NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Florida vs Houston (Monday, 8:50 pm)

(1) Florida vs. (1) Houston

* What: 2025 NCAA Tournament Championship Game
* When: Monday, 8:50 p.m. (ET)
* Where: Alamodome / San Antonio
* Records: Florida (35-4) / Houston (35-4)
* TV: CBS (Ian Eagle, Bill Raftery, Grant Hill and Tracy Wolfson)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD / Stations list
(with Sean Kelley, Lee Humphrey and Steve Egan)
* Ticket info

Projected Starters

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Alex Condon	F	6-11 / 230	Sophomore	10.5 pts / 7.6 reb
Rueben Chinyelu	C	6-10 / 255	Sophomore	6.0 pts / 6.6 reb
Will Richard	G	6-4 / 206	Senior	13.2 pts / 4.5 reb
Alijah Martin	G	6-2 / 195	Graduate	14.6 pts / 4.6 reb
Walter Clayton Jr.	G	6-2 / 195	Senior	18.5 pts / 3.7 reb / 4.1 ast

Houston	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Joseph Tugler	F	6-8 / 230	Sophomore	5.5 pts / 5.9 reb
J'Wan Roberts	F	6-8 / 235	Senior	10.7 pts / 6.5 reb
Emanual Sharp	G	6-3 / 210	Junior	12.8 pts / 3.0 reb
LJ Cryer	G	6-1 / 200	Senior	15.6 pts / 2.3 reb
Milos Uzen	G	6-4 / 190	Junior	11.5 pts / 3.0 reb / 4.3 ast

The Breakdown

The Alamodome, which had 68,000 for Saturday's semifinal, is on the permanent Final Four rotation.

SETUP: Florida, the No. 1 seed out of the West, and Houston, the No. 1 seed out of the Midwest, face off in the NCAA championship game Monday night at San Antonio. The third-ranked Gators got here by defeating second-ranked Auburn 79-73 in Saturday night's first national semifinal, rallying from nine points down in the second half to defeat the Southeastern Conference regular-season champion. The Cougars, regular-season and postseason tournament champs out of the Big 12, had an even more stirring comeback in their Saturday semifinal, storming from nine down with 1:31 remaining to shock No. 1-ranked Duke 70-67. ... UF will play in its fourth NCAA title game and first since winning back-to-back crowns in 2006-07. UH is in its first final since going to back-to-backs in 1983-84, but losing both (to North Carolina State and Georgetown).

SERIES: Houston leads 2-0, with the lone meetings coming in the early 1970s. The Cougars defeated the Gators 61-60 at Alligator Alley in Gainesville on Dec. 7, 1970, and at home, in the Summitt, 97-73, on Dec. 8, 1973.

ETC: The two programs have combined for 14 Final Four appearances, with UF going six times to UH's eight.

Tale of the Tape

Florida	Statistics	Houston
85.3	Scoring	73.9
.473	Field-goal percentage	.452
.358	3-point percentage	.399
69.8	Scoring defense	58.5
.401	Field-goal percentage defense	.382
.295	3-point percentage defense	.303
3rd	KenPom.com overall ranking	2nd
2nd	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	10th
9th	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	1st
59th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	360th
4th	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	3rd
10th	Overall strength of schedule ranking	9th

The Gators

UF guard **Will Richard** and Gators coach **Todd Golden**, who is now 5-2 in three NCAA tournaments.

They're one win from equaling the school record for victories in a season, a mark set by the 2013-14 team that went 36-3 (with 30 consecutive wins) before losing to Connecticut in the national semifinal. UF has won 11 straight and 17 of the previous 18, with its last loss an 88-83 setback at Georgia on Feb. 25. ... The Gators, after being pushed around and trailing by eight through the first half, were outstanding after intermission against Auburn. They shot 50 percent from the floor, but more importantly unleashed an element of physicality that was missing through the first 20 minutes. UF held the Tigers to 8-for-24 shooting overall, including just five field goals in the 2-point area, after allowing 13 in the first half, and eventually outscored them 41-27 for the period. If the Gators mess around and want to show up late against the Cougars it will not end easy for them. An eight-point deficit against Houston would feel more like a dozen. Yes, Florida has shown an ability to rally, but doing so against Houston's incomparable defense and offensive rebounding would be an entirely different animal. ... UF coach Todd Golden, now 75-33 in this three seasons with the Gators, is looking to become the seventh coach in NCAA history to win a national title before his 40th birthday.

Point guard Walter Clayton Jr., simply put, has been the best player in the tournament. In the five games, he's averaged 24.6 points, shot 50% from the floor, gone 19-for-39 from the 3-point arc (48.7%) and 38 of 42 at the free-throw line (90.4). Go back eight games, through the Gators' run to the SEC Tournament title (Clayton was named MVP), and those numbers show 23.1 points, 49.1% overall, 49.2% from 3 and 88% at the line. He's having one of the great postseason runs in memory, but will face a barrage of Houston blitzes and double teams designed to get the ball out of his hands and make someone else beat them. ... Guard Alijah Martin won his ninth NCAA Tournament game Saturday. He won four en route to the Final Four with Florida Atlantic in 2023 and has five more in his grad-transfer season with the Gators, with his two electrifying dunks in the second half certain to be among the most lasting images of this postseason. Martin had 17 points, three rebounds and was a plus-10 on the floor. ... The third guard in the UF senior trio, Will Richard, had a mostly quiet night of seven points and six rebounds, but his 3-point play -- with the Gators down nine at the time -- early in the second half started an 11-0 spree that helped set a tone for the comeback. ... Backup guard Denzel Aberdeen, who had two points and a couple turnovers, played just 15 minutes against Auburn, as the Gators have squeezed their rotation the last couple weekends.

