Florida Gators win 2025 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, claim 3rd national championship

USA Today

08-04-2025

Florida Gators win 2025 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, claim 3rd national championship
The Florida Gators are the 2025 men's basketball NCAA Tournament champions.
The Orange and Blue overcame a 12-point deficit against the Houston Cougars to win the national championship, 65-63, Monday night.
Nothing about the win was easy. Florida struggled with turnovers early in the game, Walter Clayton Jr. ended the first half with zero points and Houston had the ball with a chance to win at the buzzer. As Todd Golden has said time and time again, "This team is special."
A brilliant first-half performance from Will Richard kept Florida alive, and Golden made the right gameplan adjustments to get the job done after that. Clayton, Alijah Martin and Richard cemented themselves as the best backcourt in the country, picking each other up whenever someone wasn't feeling it and leading the Gators to its third national championship in program history.
Too many early turnovers
Turnovers have been a key stat for Florida all year long, and a 9-2 margin in favor of Houston was a major reason Florida trailed at the half. Alex Condon travelled three times and Clayton turned it over two more times. Kudos to Houston's relentless defense, which made Florida uncomfortable all night, but many of the early turnovers could easily result from national championship nerves. Florida trailing by just three points at the half was somewhat miraculous considering the difference in the turnover column after 20 minutes of action.
Something clicked in the second half, though. Florida turned the ball over just four times after halftime and Houston gave it away nine times, including its final two possessions of the game. Had Florida played as sloppy as it did in the first half, there's no comeback or title win.
Will Richard legacy game
Richard single-handedly kept Florida in the game during a rough first half. He scored half of the team's points (14 of 28) before the break and went 4-of-6 from beyond the arc. His two misses were fine, coming on a heat check and at the halftime buzzer. Clayton and Martin have averaged 40 points per game over the NCAA Tournament, but with neither scoring much — they combined for two points on 1-of-9 shooting in the first half — Clayton was the offensive catalyst.
His performance brings things full circle. Richard was the first of Florida's Big 3 to transfer to the program and has been with Todd Golden all three seasons in Gainesville. He's had ups and downs, including a transformation from a 3-point specialist to a slash-and-defend wing, but Richard leaves Florida as the same sharpshooter he was when he joined the Gators.
A couple of big steals and the game-tying free throws from him helped secure the championship late.
Mama, there goes that man
This wasn't Walter Clayton's finest performance, but he came up big when Florida needed him late. A pair of and-1s and a game-tying three with three minutes to go put Florida in a position to win it all, and the Gators don't reach the title game without his clutch performances in every other game of the tournament. He'll go down as the best guard in Florida history, and his name is now etched in the history books forever in Gainesville.
Foul trouble is good trouble?
Houston played a clean game for all of the first half and a good chunk of the second, but a string of three of fouls in nine seconds by the Cougars put them into foul trouble. Two of their best bigs had four fouls with just under 10 minutes to play, and Joseph Tuggler fouled out in the final minutes of the game. Getting Florida into the bonus early allowed the Gators to score plenty at the line and keep things close, even when they weren't sinking shots.
Florida, on the other hand, fouled just 10 times over 40 minutes, not including a pair of technicals. Only Condon had three or more fouls, and Houston did not capitalize at the line, shooting just 64.3% percent. Florida shot 81% at the stripe and got eight more free points than Houston. There's no one stat that allowed Florida to complete the comeback, but making more free throws than the opponent usually leads to good things.
Let the Golden Era begin
Todd Golden has elevated Florida's basketball program to the heights fans have expected since Billy Donovan won back-to-back championships with the Gators nearly 20 years ago. The Mike White era had many wondering if the Gators could ever return to prominence, especially in a conference that's only getting better by the year. Golden changed all of that in just three years and he's only 39 years old — the youngest to win a national championship since Jim Valvano, 37, with NC State in 1983.
Florida ends the 2025 season on top of the college basketball world, knocking off two No. 1 seeds — Auburn and Houston — and as the best team in perhaps the best conference of the 21st century. Gators Boys stay hot!
Follow us @GatorsWire on X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as Bluesky, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.