SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Florida came in sixth in the rugged Southeastern Conference and pushed it all the way through the last Monday night of the season.
Now, the Gators face the Houston team and push them away with choking defenses.
Big 12 champions Houston and Florida meet at the Alamodome National Championship Game, closing only the second NCAA tournament, where the first seed all reached the Final Four.
Still, the matchups in this title game are a huge surprise, with two teams that have not been there for a long time. The BetMgm Sportsbook listed Florida as a 1 1/2 point favorite.
The Cougars (35-4) won the semi-final match on Saturday night, overcoming a 14-point deficit in the final eight minutes, and were shocked by 70-67 for the Duke and freshman sensation cooper flag.
It had to come back from eight points after halftime in a 79-73 victory over SEC rival Auburn after Florida (35-4) after AP All-America Guard Walter Clayton Jr. scored 34 points.
With 18 consecutive wins, Houston has been in his first national championship game since his consecutive appearances in 1983 and 1984 during his Faithramajama days.
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This is Florida’s first since winning a back-to-back title under Bilednovan in 2006 and 2007. The Gators, along with coach Todd Golden, have won 11 consecutive games since losing to Georgia at the end of February.
“It’s very incredible,” Golden said. “We were lucky to have built a great staff three years later. It works very hard for each other. Then we accumulated a great group on our roster. It took us a bit of time to put all these pieces together.
The Cougars have won 30 of their last 31 games since they took two overtime in three days in the tournament in Las Vegas at the end of November. It was 82-81 on OT on February 1st, the only loss at Texas Tech of the elite eight teams. Another loss of their season: to 74-69 Auburn in the second game.
Coach Kelvin Sampson and Houston also won the Final Four four years ago, losing to final champion Baylor in the national semi-finals of the NCAA Tournament in the Indianapolis bubble due to the Covid-19 pandemic. LJ Cryer, now a major Houston scorer, was a freshman for the Bears on that title team.
Now, the Cougars will play in the Championship after talking a lot about the other teams that have arrived in San Antonio and then become the first Texas team to hold the final four at Lone Star State.
“I’ve been trying to leave social media and stuff like that over the past year. I’ve never really seen anything like that,” Kryer said. “I’m just trying to listen to Coach Sampson and he believed we were the best team in the tournament, so that’s the only person I’ve heard.”
Florida enrolled in Saturday’s semi-finals, ranked second for Kenpom’s adjusted offensive efficiency, scoring 129.1 points per 100 possessions, with Clayton playing his second 30-point game in a row. He is a scorer with 123 points (24.6 per game) in this NCAA tournament, and has created 18 (.563) of 32 shots (.563) on eight of 16 3-pointers in the last two games.
Houston was first ranked with defensive efficiency adjusted at 87.4 points per 100 possessions, and was one of four schools (all teams) ranked in Kenpom.com’s top 10 in both offensive and defensive. The Cougars ranked 10th offensively with 123.9 points.
