March Madness highlights: Florida storms back to beat Houston and win NCAA men’s championship (2025)

Here is this year’s “One Shining Moment,” bidding farewell to the NCAA tournament and the 2024-25 college basketball season.

With its 36th win of the season, Florida tied a program record set by a 2013-14 squad that lost in the national semifinals. Its four losses came while competing in a conference (SEC) that sent a record 14 teams to the tournament. At 39, Todd Golden became the ninth coach to win an NCAA tournament before his 40th birthday.

Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. won most outstanding player honors after overcoming offensive struggles against Houston to end up with 11 points. Clayton credited his teammates with keeping the Gators in the game until he could find a way to start putting the ball in the basket.

Florida’s comeback was spurred in part by Walter Clayton Jr., who was scoreless for much of the game but had nine points in the final eight minutes, and a ferocious defense that methodically tightened the screws on Houston’s offense. The Cougars continued to look for drives off ball screens but found increasingly little room to maneuver.

Florida eked out a 65-63 win over Houston to win the national championship at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

The Cougars had a chance for a tying or game-winning shot in the final seconds, but they couldn’t get off a field goal attempt and, as time ran out, the Gators began a jubilant celebration.

It’s the third national title for the Florida men, who went back-to-back in 2006 and 2007 under former coach Billy Donovan. In his third season with the Gators, Coach Todd Golden has brought them back to the mountaintop.

Houston was looking for the program’s first national title but came up agonizingly short.

After getting possession following a Houston turnover, Florida almost gave the ball back amid heavy pressure from the Cougars, but the Gators’ Denzel Aberdeen corralled a pass and was fouled. He made one of two free throw attempts for a 65-63 Florida lead with 19 seconds to go.

Florida has its first lead at 64-63 since an early 8-6 advantage following two made free throws by Alijah Martin. Florida then called a timeout with 46 seconds to play to discuss strategy.

The teams combined for four fouls in the first half. In the second, the referees have whistled them for 25.

Florida has had the lead for just 17 seconds in this game, but the Gators have overcome a 12-point deficit in the second half to forge numerous ties. Houston has a one-point lead with just two minutes to play.

Houston ended a streak of four straight possessions with a basket when L.J. Cryer stepped out of bounds with the ball. Nevertheless, the Cougars have a 60-57 lead with 3:24 to play. This game hasn’t always been pretty, but it has been intense and is set up for a potentially riveting finish.

Florida’s Rueben Chinyelu was whistled for a technical foul after slamming the ball off the floor following a whistle against him for a shooting foul while defending Houston’s J’Wan Roberts. The Cougars converted that sequence into three relatively easy points, but the Gators’ Walter Clayton Jr. tied the game again with a second straight three-point play.

Walter Clayton Jr. not only scored his first basket but was fouled on the play and can tie the game with a made free throw. Houston has missed all seven of its shot attempts since getting a 48-42 lead that is now down to 48-47 with under eight minutes to play.

Houston is shooting just 5 for 21 in the second half. The Cougars haven’t just gone ice cold; they’re not taking good shots. It’s affecting their ability to get set on defense. For the first time, Florida has been able to play its game the past five minutes.

Houston starting forward Joseph Tugler picked up his fourth foul and headed to the bench. Teammate Ja’Vier Francis also subbed out after receiving his fourth foul. No Florida player has more than two. The Cougars lead by three with eight minutes to go.

Houston’s comeback against Duke stands as the biggest rally of this tournament. But Florida has been comfortable rallying, too. In the second round, the Gators had to grind against Connecticut with some late theatrics from Walter Clayton Jr. They pulled off their own miracle against Texas Tech in the Elite Eight. They aren’t panicking tonight either.

Florida has gone on a 7-0 run to cut its deficit to 45-41 with just over 12 minutes left. After the second half began with a flurry of foul calls on the Gators, Houston has gotten whistled more of late, including three times in one nine-second stretch.

Walter Clayton Jr. is finally off the schneid with two free throws for his first points, although the Florida star is still in search of a made basket. Houston has a 10-point lead, 44-34, with just over 14 minutes to play.

After four minutes of the second half, Houston has expanded its lead to 42-30 with the help of seven points from top scorer L.J. Cryer. Florida’s leading scorer, Walter Clayton Jr., is still scoreless on 0-of-4 shooting. The Gators have committed three more turnovers in the half to increase their total to 12.

