SAN ANTONIO – For the past five months, the conversation surrounding the best college basketball players has only included two names: Duke’s Cooper Flag and Auburn’s Johnny Bloom.
The third name was right behind.
Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. caught up on Saturday night.
A selection of the first teams of the unanimous CBS Sports All-America, Clayton chose the perfect place for the best game of his career. Florida’s outstanding season highlighted his personal best 34 points (20 in the second half, cloudbursting bucket) to lift No. 1 seed Florida, past 79-73 overall seed Auburn in the 2025 Final Four.
The instantly legendary performance is one of the best stages ever made Clayton’s name, the biggest stage in college basketball. He became the first player to drop more than 30 points in the national semifinals since Syracuse’s Carmelo Anthony for Syracuse in 2003, and the first player to score 34+ points in his final four wins since Al Wood in North Carolina in 1981.
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As destined, Anthony and two-time Florida national title-winning coach Billy Donovan were in the building to witness it Saturday night. Both were announced earlier that day as enrolled in the 2025 Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame class.
With Anthony and Donovan being awarded at halftime, Clayton and Todd Golden’s Gators were in the locker room, staring at the 46-38 deficit that came after Auburn played one of the best first half of the past two months. It was the first time Florida has entered a break since February 25th with Georgia. All four losses this season came when they dragged in at halftime.
The Gators have since done 17 of their 18 since February 4th. I found a way to victory.
Conversely, Auburn lost for the first time this season (26 games) when he led points of five or more at halftime. A 15-point margin will be set to close the season 0-2 against Florida.
Clayton’s Gargantuan Knight continued his Gator’s Safari through this bracket. This bracket created more drama than any other team in an event called Multimadness.
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Saturday was Florida’s third theatre appearance victory in five NCAA tournament games. The first was a trap door escape against two-time defending champion UConn in the second round. Against the elite 8 Texas Tech, the Gators have found a route to survive just over five minutes left, before age 10.
“He’s doing it for us all year round and I’m really pleased with him that he’s finally beginning to get the recognition he deserves,” Golden of Clayton said after the game in a conversation with CBS Sports. “He loves him, a great and great young man, a great leader, a man who gives him a lot of respect from his teammates, and he does an amazing job of sharing sugar and giving him a lot of trust to his teammates who put him in that position.
On Saturday, the Alamodome is full of energy fittings for such a great matchup. Auburn had a nine-point lead at 18:30, but Clayton and Florida simply refused to die. Instead, I chose to go up to another level.
The seniors surpassed Auburn 10-8 at the final 4:30 via Iona. For the third time in the tournament, he scored over 10 points in the final five-minute restrictions.
“Clayton was different,” Auburn manager Bruce Pearl said. “He kept the difference constant. We couldn’t contain him at the end.”
Clayton 34 points on 18-11 shots, including 8-8 from 3-point range, earned him 30 points for the fifth player and hit five 3Ss in the Final Four.
Rick Pitino, who coached Clayton at Iona and was in the building on Saturday night, told CBS Sports he wasn’t surprised to see the player in front of him appear at this size.
“Walt led his high school team to consecutive state championships,” Pitino said. “He helped Iona win the league and tournament championships. Now he’s playing in the National Championship Game. [of the NBA Draft] For the lottery. ”
Is it the most impressive? Clayton was an obvious marked man to Auburn, and every time he finally owned it, the ball was rejected with a constant double team… but the Tigers were helpless to try to contain him.
Clayton, who scored 30 points in the Western Regional Final against the Red Raiders, became the first player since the Elite 8 to hold a consecutive 30-point game since Indiana’s Larry Bird in 1979. The only other players to achieve such feats are the legendary laundry lists of Jerry West (West Virginia, 1959), Wilt Chamberlain (Kansas, 1957), and Clydora Verett (Kansas, 1952).
Clayton also made history for the Gators program in Final 4. He became the leading scorer for a singles season for Florida with 702 points this season. His 123 points in the last five games were the most on any UF player in the NCAA Tournament (two-time champion Joakim Noah), and his 34 points on Saturday night were the most on the Florida player in Final 4 (Udonis Haslem running).
It all stands as evidence that Clayton’s name belongs to Bloom and Flag.
“Everyone is watching that,” teammate Will Richard said of Clayton’s impact. “He’s calm, calm, gathered, confident. We have that confidence in him.”
Bloom was held without a field goal in the last 15 minutes or more, not visibly himself due to a prolonged left arm injury. It was tough to see a player who dominated the first half (12 points) and stood among the best players all season while Clayton was incandescent at the boundary line.
“We did an incredible job of defending Joni one-on-one in the second half,” Golden said. “I think he was 4-1 off the field. We started moving a bit and saw the ball go through the basket and gain confidence. It obviously played a really good second half.”
Clayton and his team will be able to play in the national title on Monday night. Bloom’s college career is over.
But it wasn’t all Clayton for the Gators. Alijah Martin finished with 17 points. Martin skied in a breakaway dunk, leaving 59-57 from a sloppy pass to Bloom at 9:54.
Just a few possessions: Tournament dunks – maybe a season. I felt this was important as Martin’s slums shook the foundations of the Tigers building.
“I got weapons around me,” Clayton said of his fellow star.
Clayton remains the biggest weapon of all.
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When the final buzzer rang, Auburn managed just 27 points in the second half, the second lowest mark of the season. The Auburn team, which stood in the sport’s best position until the end of January, was ultimately taller, stronger, longer and healthy.
For Florida, it was fitting that Donovan was present alongside Anthony and other Nyism members. The Gators took part in the fourth national championship game in program history, completing Florida’s back-to-back titles Noah, Al Horford, Taurean Green and Lee Humphrey, after Donovan last took him there in 2007.
“We actually saw Coach Donovan behind our bench just before the second half began,” Golden said. “I thought it was great to have him here, the face of Florida basketball. He had a great career in Gainesville and clearly what he could do, which raised pretty high expectations in Florida.
In two games over the next three days, Donovan will return to the Chicago Bulls, but the Gators will be the first SEC team to compete for the national championship since Kentucky 11 years ago.
As the bed general commanding Clayton, Golden can stand with Donovan in the Florida basketball history book, as he is less than 48 hours in preparation for a historic showdown at the Alamodome.
