SAN ANTONIO – There stood Todd Golden, looking even younger than his 39 years and nine months. He was standing outside Florida’s locker room, reveling in the NCAA championship his team had just claimed by virtue of a 65-63 comeback win over Houston.
Golden’s gray slacks didn’t quite grasp his skinny legs. His black T-shirt hung loosely over his narrow shoulders. Even his gray-and-white Air Jordan sneakers looked too big for his feet. He had a backward hat on his head, a net around his neck, and a water bottle and protein bar in his left hand. As each player, coach and staffer bounded jubilantly down the hallway, Golden slapped each guy’s hand, embraced him and beamed joyfully while they headed for the locker room.
As sophomore center Rueben Chinyelu approached, he said to Golden, “Your high school coach is outside.”
“What’s that?” Golden asked.
“Your high school coach. He’s outside.”
Golden slapped Chinyelu’s hand and hugged him as well. When Chinyelu headed to the locker room, Golden asked no one in particular, “Can someone get my high school coach?”
That last detail taken care of, Golden was ready to join his team inside the locker room. Even though the thick doors were closed behind him, the sounds of the jubilant Gators could be heard in the hallway loud and clear.
It was fitting that Golden waited until the last possible moment to make his grand entrance. His team also waited a long time — almost too long, actually — to wrest this championship from the strong hands of the mighty Houston Cougars. But once again, just as it has done so many times this season and especially during the NCAA Tournament, Florida arrived in the nick of time. When it was over, the Gators officially were the last team standing, champions of the NCAA Tournament for the third time in school history.
The riveting affair was an apt conclusion to one of the most compelling Final Fours in recent memory. Over the previous two weeks, there had been much consternation over the lack of Cinderellas in March Madness. Those darling little party crashers and bracket busters were sorely missed, but the end result made their absence worthwhile. The first quartet of No. 1 seeds to gather at the Final Four since 2008 staged three epic games in which the team that trailed at halftime won. The combined margin of victory of 11 points tied for the second-smallest at the Final Four over the past 50 years. And it was a cruel irony that Houston, which pulled off a stunning upset Saturday night from 14 points down to defeat Duke, was victimized by the flipped script.
Florida’s victory also culminated one of the most difficult treks to a championship in NCAA Tournament history. The Gators’ opponents’ seed total of 33 was tied with North Carolina in 1994 for the toughest a No. 1 seed has traversed to a title. That path required four comebacks. In the second round, the Gators trailed No. 8 UConn by six points with nine minutes to play and came back to win 77-75. In the Elite Eight, they trailed No. 3 Texas Tech by 10 points with 5:25 to play and rallied to win 84-79. And in Saturday night’s semifinal against Auburn, Florida trailed by nine points with 18 minutes remaining and came back to win 79-73.
Monday night, Florida was down by 12 points with 15:26 left, which tied for the third-biggest deficit overcome in championship game history. The Gators were the first champ in the past 20 years to erase a deficit of at least nine points. While the game featured 12 ties and three lead changes, Florida led for a total of 1:04. Its largest lead was the final two-point margin. “It just goes back to how connected we are as a team,” 6-foot-4 senior guard Will Richard said. “I feel like we don’t have any quit.”
The win established Golden as a bona fide rising star in the coaching profession, and the youngest coach to win an NCAA championship since NC State’s Jim Valvano did it in 1983 (against Houston) at the age of 36. “I’m super proud, obviously, but I’m just a piece of this puzzle,” Golden said. “I’ve been able to put together an incredible staff and recruit great student-athletes over these last three years. We’ve stayed the course all year and worked really hard. My best answer is I’m just really proud.”
For all the talk about Houston’s vaunted defense, which was ranked No. 1 on KenPom in adjusted efficiency, it was the Gators’ “D” that turned the tide. Coming into the night, Houston led the nation in three-point shooting at 39.9 percent, but it was 6-of-25 against Florida. Houston is normally one of the most mistake-free teams in the country (No. 19 in turnover percentage, per KenPom), but Florida forced the Cougars into four turnovers in the last 1:20. That, too, was a reversal of the first half, during which the Gators coughed it up nine times and the Cougars just twice.
