Tuesday, July 18, 2023 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
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By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Walter Clayton Jr. was less than two years removed from the last time he faced a crossroads decision. This one was every bit as significant and required another uncomfortable conversation with someone he cared deeply about. But he also was confident about his choice.
Clayton is nothing if not confident. Walter Clayton Jr.
At that first crossroads, he was a high school football star coveted by some of the best programs in the country. He walked away from that sport — cold turkey — to play basketball, the game he loved most. That was the summer of 2021.
In April, after two outstanding seasons at Iona University, Clayton was only days into the transfer portal when he visited the University of Florida, just two hours from his hometown of Lake Wales, Fla., and was all but certain it was where he wanted to continue his college hoops journey. But Clayton also knew he owed a certain Hall-of-Fame coach a conversation.
"I didn't know how my meeting with Coach P was going to go," Clayton said.
That would be "Coach P," as in Rick Pitino, one of the greatest and winningest in college basketball history and far and away the most prominent suitor for Clayton's talents. As a sophomore at Iona, Clayton was named Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference Player of the Year, guided the program to a 27-8 record and won both the regular-season and conference tournament titles.
After the season, Pitino left Iona for St. John's and the rugged Big East. He immediately put the full-court press on Clayton to join him in the Big Apple.
"Coach Pitino really, really wanted Walt, but after we did the visit to Florida there was just a feel I cannot explain that won us over," said Cherie Foster, Clayton's mother. "When we met the [UF] coaches there was never a moment of awkwardness; like we'd known them forever. It just felt right. Plus, Florida was always kind of his dream school."
A few days later, Clayton visited St. John's and ultimately said "no" to a legend. On April 11, he officially became a Gator, and during workouts the last two-plus months the 6-foot-2, 195-pound combo guard has shown himself to be a crafty complement to sophomore standout Riley Kugel. Come November, Clayton and Kugel figure to be a dynamic perimeter pair on a revamped Florida roster that includes five other transfers and a couple true freshmen who together should make for a significant upgrade in talent when the Gators take the court for their second season under Coach Todd Golden.
Where Kugel is mostly stoic and lets his skill set do his talking, Clayton's play-making comes with an alpha personality the likes of which the program has not had in several seasons.
Some testimonials:
* Director of player development Taurean Green: "He's a killer. We need some killers around here."
* Grad-transfer forward EJ Jarvis, who came from Yale: "Walter can flat-out hoop. But what he really does is hold guys accountable."
* Associate head coach Korey McCray: "Everybody can't be a choir boy. You need guys who aren't always smiling and who play a little angry. That's Walt. He's looking to make plays, willing to call guys out and, above all, helps you win."
He won 52 games and two conference titles at Iona. Before that it was back-to-back Class 6A state championships at Bartow (Fla.) High, including a 31-1 mark as a senior. Before that he led undermanned Lake Wales to the state quarterfinals as a sophomore while doubling as an outstanding two-way football player.
There's a reason Clayton was UF's top target the instant he hit the portal. Multiple reasons, actually.
"It gives you confidence as a coach when you know a guy is going to go out there and not be scared of who he's matched up against and has a little bit of a chip on his shoulder; it's confidence, but also cockiness. In a good way," said Golden, whose staff puts a premium on mining for prospects with multi-sport backgrounds. "The fact that he was a high-, high-, high-major football player was very appealing to me. It speaks to how tough he is. In this league, you need to be tough in the backcourt, and I think we're going to be way tougher than we were last year."
The new guy with the home-state roots will make sure of that.
POLK PRODIGY
Clayton was born in Sebring, Fla., and his family settled in Lake Wales when he was 10. Mom played softball. Dad played football. Both played basketball, so maybe that mini-goal Walt got on his first birthday — and the hundreds of dunks that followed — were a sign of things to come. If they weren't, the name of the team on his youth football jersey might've been.
They were the Gators.
Clayton's football coaches put the ball in his hands however they could. Mostly he was a running quarterback who did not like to get hit. His mother recalls numerous plays when Walt would run backward to avoid getting tackled and ultimately slither away for big gains. Or as Walt remembers it, "I would hear a lot of 'No! No! No's!' that turned into 'Go! Go! Go's!' "
His performance was only part of what made Clayton stand out. His competitiveness oftentimes spilled over into eruptions at teammates.
