoring was off
SAN ANTONIO — Houston ran with him step for step, chasing him around the perimeter, dogging him down the baseline and making every offensive possession an exercise in futility for Walter Clayton Jr., Florida's leading scorer and the driving force behind the Gators playing in Monday night's national championship game.
After entering NCAA Tournament history as the first player since Larry Bird in 1979 to score at least 30 points in the Elite Eight and national semifinals, the senior guard went into halftime against the Cougars with a goose egg: zero points on zero makes in four tries from 3-point range, along with two turnovers.
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"Of course, a big part of our defense was Clayton, because he's elite. He really is," said Houston coach Kelvin Sampson. "Our goal was to not give him a full-court layup. He gets that a lot, watching the SEC games. So we took that away."
For 30 minutes, the pregame prediction proved correct. Houston was, as expected, the more physical team, capable of slowing down Florida's high-pace style and allowing the Cougars to play the national championship game on their terms.
Clayton was the face of the Gators' struggles to acclimate to this ferociously physical approach. Nothing came easy for him or the offense. If this edge held, Houston would celebrate the program's first championship at Florida's expense.
Ahead 31-28 at the break, Houston would push the lead to 42-30 less than four minutes later to leave Florida in obvious danger. The Cougars wanted to take Clayton out of the game, and were doing just that to set themselves up for the first crown in program history.
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"For the first five or six minutes, the first eight minutes of the second half, they still made life really hard on Walter," said Florida coach Todd Golden.
Florida guard Walter Clayton Jr. (1) shoots the ball against Houston during the 2025 NCAA men's tournament national championship game at the Alamodome in San Antonio.
But the senior saved his very best for last, delivering 11 points in the second half and changing the game defensively to lead Florida to the 65-63 win . For this second-half reappearance, Clayton was named the tournament's most outstanding player.
After missing all four of his attempts in the first half, Clayton went 3 of 6 from the field after the break, was perfect on his four free-throw attempts and added three rebounds, two assists, a block and a steal.
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"We all can go," Clayton said. "I understand that if it ain't my night, somebody going to pick me up. We understand we all just picking each other up throughout the year, man."
UPS AND DOWNS: Clayton leads winners and losers of NCAA men's tournament
While he struggled to score after averaging 24.6 points in the Gators' first five tournament games, Clayton made an impact as a distributor, dishing out a game-high seven assists and besting Houston's total of five assists as a team.
His ability to dribble through the Cougars' aggressive perimeter defense helped loosen things up for senior guard Will Richard, who scored a team-high 18 points and went 4 of 7 from deep. Freshman forward Alex Condon had 12 points and 7 rebounds with a game-high four steals.
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"Walter had seven assists," Richard said. "Even when they were guarding him so hard, I feel like he still made plays to help the team win. Just a good job by the team staying aggressive throughout that."
To beat Houston, the Gators had to play like Houston. That meant belly-to-belly defense, tenaciously bruising play in the paint and turning each possession on both ends into a referendum on which team was tougher, or at a minimum more willing to do the dirty work that has made the Cougars one of the nation's most consistently successful programs.
Clayton was up to the challenge. After being held in check by Houston guard Emanuel Sharp in the first half, he returned the favor in the game's deciding moment: With the Gators up by two on the Cougars' final possession, Clayton forced Sharp into an awkward sequence that resulted in the ball rolling toward midcourt, and Condon scrambled to recover and seal the win.
"Honestly, my mind was just a little blank," said Clayton.
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Going into the possession, Florida thought the ball would go to guard L.J. Cryer or forward J'wan Roberts, Clayton said. But he saw that Sharp "kind of creeped down to the baseline," working toward a screen. After Sharp slipped the screen, Clayton closed out as he rose up to fire. That aggressive close forced Sharp into a leaving his feet with nowhere to go, causing him to bounce the ball to the ground, unable to regain his handle without a double-dribble call.
"I think it was a great defensive play by Walter," Condon said. "I was questioning whether I should go out and leave my man. It was going to be a travel if he picked it up. Just diving on it, hearing the buzzer go was a crazy feeling. Didn't feel real, for sure."
Sharp committed another crucial turnover with 26 seconds to play, losing control of his dribble as the ball went out of bounds on the Florida baseline. Clayton helped limit Sharp to just 8 points on 3 of 11 shooting, 1 of 7 from long range. Overall, the Cougars turned the ball over on their last three possessions in the final minute.
There was nothing flashy about Clayton's game, especially when compared to his scoring explosion in the past two games. He had 30 points in the Elite Eight against Texas Tech, lifted by 12 of 13 makes from the line, and then scored 34 points on 11 of 18 shooting against Auburn in the Final Four. The 34 points set a program Final Four record.
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But with the game on the line, his impact remained unmatched. His teammates helped carry the load to that point, keeping the Gators within striking distance as the senior struggled. What unfolded late has been this team's this story all season: Clayton carried Florida across the finish line.
"We've been doing that all the year," he said. "Tonight was nothing different. The way we won tonight, it's just an exclamation mark on the year. It's great to win like that, knowing the fact that we're a brotherhood together, and we've been picking each other up all year."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Walter Clayton led Florida to national title when scoring was off