Florida's four-man front-court rotation was read the riot act by both Golden and UF associate head coach Carlin Hartman at halftime Saturday, following a soft 20 minutes of post play. Center Rueben Chinyelu responded with an outstanding defensive second half and finished with a game-high nine rebounds. Forward Alex Condon, who scored one point and went 0-for-5 from the floor with three turnovers, was much better defensively after halftime, as well. Ditto for Thomas Haugh (12 points, 6 rebounds, 3 blocks) and 7-1 center Micah Handlogten in his limited nine minutes.

The Cougars

They started the season dropping three of the first seven games, with losses to Auburn at Houston's NBA arena, and in overtime against both Alabama and San Diego State at a Thanksgiving tournament at Las Vegas. After that, the Cougars didn't lose again until a home overtime defeat against Texas Tech on Feb. 1. Since, Houston has rolled to 18 consecutive wins (the longest streak in the country, obviously) and done so with a suffocating brand of defense that will be nothing the Gators have experienced, even in the rugged SEC. Coach Kelvin Sampson is in the 11th season since going to UH to begin a reclamation project for a career marred by NCAA violations and academic issues that cost him jobs at both Oklahoma and Indiana. Sampson, who at 69 is trying to become the oldest coach ever to win a national title, has won 798 games over his 36 seasons (including stops at Montana Tech and Washington State), with a 298-83 mark with the Cougars. ... Defensively, they rate third in effective field-goal percentage (44.8), fifth at defending the 2-point area (44.3%), 17th at the 3-point line (30.3) and are fifth in blocked shots (15.7%). ... Offensively, the Cougars shoot just 48% from the 2-point area, but they're 10th in the country in offensive rebounding (37%), which often leads to open 3-point shots, where Houston is No. 1 in the country in converting at 39.9%. The Cougars are methodical, they play slower than all but five teams in the country, and rarely turn it over (14.2%, 20th nationally), either, which means they're likely to get a good shot or a second one. ... Only four teams hit 70 points in regulation against Houston this season. The Cougars held Duke and its historically great top-rated offense to 39.6% overall, including just 38.9 from the 2-point area.

Guard LJ Cryer was voted third-team All American after shooting 41% from the floor and a blistering 42.7 from deep, one of three UH starters who hit for better than 40% from the arc. Cryer was a freshman sub on Baylor's 2021 national-championship team, which makes both he and Martin unique in their basketball careers and Final Four journeys. Cryer is a 90% free-throw shooter and (the following applies to every Cougar, so repeating it won't be necessary) and excellent defender. ... Emanuel Sharp, out of Tampa, Florida, is another one of those long-range bombers at 41.5 to go with 87.5 at the line. Both he and Cryer shot more than 100 free throws this season. He is second on the team with 56 steals. ... Guard Milos Uzan, in his first season since transferring from Oklahoma, leads the team at 44% from distance, but has attempted the fewest of the sharpshooters. He tops the team in steals with 58.

Forward J'Wan Roberts is a load inside and figures to try to do what Johni Broome did to the Gators in the first half Saturday, only the entire game. He will try to back down Condon, Chinyelu or whoever attempts to wall him up in the post. Roberts has attempted 322 shots this season (at 50%), none of them 3s, with 90 of his team-best 233 rebounds on the offensive end. ... Forward Joseph Tugler is another front court warrior. He's at 52% for the season, with only 11 shots from distance, and has almost as many offensive rebounds (team-high 105) as defensive (126). ... Big guard Terrance Arceneaux (6.6 ppg, 2.8 rpg) keys a bench that will go about four deep.

Numbers of Note

NC State coach **Jim Valvano** (left) and guard **Dereck Whittenburg** (center) celebrate the Wolfpack's buzzer-beating defeat of Houston in the 1983 NCAA championship game.

* :00 — Time on the clock when North Carolina State forward Lorenzo Charles caught teammate Dereck Whittenberg's airball and dunked it at the buzzer to give the Wolfpack a thrilling 54-52 upset of top-ranked Houston in the 1983 NCAA title game at Albuquerque, New Mexico.

* 1 — Games lost by Houston since the start of December, a run of 31 of the last 32.

* 8 — Games won by Florida when trailing by at least nine points, including Saturday's victory over Auburn. The others: vs South Florida (13), vs Wake Forest (9), Virginia (9), at Arkansas (9), at South Carolina (14), at Auburn (10) and vs Texas Tech (10) in the Elite Eight.

* 702 — Career points for Clayton at Florida, a program record after surpassing the previous mark of 676 set by Andy Owens during the 1969-70 season. For Clayton, 123 of his points (also a UF record) have come in the NCAA Tournament (that's 17.7% of his season's total).

* 2000 — The first year the Gators played for a national championship. The date was April 3. The place was the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis. The opponnent was No. 1 seed and second-ranked Michigan State, which took control early and rolled to a 89-76 victory over 13th-ranked and sixth-seeded UF to claimed its first NCAA crown since the Ervin "Magic" Johnson-led squad of 1979. Forward Morris Peterson led the way with 21 points for the Spartans, while tournament MVP Mateen Cleaves had 18 points and four assists. The Gators were led by sophomore center Udonis Haslem's career-high 27 points.

Bottom Line

Come what may, what a season.

Email Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu

Gators Calendar