"I used to have to tell him, 'Baby, it's just a game,' but he had so much fight in him — that's what makes him a born leader — and he wanted others on his team to feel that same energy," Foster said. "He grew out of that [yelling] phase, though."
How did he do that?
"By winning," Clayton said.
Clockwise from top left: WalterClayton Jr. (the player) and sister Asia (cheerleader) for the youth league Gators; Walter and his hardware; Cherie (mother), Walter and Asia on signing day in the fall of 2020; Walter signing his national letter of intent with Iona during a ceremony at Bartow High.
He so dominated the Polk County youth and middle school playgrounds that Lake Wales football coach Tavaris Johnson was well aware of Clayton before he showed up for his ninth-grade season. Clayton came out for football a week late, which gave the team's assistants and older players some pause as to his readiness (if not willingness) to play. Johnson had no such hesitation. Junior varsity wasn't even considered.
Johnson sat Clayton for the season opener as a penalty for reporting late. Clayton started the second game and on the second series made a leaping, one-handed interception and returned the play 80 yards for a touchdown.
Yeah, he was ready.
"He was just a special breed and I'm not talking about the way he controlled the defensive backfield," Johnson said. "If you just watched him walk the hallways there was a presence about him. He had this humble, laid-back demeanor, but that all changed on the field. Walter made a name for himself right away." Walter Clayton (7) alongside Lake Wales teammate and future UF star Gervon Dexter (9) on an unofficial football visit to Gainesville.
Attracted some names, too. Clayton heard from the likes of Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Tennessee, Notre Dame, Penn State, Nebraska and West Virginia early. The offers kept coming. Dozens of them through his first two seasons, as he took turns at quarterback, wideout and safety.
As for basketball offers for the first-team all-county sophomore who averaged 17.5 points and marched his team one win from the state's Final Four?
"Pretty much crickets," Foster said.
Elon. Jacksonville. Florida Gulf Coast. Those were the kinds of programs reaching out for hoops. Clayton and his mom tried to get proactive on the basketball front. They made an appointment at IMG Academy, the Bradenton, Fla., all-sports boutique, to meet with the basketball coaches there in an effort to get him more exposure.
"We got there and they said, 'We don't have anything for you in basketball, but we'll definitely take you for football,' " Clayton said. "We basically went down there for nothing. It was so frustrating."
That's when Clayton made the decision to quit football completely. Maybe then, he thought, the bigger schools would realize how serious he was about basketball. There was one more thing he had to do, as well.
BARTOW-BOUND
The Clayton-led basketball teams at Lake Wales were good, but the Highlanders were a distant second in the area's pecking order behind rival Bartow. Under Terrence McGriff, the Yellow Jackets were the class of the county, with a rich history of district, region and state championships. Bartow also was on the collegiate radar, having sent Tony Bradley to a one-and-done season at North Carolina and first round of the 2017 NBA Draft.
Clayton knew transferring was the right move, but it was more complicated than that.
"How many players can you name that have transferred from Florida to Florida State?" McGriff asked. "That's what going from Lake Wales to Bartow was like."
Football already was in Clayton's rear view, but now he had to say goodbye to Lake Wales. Clayton tried to do so as quietly as possible — "I really wanted to avoid that whole situation," he said — literally showing up at the Bartow office on the first day of school to enroll. By then, though, rumors were flying, and Lake Wales blocked the move. Temporarily, as it turned out.
Johnson wanted to hear it in person. When Clayton drove to Lake Wales, Johnson was in front of the school waiting for him.
"One of the worst days I've ever had," Johnson said. "I told him, if he stayed, they might name the gym after him one day."
As bad as Johnson felt about losing his football star imagine how his Lake Wales basketball colleagues felt; especially when his team faced Clayton the next couple seasons.
As for Clayton's new coach?
"We were pinching ourselves. We didn't think it was real," McGriff said. "We already had a really good team. Four starters back, but we had graduated our point guard. Then this guy walks in the door."