Early in the second half, a technical foul was called on Florida’s bench, where Coach Todd Golden and some of his assistants have taken verbal issue with the officiating. The Gators were called for five fouls in less than three minutes to start the half, including two in quick succession on Will Richard.

With Houston’s starters combining for 18 points on 8-of-26 shooting, including 1 of 11 from deep, the Cougars have gotten major help off the bench from Mylik Wilson and Ja’Vier Francis. They have provided 13 points on 6-of-10 shooting, while Florida’s bench has scored four points.

Ninety minutes before the championship game of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament Monday night, Claudia Wilken, the judge presiding over the potential settlement of three major antitrust cases that have hung over the college sports industry for years, told the sides to keep on working.

More precisely, she gave them a week to see whether they could massage a few parts of the settlement, indicating that could lead to her final approval. At the hearing in Oakland, California, Wilken aimed most of her concern at two elements: roster limits and future athletes being bound to an economic model they had no say in creating. She suggested grandfathering in athletes who could lose their spots because of the roster limits included in the settlement. And as for future athletes — she specifically referenced the 10-year-old playing kickball — Wilken asked the attorneys to tweak the language, including a more defined system for them to challenge new rules around compensation.

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We assume that low-scoring, slow-paced basketball is bad basketball. It often is. But this has been a well-played 31-28 halftime score. The defense. The athleticism. The effort. The chess match between the coaches trying to find advantageous matchups. It’s been fun to watch because it’s such a tension-filled grind.

Houston has a hard-earned lead of 31-28 at halftime, with seven Cougars scoring between two and seven points. Both they and Florida are shooting poorly from deep, combining to make six of 28 three-point attempts, and the Gators have seven more turnovers (9-2) but a slight rebounding edge (22-19).

Can Florida win without an offensive flurry from Walter Clayton Jr.? The Gators might have to, because Houston is sending two defenders at Clayton at all times and making his teammates try to win the game. Clayton has zero points at the half. Will Richard (14 points) has steadied the offense. Is it sustainable? A title hinges on the answer.

Florida’s Will Richard is keeping his team, which has gotten almost nothing from Walter Clayton Jr. and Alijah Martin, in the game with his 14 points on 5-of-7 shooting. Houston leads 31-28 with 30 seconds left in the first half.

Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. is the best guard in the country. And Clayton is totally out of sorts right now, partly because of the Houston defense and partly because he’s uncharacteristically forcing things.

Houston’s Mylik Wilson has had a couple of adventurous possessions, first catching a lob for an eye-opening slam and then banking in a three-pointer after a smooth shot fake. On the other end, Will Richard has made 3 of 4 from deep after struggling with his shot in the Gators’ two previous games.

Ja’Vier Francis has given Houston a big lift off the bench. Showing some impressive post moves and touch near the net, the 6-foot-8 senior forward has a team-high six points on 3-of-4 shooting.

Houston is shooting terribly, but because the Cougars are such a great rebounding team on the offensive boards and don’t turn the ball over, they have already taken eight more shots (22-14) than the Gators. Houston has four offensive rebounds and no turnovers so far. Florida has turned the ball over six times and taken some pretty erratic shots.

Midway through the first quarter, Houston has a 14-10 lead that could have been much larger if the Cougars could connect from outside. Houston has missed all seven of its three-point attempts, but the Gators are 0 for 5 from deep in their own right, and star guard Walter Clayton Jr. is scoreless.

Shortly after Florida’s Alijah Martin failed to pull off a huge dunk, Houston’s Ja’Vier Francis got it done — with quite some ferocity.

The Florida bigs are known for being able to run the court, especially Alex Condon. Houston has had trouble getting back. It has resulted in six of Florida’s eight points. The less the Gators have to play in the half-court, the greater advantage they have.

The first five minutes have seen Florida and Houston play to an 8-8 tie. Alex Condon has four points for the Gators, as does Joseph Tugler for the Cougars. Houston has missed nine of 13 shots.

Florida’s Alijah Martin threw down the dunk of the tournament in the semifinal win over Auburn, but his attempt at a stunning sequel didn’t quite work out. With three minutes gone by against Houston, Martin again launched himself toward the rim with his arm cocked back, but this time he couldn’t get the ball into the hoop.

The men’s national championship game between Florida and Houston has gotten underway at the Alamodome in San Antonio. The Cougars won the opening tip.

