Walter Clayton Jr.'s defensive stop gives Florida its 3rd national title with 65-63 win over Houston

SAN ANTONIO — Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. came up with the perfect going-away present for that spirit-crushing Houston defense that bullied, battered and bedeviled him all night.

It was a defensive gem of his own. Right before the buzzer. For the win and the national title.

The Gators and Clayton somehow overcame Houston’s lock-down intensity Monday night to will out a 65-63 victory in a thriller of an NCAA championship game — a game decided when the Florida senior’s own defense stopped the Cougars from even attempting a game-winning shot at the buzzer.

Clayton finished with 11 points, all in the second half, but what he’ll be remembered for most was getting Houston’s Emanuel Sharp to stop in the middle of his shooting motion as he went up for a potential game-winning three-pointer in the final seconds.

Clayton closed out hard on Sharp, who dropped the ball rather than have his shot blocked. Unable to pick it up lest he get called for traveling, Sharp watched it bounce. Alex Condon dived on the ball, then flipped it to Clayton, who ran to the opposite free-throw line with the buzzer sounding and tugged his jersey out of his shorts.

Next, the court was awash in orange and blue confetti.

“It was a great defensive play by Walter,” Condon said. “I just dived on it, and hearing the buzzer go was a crazy feeling.”

Said Florida coach Todd Golden, “We guarded them hard and then I saw the ball loose and I just hoped we beat them to the ball.”

Houston coach Kelvin Sampson called it “incomprehensible” that the Cougars couldn’t get a shot off on either of their last two possessions.

About the last one, he said: “Clayton made a great play. But that’s why you’ve got to shot fake and get into the paint. Two’s fine.”

After Alijah Martin made two free throws to put Florida ahead 64-63 — its first lead since 8-6 — the Gators lured Sharp into a triple-team in the corner, where Will Richard got him to dribble the ball off his leg and out of bounds.

Florida made one free throw on the next possession to set up the finale. The ball first went to L.J. Cryer, who led the Cougars with 19 points. Blanketed by Richard, he threw to Sharp, who was moving to spot up for a three. Clayton ran at him and leaped, and once Sharp left his feet, he had no choice but to let the ball go or get his shot blocked.

Sampson, who designed a defense that held Florida under 70 points for only the second time this season, looked on in shock.

The Gators (36-4) trailed by 12 in the second half. They led this game for a total of 64 seconds, including the last 46.

“Our motto is, we all can go,” Clayton said. “We’ve got a team full of guys that can go. It ain’t just about me. My team held me down until I was able to put the ball in the basket. Shout-out to them boys.”

Richard had 18 points to keep the Gators in it, and they won their third overall title and first since Billy Donovan went back-to-back in 2006-07.

This time, it’s third-year coach Golden bringing the title back to Gainesville, which celebrated a win on one of college sports’ grandest stages for the first time since Tim Tebow was playing quarterback for the football team in 2008.

Instead of the 69-year-old Sampson becoming the oldest coach to win the title, the 39-year-old Golden became the youngest since N.C. State’s Jim Valvano in 1983 to win it all. Valvano was 37.

The Cougars (35-5) and Sampson were denied their first championship and ended up in the same spot as those Phi Slama Jama teams from the 1980s — oh-so-close in second place.

Clayton — who scored at least 30 points in the previous two games, averaged 24.6 through the first five games of the tournament and almost singlehandedly outscored UConn and Texas Tech down the stretch of March Madness wins — finished with one three-pointer and, before that, a pair of three-point plays.

This was a defensive brawl, and for most of the night, Clayton got the worst of it. He was 0-for-4 from the field without a point through the first half. Met at the top of the circle, then double-teamed and trapped when necessary, he didn’t score until he hit two free throws with 14:57 left.

“Obviously, it’s not a great strategy to fall behind a great team like Houston, but we made some big-time defensive plays down the stretch to win,” Golden said.

This gut-wrenching loss came two nights after the Cougars fashioned a wild comeback of their own, rallying from 14 down with about eight minutes remaining against Duke.

All three Final Four games were decided down the stretch, none by more than six.

“When it gets down to the two best teams left,” Sampson said, “it’s not going to be easy for either team.”