It was an especially bad night for Houston 6-foot-3 junior guard Emanuel Sharp, whose late three-pointer helped seal Saturday’s win over Duke. Sharp was 1-of-7 from three, scored just eight points and committed turnovers on Houston’s final two possessions. The first came with 26.5 seconds to play and Houston trailing 64-63. As Sharp drove from the right wing, Richard reached over and swiped the ball. It bounced off Sharp’s knee and went out of bounds.
Houston had one more chance to win after Florida junior guard Denzel Aberdeen made a free throw to give the Gators a two-point lead. Houston coach Kelvin Sampson called time to draw up a final play, which called for Sharp to settle on the baseline and break toward the ball via a pindown screen from 6-foot-8 senior forward J’Wan Roberts. But Florida guard Walter Clayton Jr. managed to work around the screen and lunged at Sharp as he rose to attempt a three-point shot. Sharp pulled the ball back in, but he already had left the floor, so he had no choice but to drop the ball to avoid a travel. Florida sophomore forward Alex Condon dove on the floor and secured the ball as the horn sounded. As the Gators celebrated and Sampson looked on from the sideline in disbelief, Sharp crouched to the floor and buried his face in his hands. Clayton came over and briefly tried to console him.
It was a bizarre way for the season to end, and it left the Cougars shaking their heads long after the game was over. “Probably should have shot-faked that,” Sampson said. “Incomprehensible in that situation we couldn’t get a shot. Couldn’t get a shot. We’re down two and obviously we didn’t need a three… We had a good plan. We just didn’t score it well enough to win. Scored it well enough to be in a position to win, but at the end you’ve got to get a shot.”
Clayton was named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player despite turning in his worst offensive performance of the tournament, although much of the credit for that goes to Sampson’s game plan and Houston’s swarming, trapping defenders. Clayton finished with 11 points on 3-of-10 shooting (1-of-7 from three). He did have five rebounds and seven assists, but he was scoreless at halftime and didn’t make his first field goal until there was 10:22 left to play. Yet Florida only trailed by three points at intermission thanks to 14 points from Richard. Clayton finally came alive over the last 10 minutes, but he needed a lot of help from his friends.
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The Cougars were riding high in the second half. At the end, though, there was heartbreak.
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“We’ve been saying all year our motto is, ‘We all can go,’ ” Clayton said. “We’ve got a team full of guys that can go. It’s not just about me… The way we won tonight, it’s just an exclamation mark on the year. It’s great to win like that.”
The tenor of the game changed at the start of the second half. The teams had combined to commit just four fouls and attempt four free throws in the first half, but either the play got more physical, or referees Ron Groover, Doug Sirmons and Terry Oglesby decided to clamp down on all the clutching and banging they had allowed to that point. Either way, the action ground to a halt as 14 fouls were called in the first eight minutes of the second half. At one point, the refs whistled Houston for three fouls in nine seconds. The Gators also were assessed two technicals, one on the assistants for coming onto the raised floor and another on Chinyelu for slamming the ball after he committed a foul.
Once the players adjusted to the tighter whistles, the game enjoyed better flow. The looser action seemed to benefit Florida as the Gators clawed to within 45-42 on a Thomas Haugh and-one with 12:06 to play. The lead again was three at the 8:31 mark and wasn’t any bigger the rest of the way. The remainder of the game saw six ties until Florida finally got a one-point lead for good with 46 seconds left.
For Sampson, 69, the late collapse was a bitter end to a triumphant season. The Cougars went 35-5 and won the Big 12 regular-season and tournament titles. This was the third time Sampson has coached in the Final Four but the first time he made it to Monday night. For most of the game, it looked like he would secure that long-elusive first championship, but it was not meant to be.
“I wanted to win it so bad for him,” a despondent Roberts said. “So, so, so bad. And it hurts. I can’t do it next year. I can’t put myself in position to do it next year. This will be my last time wearing my jersey and I feel terrible.”
“We thought this was a game that if we played well, we could win,” Sampson said. “And we did play well. We just didn’t play very good the last three minutes. That’s been a strength of ours all year long, winning close games. But tonight we didn’t. Give credit to Coach Golden and Florida. They’re a very worthy champion.”
Now the Gators can head back to Gainesville to celebrate a championship that was historic and hard-won.
“Obviously, we have an incredibly talented group,” Golden said. “I do think what separates us and has separated us all season long is our team talent, how our guys have played together and for each other all year.
“Because of that, we can call each other national champions for the rest of our lives.”