Florida forward Thomas Haugh grew up in Pennsylvania, but he soon became a rabid Florida fan because of the exploits of former Gators football great Tim Tebow. Now an extremely valuable member of Florida’s rotation, Haugh said recently he hopes to meet his idol one day. Helping the Gators win it all probably wouldn’t hurt.

How unlikely was Houston’s semifinal victory over Duke? According to the NCAA, the Cougars became the first tournament team to get a win despite having a lower field goal percentage, more turnovers and fewer assists, steals and free throw attempts. Since the 1985-86 season, when steals became an official statistic, NCAA tournament teams had previously been 0-355 in such situations.

Both Florida and Houston have just four losses, but in the case of the Cougars, it could have been far fewer. The only results keeping Houston from bringing an undefeated record to this game are a five-point November loss to Auburn in which the Cougars had a late lead, plus three subsequent losses that all came in overtime.

At 39, Florida’s Todd Golden is no threat to unseat Branch McCracken, who led Indiana to the 1940 national title at 31, as the youngest men’s coach to do so. Golden would, though, be the youngest since 1983, when 37-year-old Jim Valvano led North Carolina State in thrilling fashion — against Houston.

Unlike Duke, which lost to Florida despite boasting Cooper Flagg and other players touted as likely lottery picks, neither the Gators nor Houston has a player certain to go in the first round at all. Florida star Walter Clayton Jr. might have played his way into consideration, but the heroics of the Cougars’ L.J. Cryer may not be nearly enough.

TAMPA — After such a long, winding climb to the top, what a luxury it is to spread your arms, take a breath and enjoy the view unburdened. As her college career was coming to a close, Paige Bueckers played with a demon’s ferocity, hurtling through three straight 30-point performances in the NCAA tournament to ensure her team did not miss out on the chance to end Connecticut’s nine-year championship drought in Sunday’s title game. But when she finally got there, the pressure seemed to release a bit. All she had to do was right there in front of her: win a basketball game.

Bueckers’s final game of her stellar college career, a thorough, 82-59 win over South Carolina for Connecticut’s 12th national championship, wasn’t her flashiest. But she might have been having the most fun, kicking her feet up and letting the youngsters take over.

Redshirt junior Azzi Fudd and freshman Sarah Strong had 24 points each, pieced together with jaw-dropping shots and picture-perfect jumpers. Bueckers’s 17 points, six rebounds and three assists were steady, methodical and a little unglamorous, such as when she ended up flat on her back after her final field goal with 7:45 to play, a tough layup through four defenders. With Bueckers on the floor, point guard KK Arnold stood over her and revved an imaginary lawn mower while Bueckers double-fist-pumped as a screaming smile split her face in two.

“We got the blueprint now,” Bueckers said later on the championship stage at half court, still smiling.

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TAMPA — Katie Fudd stood in the stands and watched her daughter, Azzi, complete her redemption tour. She wore a white T-shirt with blue lettering that read, “Fudd around and find out.”

South Carolina certainly found out Sunday afternoon.

Fudd was unstoppable en route to a game-high-tying 24 points, leading Connecticut to an 82-59 victory over the defending champion Gamecocks that earned the Huskies a record-extending 12th NCAA women’s basketball championship. The senior guard, whose career before this season had been clouded by injuries, was named the Final Four’s most outstanding player.

“I really don’t have words to describe what today felt like and what the rest of the day is going to feel like,” Fudd said. “Today was an amazing accomplishment, to do it with this team.”

Next to Fudd the entire way has been her longtime friend Paige Bueckers, the three-time all-American and former national player of the year who had accomplished everything at Connecticut except for winning a national title. Like Fudd, Bueckers also survived a torn ACL that took away her junior year. As confetti poured from the ceiling of Amalie Arena, the two stars stood on the corner of a raised stage and shared a moment together as fans cheered. Shortly before that, they stood near the sideline in a deep embrace, swaying back and forth.

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When Florida and Houston square off tonight for the men’s basketball national championship, both teams will be bringing impressive streaks to San Antonio’s Alamodome.

The Cougars, the No. 1 seed in the Midwest Region, have won their past 18 games, including a stunning comeback against Duke in the national semifinals. With their semifinal victory over SEC rival Auburn, the top-seeded and West Region champion Gators got the 17th win in their past 18 games.