The way McGriff remembers it, Clayton announced himself during a basketball class the first week of school by going the whole week without taking a shot. Instead, Clayton ingratiated himself to his new teammates by dishing as many assists and getting as many players involved as possible. The coaches on hand reminded Clayton it was OK to shoot the ball.
Actually, he was great and stayed that way for the next two seasons, as the Yellow Jackets captured back-to-back state championships for the first time in program history. The timing of the titles, however, proved problematic. Bartow cut the first set of nets down in March of 2020, mere days before the COVID pandemic struck and wiped out all travel team events and camps across the country that spring and summer.
The '20-21 season, Clayton's senior year, was played under pandemic restrictions and continued frustration for Clayton as far as college interest. Not one high-major offer came in; not even a nibble from the likes of UCF (an hour to the east) or USF (an hour to the west). It was around that time, though, that McGriff took Clayton to a virtual exposure camp in Orlando, where the skill work and scrimmages were streamed to college coaches via the Internet.
An assistant at Iona liked Clayton enough to take the tape to Pitino.
Pitino's assessment: "Fat, slow and can't shoot … but he can pass."
The two sides held a Zoom interview. Iona offered and Clayton accepted, choosing to sign with the school in New Rochelle, N.Y. (enrollment of 3,600) without even taking a visit.
"Walt had never even heard of Iona, only that he was going to play basketball up in the Northeast," Foster said. "But it wasn't like he was going to UConn or Syracuse."
NEW YORK STATE OF MIND
As a freshman, Clayton cracked the Gaels' regular rotation. He had a few highlight games — 15 points in an upset of Alabama and a season-best 21 in a holiday tournament versus Delaware — but one moment stuck with him more than any other.
Iona ran away with the 2022 MAAC regular-season title and was a big favorite to win the postseason tournament and automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. In the final minute of a tight quarterfinal against Rider, however, Clayton missed the front end of a one-and-one that could have put the game away. Rider won 71-70 and Iona was banished to the NIT, where its season ended (somewhat ironically, looking back) with a 79-74 first-round loss at Florida. Clayton scored eight points at the O'Dome that night.
Entering the offseason, he was still beating himself up over the Rider game. During the summer and into the fall, Clayton maintained a strict regimen that kept him in the gym until he ended workouts with 25 consecutive free-throw makes, a routine that was supplemented by having to make 10 straight during water breaks.
In '22-23, Clayton led the nation in free-throw shooting at 95.3 percent.
He led the Gaels in just about every key component, including scoring (16.9 points per game), 3-point percentage (.429), steals (1.9 pg), but also intangibles. Pitino, with a resume that shows an 834-293 career record, 23 NCAA tournament appearances with five different schools, seven Final Fours and two NCAA titles, placed Clayton alongside some of the best players he'd ever coached.
As a sophomore, Walter Clayton Jr.(1) was named 2023 Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference Player of the Year.
"He shoots it well, he's unselfish, he has a great attitude, and he's a willing learner," Pitino told Iona media last year. "I put him in the class with all the great ones I've had at Kentucky, all the great ones I've had at Louisville, because of his attitude. His attitude matches his game."
That's saying something given Pitino's demanding ways and notorious reputation for driving his players to the brink. Clayton, though, embraced the aggressive style.
"He uses reverse psychology by saying, 'You can't do this' or 'You don't want that.' For some guys that doesn't work. It did for me because I understood that I had to adjust to him, not vice versa, and set aside any bad feelings," Clayton said. "It wasn't personal, it was basketball."
Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino (left) and Walter Clayton Jr. (1) were a great match at Iona.
Photo byJohn Minchillo / Associated Press
The tactics brought out the best in Clayton. When Pitino provided tips like, "Never drive to the baseline! Bad players drive to the baseline," Clayton took them to heart.
"He taught me how to play through adversity, and if there was no adversity going on he would create some," Clayton said. "He taught you the game inside and out — what to think and how to think on the court — and if you responded and were open with him, he would let you go out and just play your game."
Clayton's final game with Pitino was an 87-63 first-round NCAA loss to eventual national champion Connecticut. The Gaels led the Huskies by two at halftime, the lone time UConn trailed going into a second half in their six blowout tournament wins.
Then came the portal, the UF visit and the dreaded "Coach P" meeting.
