By Aidan Joly
Florida is back on top of the college basketball world.
The Gators won the program’s third-ever national championship and first since 2007 by beating Houston in a 65-63 thriller on Monday night to close out the 2024-25 season.
Even more impressive in and of itself is that the Gators did it by coming back from 12 down in the second half, and having their star player in Walter Clayton be held scoreless in the first half. Clayton only finished with 11 points on the night on 3-10 from the field, including going just 1-6 from three.
We said throughout the entire tournament that Florida’s offense was the key to victory. On Monday night in San Antonio we saw its defense come through, holding Houston to just under 35% from the field and only 6-25 from three.
Florida’s offense wasn’t great, shooting just under 40% from the field and was 6-24 from three, but the ball bounced their way at the end and forcing multiple Houston turnovers in the closing minutes was crucial.
It caps off a season for the Gators that saw them end up going 36-4 overall, win a conference championship, earn a No. 1 seed in the tournament, and end up being the team cutting down the nets on a Monday night in April.
The Gators are indeed a worthy national champion. It beat a pair of No. 1 seeds in the Final Four, beat a No. 3 seed in Texas Tech, took down a No. 4 seed in Maryland and survived a furious effort from two-time defending national champion UConn in the second round of the tournament nearly three weeks ago now.
Despite a bad night Clayton delivered an all-time NCAA tournament performance that included a pair of 30-point performances – one in the Elite Eight and another in the national semifinal game. Will Richard, Alijah Martin, Alex Condon and even Rueben Chinyelu all had their moments over the past three weeks that allowed them to be the last team standing.
Among national champions in the KenPom era (since 1996-97), this Florida team has the second-highest overall net rating at 36.46, only trailing the 2001 Duke team that had a rating of 37.32. It barely edged out last season’s UConn team, which finished with a net rating of 36.43. About as close as you can get, but barely got them. (For reference, I will put them in order at the bottom of this post.)
Florida went 14-4 in and won a SEC that was considered to be the best conference in college basketball history, won 18 of its final 19 games and finished the year on a 12-game winning streak. It felt right for an SEC team to win the title after the league dominated this year and ended up sending a record 14 teams to this tournament.
It would have been a worthy national champion either way. After the loss, Houston finishes the season 35-5, went 19-1 in and won the Big 12, earned a No. 1 seed and led by 12 in the second half of the national championship game. It would have been a major, major vindication for coach Kelvin Sampson, who brought this program back from a really bad place a decade ago, but the 69-year-old coach has earned his flowers several times over. It’s heartbreaking for him, as a basketball lifer who had never made it to this point in the year, but Houston will have a real shot to be back at this point next season.
For Florida coach Todd Golden, he does what former Florida coach Billy Donovan did twice, win a national title in Gainesville. At 39 years old he becomes the first coach since Jim Valvano in 1983 to win a title before he turns 40. He does it in his third season with the program.
Golden did it by embracing analytics, something he was known for at his previous job at San Francisco, as well as knowing how to utilize the transfer portal with the best of them. Clayton came from Iona. Richard from Belmont. Martin from Florida Atlantic. Micah Handlogten from Marshall. A lot of times in college basketball it feels like all coaches want to do is collect the most talent they can and figure it out. Here, Golden comes out looking like a roster-building savant. Few of these players were highly regarded coming out of high school and even the portal itself, but Golden found a way to bring all of these pieces together to create a machine. It worked.
All in all, Golden is quickly becoming one of the best coaches in the country. He has found the formula. For as long as he is there, expect the Gators to be back at this point, continuing to be in the conversation for national championships.
All national champions since 1997, ranked by KenPom net rating
- 2001 Duke (37.32)
- 2025 Florida (36.46)
- 2024 UConn (36.43)
- 2008 Kansas (35.21)
- 2019 Virginia (34.22)
- 2021 Baylor (33.87)
- 2018 Villanova (33.76)
- 2000 Michigan State (33.61)
- 2010 Duke (33.29)
- 2013 Louisville (32.92)
- 2005 North Carolina (32.77)
- 2012 Kentucky (32.59)
- 2015 Duke (32.48)
- 2016 Villanova (32.01)
- 1999 UConn (31.38)
- 2009 North Carolina (31.14)
- 2007 Florida (30.81)
- 2023 UConn (29.86)
- 1998 Kentucky (29.29)
- 2002 Maryland (29.25)
- 2004 UConn (28.30)
- 2006 Florida (28.28)
- 2017 North Carolina (28.22)
- 2022 Kansas (27.49)
- 1997 Arizona (24.61)
- 2011 UConn (23.93)
- 2003 Syracuse (23.28)
- 2014 UConn (22.13)
AJ Hoops 