Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I hope everyone who complained about having four No. 1 seeds in the Final Four feels silly after how great all three games were.
In today’s SI:AM:
Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.
There’s nothing sports fans love more than a game decided on the final play. For the neutral observer, it doesn’t get more exciting than having an entire game come down to one final moment. But for the team on the losing end, it couldn’t be more gut-wrenching. And for Houston Cougars fans, the final play of Monday night’s men’s national championship game against the Florida Gators was especially agonizing.
Houston had smothered Florida for most of the night with its nation-best defense, eventually building a lead that stretched as big as 12 points with 16 minutes left to play. The Cougars did a particularly good job of clamping down on Walter Clayton Jr., the Gators’ star guard, who did not make a field goal for the first 32 minutes of the game. But Clayton’s first basket was a big one. With 7:54 left to play, he made a tough driving layup and was fouled in the process. He hit the ensuing free throw to tie the game at 48–48 after Florida had trailed for the previous 20:40 of game time.
Houston quickly regained the lead, but the Gators never let the deficit grow larger than three points. Florida finally took the lead—its first lead since the score was 8–6 in the first five minutes of the game—with 46 seconds left to play.
The Cougars had one last chance, though. They got the ball with 19.7 seconds on the clock and trailed 65–63. They never got a shot off.
YOUR NATIONAL CHAMPIONS: THE FLORIDA GATORS 🏆🐊#MarchMadness @GatorsMBK pic.twitter.com/XatLv5x2hm
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) April 8, 2025
It was a brutal way for Houston’s season to end. Give the Cougars credit for having the guts to attempt a three-pointer for the win rather than trying to tie the game and send it to overtime, but their final possession was a disjointed mess. Too many players were clustered around the three-point line, preventing anyone from getting an open look. The ball finally ended up in the hands of Emanuel Sharp, who rose in the air to attempt a long three. But just as he did, Clayton sprinted toward him and leaped in front of him. Sharp panicked. He aborted the shot attempt and bounced the ball on the floor. Picking it up again would have been a double dribble violation, and so the ball just bounced helplessly in front of him while he looked frantically for a teammate to bail him out. The help came too late. Florida’s Alex Condon dove on the ball as the clock ran out.
“Clayton made a great play,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. “But that’s why you’ve got to shot fake and get into the paint. Two’s fine.”
It’s tough to imagine a more brutal way to lose a national championship game. The inability to get a final shot off is always frustrating, but Houston’s loss had the added layer of the ball just bouncing for what felt like an eternity. And yet it’s also tough to imagine what Sharp could have done differently. Abandoning the shot was the right decision. Clayton made an incredible play to be able to challenge the shot and surely would have swatted it into next week if Sharp had let it fly. Sampson is right that Sharp could have pump-faked, but Clayton was so quick to close out on him that he had hardly any time to react.
As disappointing as it was for Houston, it was the definition of a championship-worthy play for Florida. The Gators’ defense on the play was perfect. They never gave anyone an inch of space. Even when Sharp was able to get open briefly, it was 27 feet away from the basket and Clayton closed down on him in a flash. Clayton’s offensive struggles had been the story of the game, but he made the right play at the right time to make that fact irrelevant.
The best of Sports Illustrated
• Today’s Digital Cover is Pat Forde’s game story from San Antonio on how the bounces went Florida’s way and Houston earned a spot among the list of famous title game blunders.
• Florida’s win is a fitting end to a men’s hoops season that saw the SEC dominate everybody else, Bryan Fischer writes.
• Kevin Sweeney had the difficult task of capturing the somber mood inside the Houston locker room after the Cougars’ late collapse.
• It’s not all bad news for Houston, though. Sweeney has them as the No. 1 team in the country for next season in his way-too-early top 25.
• Here are our men’s basketball All-American teams, highlighted by a couple of guys who were in Monday’s title game.
• Tom Verducci broke down Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s big contract extension with the Blue Jays and what it means for a franchise that had tried and failed to woo big free agents in recent years.
The top five…
… plays from the national title game:
5. Ja’Vier Francis’s ferocious dunk early in the first half.
4. An impressive lob from Emanuel Sharp to Mylik Wilson.
3. LJ Cryer’s step-back three to open the second half.
2. Francis’s put-back dunk for a clutch bucket in the final minutes.
1. Thomas Haugh’s blocked shot and difficult finish on the other end jumpstarted Florida’s comeback.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI:AM | Houston’s Agonizing Final Possession.
