Florida is good until the last stop in winning its third NCAA men’s title

SAN ANTONIO — From a game that spent its 40 minutes as tense, taut and very often terrific, Florida wrung a fresh national title Monday night. Its 65-63 win after trailing for so much of the evening also left Houston in a what-if agony sure to last the decades ahead, capped by one player kneeling in sadness while his teammates tried to console.

As a frenetic night came down to a last possession for a Houston offense that dried up in the closing minutes, the bold Emanuel Sharp rose for a shot from downtown, but as he reached the air and saw Florida star Walter Clayton Jr. flying toward him, Sharp returned to the floor and let go of the ball to avoid the turnover. As he waited for his teammates to get to that ball, the clock expired, the horn sounded and the Gators began a mad dash across the floor to portend a mad night of celebration.

With its 36-4 record, the team that won the conference tournament of the reigning conference of the year, the SEC, and became a popular pick to win the national championship had won the program’s third national championship and its first since 2007. It had reasserted Florida’s basketball prominence after some years spent halting around the first weekends of the tournaments. It also had reiterated its knack for surging out of second-half deficits.

Having trailed Connecticut by six midway through the second half, Texas Tech by nine with 3:14 to play and Auburn by eight at halftime, the Gators now handled a 52-40 inconvenience from early in the second half. They did it because their scoring star, Clayton, found his way to 11 second-half points after a scoreless first half against Houston’s legendary defense — he did have seven assists and five rebounds — and because Will Richard kept Florida viable while Clayton wasn’t scoring, getting 18 points and eight rebounds. Then, having trailed from the 15:37 mark of the first half all the way into the final minute of the game, Florida inched past Houston (35-5) at last when Alijah Martin made one of his fearless drives, drew a foul and eased in two free throws with 46 seconds left.

That made the score 64-63, and Houston never took another shot in two closing possessions wrapped around one Denzel Aberdeen free throw with 19 seconds left. When the Cougars ended on the two turnovers, they lost the chance to present a championship to 69-year-old coach Kelvin Sampson, who had gotten the closest to the prize in his 1,153rd college game.

Instead, that title went to Florida’s 39-year-old Todd Golden, a third-year coach who had headed San Francisco previously, who had never won a tournament game before this season and who just became the youngest coach to win a national title since Jim Valvano of North Carolina State in 1983.

His team had flashed its talent against Houston’s usual barbed-wire defense but also had demonstrated its pluck and fight.

From the outset, it seemed Interstate 10 must have had itself one bustling day on its three-hour segment between Houston and San Antonio. The Houston section brought great red and made great din. Then the first matchup between the programs since December 1973 unspooled pretty much as forecasters saw it: as a struggle so tight it appeared the teams might go 5-5 if they played 10 times.

Bodies flew. Arms stretched. The players’ energy churned, and maybe to an extent that let adrenaline prevent excellence. The teams combined to miss the first 13 three-point shots they tried, and the sounds of clunks and clangs from long balls glancing off rims kept thudding through the stadium. Of particular interest was the bottling-up of Clayton.

When Clayton had scored 30 points in the West Region final against Texas Tech, leading the rescue of Florida from a nine-point deficit with three minutes left, and had scored 34 points Saturday in the national semifinal against Auburn, he had become the first player since Larry Bird in 1979 to hit 30 in those two late-stage rounds. Now he faced one of the more grinding defenses any college scorer could ever see in a Houston program long known to wreak misery under Sampson, and he spent the first half without scoring at all. Just as telling about his limitation was his total of attempts: four, all from three-point range.

Yet he did contribute to Florida’s ability to stay squarely in the game by halftime, when Houston led 31-28, by springing for five assists and starting other plays when the ball wound up with Richard. That became a very good idea as the half wore on as Richard, the 6-foot-4 senior from Georgia, made 5 of 8 shots and 4 of 6 three-point shots, toward 14 points that went nicely with his five rebounds. It counterbalanced the fact that everyone else on the Gators went 6 for 21. Rebounding, seen as a crucial variable in the game, also went to Florida by 22-19 early.

Meanwhile, the Houston crowd waited for their second straight Big 12 champion to spur their noise, and spur it did eventually. It surged from a 21-21 tie to a 29-21 lead starting with 5:44 left in the half. First L.J. Cryer, who had kept Houston close enough to Duke for its gobsmacking comeback in the semifinal, changed the Cougars’ three-point numbers from 0 for 9 to 1 for 10 when he stepped back and launched and swished from Stephen Curry range. Then Ja’Vier Francis blocked Micah Handlogten’s layup attempt in the paint, causing great sound, and the Houston break caused still more with Sharp lobbing a beauty across and over the basket to Mylik Wilson, who threw down a captivating dunk. Next Clayton saw his three-pointer from the corner hit the front rim, and Wilson saw his from the right side softly bank and swish.

The Cougars seemed ready to get away.

True to how the game figured to unfold, Florida wouldn’t allow it. The Gators got things to that 31-28 by halftime with more mastery from Richard, including an assist, a second-chance jumper and a three-point shot. Florida had known its share of dreary first halves, generally followed by sizzling seconds, so it appeared to be in near-ideal shape.

Then the Houston will took hold, again showing itself a greater force than anything else in the sport this closing weekend. Cryer got going with a step-back three at 19:27 that made the crowd boom. He made another at 17:21 as the Cougars began to wow. Clayton’s difficulties reached a peak on a play soon thereafter, when he dribbled outside with Francis near him, then tried a drive late in the shot clock, then wheeled a pass over to the left and hurriedly out of bounds. (His first points wouldn’t come until the 14:57 mark, on two free throws he earned off a fast-break drive.) By the time J’Wan Roberts made a little hook shot from the paint at 16:24, Houston had a 42-30 lead.

That wouldn’t last, either. Once Florida got a fine drive from Aberdeen, a three-point splash from out front by Martin and big man Alex Condon’s block of a Cryer try from downtown, leading to a break, a Condon layup and a free throw, the game had narrowed back to 45-42.