It came down to one more play.
In a white-knuckle championship game where every possession felt like a fistfight, Florida landed the final punch. Houston buckled. And for Kelvin Sampson’s Cougars, that sliver of difference will sting for a long time.
“They made one more play than we did tonight,” said Sampson, denied his 800th win and first national title of a 30-year career in a contest where his team trailed for only 64 seconds all night. “We lost by two points. That’s what it came down to.”
That play, and the championship, was decided in the final reel. With five seconds to go, Houston’s Emanuel Sharp caught the ball near the top of the key, preparing to rise for a potential game-winning three. But that’s when Walter Clayton Jr – Florida’s All-American guard who had struggled to find a rhythm all night – came flying at him, full sprint, hands high, staying just off-center to avoid fouling.
Sharp hesitated. He dropped the ball. And in that split-second of confusion, it was over.
“My mind was kind of blank, honestly,” Clayton said. “I was just going 100%, trying to get a stop. We ended up getting it.”
Florida’s bench erupted. The team’s Aussie center Alex Condon dove to the floor and covered the loose ball as the horn sounded. The Gators stormed the court in celebration, 65–63 winners and NCAA champions for the first time since their back-to-back titles under Billy Donovan in 2006 and 2007.
“I just dove on it, heard the buzzer go,” Condon said. “Didn’t feel real. Crazy feeling.”
Until the final three minutes, Houston had been in control. They are one of the slowest-paced teams in all of college basketball, and the game was played in the grind-it-out tempo where they thrive. The Cougars had committed just four turnovers through the first 36 minutes and 35 seconds. Then in a collapse as swift as it was shocking, they turned the ball over five times in the final 3:24, including on each of their final four possessions.
That doomed stretch:
1:21 – Joseph Tugler stripped in the paint
0:52 – LJ Cryer lost the ball under pressure
0:26 – Sharp dribbled the ball off his leg in a triple-team trap
0:00 – Sharp dropped the ball on the final play, unable to recover without traveling
Over that span, the Cougars couldn’t manage a single shot attempt.
“Incomprehensible in that situation,” Sampson said. “We didn’t need a three. We just needed a good look. And we didn’t even get a shot off.”
For a program defined by its late-game tenacity and composure all season, the meltdown was both uncharacteristic and heartbreaking. It’s a devastation right up there with 1983, when the Phi Slama Jama powerhouse led by Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler were vanquished by heavy underdog North Carolina State on Lorenzo Charles’ alley-oop dunk at the buzzer – a moment that has come to symbolize the anything-can-happen ethos of March Madness.
“That’s been a strength of ours all year long, was winning close games,” said Sampson, who was making his third Final Four appearance after previous trips with Oklahoma in 2002 and Houston four years ago. “But tonight we didn’t.”
Clayton, who didn’t score until nearly 15 minutes remained, finished with 11 points and the game’s defining defensive play.
“We work on that stuff in practice,” he said. “Jumping to the side so you don’t foul the shooter, staying down on pump fakes. He pump faked, threw the ball down, and Do [Condon] got on it. We won the game.”
For Houston’s seniors, the loss cut deep.
“I wanted it so bad for him,” J’Wan Roberts said, speaking about Sampson, who at 69 would have become the oldest coach to win a national title. “So, so, so bad. And it hurts. This was my last time wearing the jersey, and I feel terrible.”
LJ Cryer, who led all scorers with 19 points, was still processing the ending.
“We thought this was a game that if we played well, we could win,” he said. “And we did play well. We just didn’t play very good the last three minutes.”
Golden, who became the youngest coach to win a national title since Jim Valvano with NC State in 1983, knew the Gators had to make plays on the margins. And they did, denying Houston’s bid for the program’s first championship in its 80-year history and reducing the Cougars to a third-time bridesmaid.
“Down the stretch, we just made some big-time winning plays defensively,” he said. “That last play was absolutely an amazing play. Walter recovered, closed out without fouling, and Condo did what he does – got physical, dove on the floor, made a winning play.”
That was the difference: four final possessions, four turnovers, zero shots. And one more play for the Gators.