Both teams bring 35-4 records to their showdown, but they have some notable differences. Florida, led by 39-year-old coach Todd Golden, boasts the nation’s third-ranked scoring offense. Under the guidance of 69-year-old coach Kelvin Sampson, Houston has the nation’s best scoring defense.

The Cougars are looking for the first national championship in program history — and Sampson would be the oldest winning coach in the men’s tournament — having lost back-to-back national finals in 1983 and 1984. The Gators’ two titles came consecutively, in 2006 and 2007, under former coach Billy Donovan.

These teams have only played each other twice, and not since 1973. Tonight’s meeting will be televised on CBS, with tip-off scheduled for 8:50 p.m.

SAN ANTONIO — Charlie Baker has spent the past week ping-ponging between Tampa and here, living the life of the NCAA president during March Madness: more meetings than hours in the day, more hands to shake than time to shake them. One problem, though — beyond the usual list of problems facing the industry of major college sports — is that Baker is not feeling particularly well. Maybe it was all the plane rides. Odds are he talked to someone with a cold, seeing that most of his job is spent in conversations.

So Saturday, as reporters surrounded Baker in the media room at the men’s Final Four, his people tried to keep the interview short. His voice, usually politician smooth, sounded like tires creeping on gravel. He looked a little tired. But the problem with keeping it short was how much there is to talk about.

On Monday, in a courtroom in Oakland, California, Judge Claudia Wilken will hold a final approval hearing for the settlement of three antitrust cases over athlete compensation (House v. NCAA, Hubbard v. NCAA and Carter v. NCAA). Wilken is expected to hear more than a dozen objections to the settlement, the concerns aimed at a cap on how much schools could directly pay athletes, the elimination of roster spots and a proposed system to review and regulate any third-party name, image and likeness (NIL) deals that exceed $600. At this point, Wilken can’t suggest changes to the settlement. She just has to decide whether it’s fair or whether the case should go to trial.

Then, after the hearing wraps, Florida and Houston will face off in the men’s national championship game.

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SAN ANTONIO — Like his team, Kelvin Sampson would not stop. He kept talking, sentences on sentences on sentences, answering questions that hadn’t been asked, delivering a most lucid ramble to explain an epic comeback.

Nine minutes and 919 words later, he finished his initial thoughts. Yes, that was just his opening statement. As the clock ticked toward midnight, he could have lectured Saturday into Sunday, and he still would have left me wanting more. Time meant nothing while trying to comprehend how Houston pulled off the biggest victory of the 69-year-old coach’s life, a 70-67 triumph over Duke in a Final Four game that seemed lost at least a half-dozen times.

“Just proud of these guys for what they accomplished,” Sampson said to end the beginning of his reflections.

On Monday, Sampson will lead a team into the NCAA men’s basketball national title game for the first time. He is a 40-minute contest, or however long the dogged Cougars need to win, from getting to eat the cherry atop a career that hasn’t always been cake. Somehow, his players must summon the game of their lives less than 48 hours after a once-in-a-lifetime comeback.

Most teams don’t have that much emotional bandwidth. But when Sampson is your coach, there is no choice.

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SAN ANTONIO — At the first March Madness closing Monday night of the 2000s, something of an oddball turned up amid the customary glitz. Florida had reached a breakthrough Final Four six years earlier under coach Lon Kruger, and it had led Duke by 13 in the second half of that semifinal before Grant Hill happened, but it did not necessarily count as a men’s college basketball “brand” and seemed familiar only to college basketball connoisseurs.

Someone asked Billy Donovan, a fourth-year Gators coach in 2000, whether he had spoken that week with his mentor, Rick Pitino, then a third-year Boston Celtics coach. “I heard from him through a fax,” Donovan said.

So it was long ago when Florida lost to season-long titan Michigan State in that final, but 25 years later on another closing Monday night at the basketball theater and in what you might call a different era, Florida reappears as something else. Its semifinal halftime opposite Auburn on Saturday happened to coincide with Donovan’s presence on the court as a fresh Hall of Fame inductee who stopped here along the path to Charlotte, where his Chicago Bulls bested the Hornets, 131-117, on Sunday. And look at this: Four programs have appeared in at least four national championship games in the 2000s, and the list has North Carolina and Connecticut with five and Kansas and Florida with four.

Could Florida belong among those the cliché calls blue bloods?

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