By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
Between controversial referee calls and an unprecedented final possession to decide the winner, an anticlimactic championship game in the 2025 NCAA Final Four.
Rallying from a significant deficit in a third straight game of the NCAA tournament, Florida prevailed, 65-63, over Houston in San Antonio’s Alamodome on Monday.
The Gators were crowned champions for the third time in the program’s history, but a heartbreaker in the last possession of the Cougars naturally overshadowed the rest.
Causing four turnovers in crunch time, Florida went from erasing a 12-point deficit to resurfacing on the top of college basketball after 18 years. The conclusion was shocking, with Emanuel Sharp falling shy of a three-pointer due to effective defense, instead dropping the ball and being unable to recover. The offense was stunned, and the most costly of turnovers was completed as time ran out.
Coming off a turnover in the previous play as well, the son of Maccabi Tel Aviv legend Derrick Sharp was on the verge of a traveling violation and therefore tried to protect the ball, but his efforts resulted in disaster for the team coached by Kelvin Sampson.
“I’m just going through those last two possessions more than anything else,” mentioned the 69-year-old play-caller in a postgame press conference, “Incomprehensible in that situation we couldn’t get a shot.”
A game-high 19 points by LJ Cryer combined with a turnover and allowing Florida to gain control early in the final minute of an extremely tight ending.
On the favorable end of consecutive mistakes, 39-year-old Todd Golden became the youngest head coach to win an NCAA championship since Jim Valvano succeeded at 37 in 1983.
Walter Clayton Jr. did not score in the first half and was shy of a field goal until the final eight minutes, but the 22-year-old guard ended up with 11 points, helping his side dig its way out of a 12-point hole. Will Richard recorded a team-high 18 points.
Slovenian freshman Urban Klavzar, alongside Lithuanian sophomore Kajus Kublickas and Serbian freshman Viktor Mikic, all became NCAA champions but did not play in the Final.