SAN ANTONIO (AP) – The national title game between Florida and Houston has managed to return to the best clutch players of the NCAA Tournament and the best clutch players against the country’s best clutch defense.
Walter Clayton Jr. led the Gators to Monday night’s final against the long-armed Cougars defense that took all the teams they saw in this first title game in this run since 1984. It was the end of the “Phi Suramajama” era featuring Clyde Drekler and Hakem Olajuwon.
Houston (35-4) has never won a title.
The Gators (35-4) are their third championship win and their first win since their third championship since their consecutive consecutive years from 2006 to 2007. Clayton, a high school football star who chose basketball in college, scored 34 points in the semi-final against Auburn in Florida.
He averaged 24.6 points with five wins in the tournament. With these two wins, he scored 13 points each, helping Florida pull out a close game with UConn and Texas Tech.
The Cougars, which led the country in points and field goal ratios, held the country’s best player to one, to be five shots in the 1/2 minute of the final 10 and a half minutes of their victory at Duke on Saturday. The 3:02 Flagg’s 3-pointer remaining in the game was the only basket Houston was allowed on that stretch.
Gators Todd Golden, the first coach under the age of 39 since Jim Valvano in 1983, to become the first coach under the age of 40.
Sampson, 69, surpassed UConn’s Jim Calhoun as the oldest coach to win the Men’s Basketball Division I national title. He won his 798th career victory over Duke, but this is his first coaching for the championship.
Among his sparkling strokes at the end of the Duke game was the decision to let his defense do that, rather than fouling a foul with a cougar and a less than six minutes of cougar. Houston’s JoJo Touger blocked Con Knupel’s shot, and Houston made a 3-pointer on his next possession, earning six straight points to win.
“You’ve been in that situation many times, and it doesn’t always work,” Sampson said. “If JoJo goes out on a shot fake and attracts a foul, we’ll be nine years old. Suddenly, I’m the stupidest guy I’ve ever had.”
