Florida entered the NCAA Tournament as one of the favorites to win, but the path it took to win was historically improbable.
With 15:48 left in the national championship game, Houston forward Ja’Vier Francis grabbed an offensive rebound and called timeout with the Cougars holding a 42-30 lead. Kelvin Sampson’s squad had just ripped off eight consecutive points and was in complete control.
The Alamodome sensed that Houston was on the verge of blowing the game open.
The players and coaches in the Florida huddle, however, may have been the only ones that didn’t feel that way.
“We did what we did all year; we stayed the course,” Todd Golden said in a postgame interview with CBS. “We had the best backcourt in America. I think we had the best frontcourt in America. And, like we’ve done all year, we made plays when we needed them most.”
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Florida’s 12-point comeback in the second half was among the largest in national championship game history — a fitting conclusion for a team that adopted these stunning comebacks as routine.
The Gators spent most of their second round matchup trailing UConn and faced a six-point deficit in the closing minutes. They trailed Texas Tech by 10 with just a few minutes left in the Elite Eight and were down as many as nine to Auburn in the Final Four.
Yet here Florida sits as champion, Teflon to any deficit it faced. It is the only team in the last 20 years to come back from nine points or more in each of the Elite Eight, Final Four and National Championship rounds. It had a win probability below 15% in each of those games, too.
Senior-laden perimeter led the way
Final Four Most Outstanding Player Walter Clayton Jr. was the focal point of most of that winning, hitting so many big shots that he was drawing comparisons to Kemba Walker. But Will Richard and Alijah Martin both had their moments throughout the tournament. The contributions of that collective trio were vital.
“Our perimeter, our senior leaders have been amazing all year,” Golden told CBS. “They’ve kept us poised. They’ve kept us centered [and] grounded. We’ve had to come back quite a bit in this tournament, but these guys have been elite with their composure, and our young guys in the frontcourt fight like hell for these seniors every day.
“They compete and find a way to win. They are winners.”
Florida was the second-most popular pick to win the national championship, so the fact this is where the Gators ended up isn’t a complete surprise. But the path they took to get to this point was as improbable as it gets.
Houston truly served as the final boss of Florida’s comeback missions. Prior to Monday night, the Cougars had only lost three times under Kelvin Sampson when they had a 12-point second-half lead. Monday’s title game was the fourth.
“I feel like it just goes back to how connected we are as a team,” Richard said. “We all don’t have any quit … as long as there’s time on the clock, if we take it possession by possession. I just like our resiliency and how we fight through adversity throughout the game.”
Florida stands as the best of the best
Whoever left San Antonio with the trophy was going to go down as one of the greatest teams of all time. All four No. 1 seeds had efficiency margins that ranked among the top 10 in the analytics era.
Florida will certainly be talked about as one of the greats any way you slice it.
In a year when the SEC put forth arguably the best season of any conference in the sport’s history, the Gators looked like the league’s best team during the regular season’s final two months. That culminated with an SEC Tournament championship and a win over regular-season champ Auburn on Saturday night.
In the NCAA Tournament, the Gators knocked off the back-to-back champion UConn — and then beat four straight KenPom top 10 teams, the first champion to ever do so.
Analytically, Florida rates among the best ever. Meanwhile, Clayton will be remembered forever as a March Madness hero.
But the resolve this group showed time and time again when facing elimination will be its lasting legacy. That’s what turns teams from champions into legends.
A documentary was made about the 1983 NC State championship team (which, coincidentally, also beat Houston in the title game) because of the comebacks during its run. More recently, 2019 Virginia trailed in the second half in five of its six NCAA Tournament games and needed numerous miraculous plays to advance.
It’s incredibly rare for a team to survive so many close calls, but the Gators did just that. Perhaps it was fitting that 50 Cent’s Many Men was blasting in Florida’s locker room as it celebrated.
“It goes back to what we did all season,” Martin explained. “Every down-the-stretch moment that we’ve been through this year just prepared us for this moment.
“We showed up, man. We never blinked. We’re national champs.”