Charting the Gators: Clayton's numbers at Iona
Season
Games / Starts
Minutes per game
Scoring avg.
Rebounds
Assists
FG pct.
3-pt pct.
FT pct.
2021-22
32 / 4
16.1
7.3
2.7
1.6
.434
.357
.787
2022-23
32 / 31
30.3
16.8
4.3
3.2
.455
.431
.953
Clayton wasn't the only one anxious about that sit-down. The Gators envisioned Clayton as an instant game changer. They did not dare push too hard.
"We were respectful of the time and success they had together and knew there were a lot of things up there to make him comfortable," Golden said. "We felt we did a good job providing a great understanding of what his experience and opportunity would be like here."
Yes, they did. Pitino wasn't happy with Clayton's decision and gave him the silent treatment for a few days. Eventually, the coach called, wished his outgoing star luck and the two parted on decent terms.
Two weeks later, Clayton was enrolled at Florida. His impact in the gym was immediate.
"He played two years for Rick Pitino," Gators player development assistant Jordan Tally said. "That's like having a Ph.D. in basketball."
GATORS GET THEIR GAME-CHANGER
Clayton was one of the most sought-after guards in the portal, but his memory was long. The idea of leaving the NYC congestion and returning to the Sunshine State was appealing, but Clayton couldn't help but hold grudges against the coaches (at FSU, Miami and the previous UF staff) that gave him the cold shoulder during his prep recruiting process.
The Gators, though, got a second bite at the Clayton apple because Golden, barely a year from arriving from the University of San Francisco and taking that program to its first NCAA Tournament in 24 years, wasn't there to ignore Clayton the first time around.
"I did my research," Clayton said of Golden. "I looked at what he did at San Francisco and what he was trying to build here."
A fraternity house across from the UF practice facility planted a "Welcome Walter" sign in the front yard for his official visit. The staff took Clayton to a football practice, where he met Billy Napier — who likely still had Clayton's contact info on file, just in case — and tossed spirals with Golden on the sidelines while his mother soaked in how right it all felt.
It still feels right. For all parties.
"You're either a fountain or a drain and Walt is definitely a fountain," Golden said. "He's a guy you enjoy being around, with his personality. It's something I sensed the first time I talked to him on the phone. He has juice. He has it."
Walter Clayton Jr., here having a discussion with UF associate head coach Carlin Hartman (left) during practice last week, is known for constructively speaking his mind both on and off the court. Photo by Ashley Ray
He also has the perfect game for what the Gators want to do on offense, starting with his ability to score at all three levels. Defenses have to honor Clayton's 3-point shot, which allows him to attack the paint and use his quickness to change pace and direction to create his own shot. And because he's a good mid-range shooter and finisher around the rim, Clayton excels in the pick-and-roll. He's just as much a threat to toss a pin-point lob to the rolling big as he is to score off the bounce.
"In pick-and-roll, scoring sets up the passing," said UF assistant Kevin Hovde, who coaches the team's offense. "If you're deficient in shooting the ball then teams can slide under [the screen]. If you're deficient in finishing, the big [defender] can drop and play both and get you confused. Because Walt is such an elite scorer, his passing shows up and the reads are simpler for him."
Now throw the 6-5 Kugel (17.3 points over UF's last 10 games) and his three-level scoring into the mix and the Gators have a double-dose of scoring punch on the ball.
Said Kugel, who is showing up on 2024 NBA Draft boards: "He likes to play fast, I like to play fast. There's already chemistry there."
And then there's the addition of grad-transfer point guard ZyonPullin (18.3 ppg at California-Riverside last season) and three proven portal arrivals in the front court, each of whom figure prominently in the 2023-24 plans. The Florida roster basically was reconstructed.
Clayton, with his strong game and even stronger personality, was the No. 1 "re-building" block coming off a 16-17 season that marked just the second losing record for the program over the last 25 years. Clayton intends to redirect the trajectory of the Gators, who have missed the last two NCAA tournaments after going to four straight (and 18 of the previous 22).
"I speak up when I have to, but I would say I'm pretty good at reading the room," Clayton said. "On the court, I'll say whatever needs to be said. At times, they're going to think I'm yelling at them, but it's all about getting on the same page. It's all about winning. And we're going to win."
