Part VI: A journey to a national title; Playing the disrespect card
- Franz Beard
- Apr 27, 2025
- 10 min read
Updated: Apr 28, 2025
A few short hours after the Gators owned Nashville and the Southeastern Conference, Todd Golden is putting on his happy face. Sure, he’s happy the Gators are a No. 1 seed for the NCAA Tournament since that has been a team goal, but Florida is No. 4 among the top seeded teams. It’s almost as if the fix was in. Were bracketologists Jerry Palm of CBS and Joe Lunardi of ESPN clairvoyant or did they have insider info about how the NCAA was going to seed the tournament teams? Both of them had Auburn as the overall No. 1 followed by Duke, Houston and then Florida.
The outward Golden does the politically correct thing and gives the world the we’re just gracious to be there song and dance. He does his best to sound humble. Inwardly, he has to be seething. If the Southeastern Conference is the strongest college basketball league the world has ever seen, then why aren’t the Gators, who just pillaged and plundered Missouri, Alabama and Tennessee to win the SEC Tournament the overall No. 1? After all, the Gators have won six in a row and 12 of their last 13 games, along the way while beating 10 teams that are in the NCAA field. Among those 12 victims is a road win at Auburn when the Tigers were the No. 1 ranked team in the country. Florida is the only team in the country with two wins over No. 1 teams. Auburn lost to Tennessee in the SEC Tournament semifinals a day before the Gators ground the Vols to a pulp to win the championship.
The Gators should have been the overall No. 1 seed which would have made them top seed in the South going through Lexington and Atlanta. Instead, that’s Auburn’s path to the Final Four in San Antonio. Duke’s will run through Raleigh and Newark while Houston’s will run through Wichita and Indianapolis. Florida, on the other hand, will have to go through Raleigh and then fly cross country to San Francisco. Additionally, as the No. 1 seed in the West Regional, the Gators will have the toughest gauntlet of games. No other No. 1 will have to face a team of UConn’s caliber in the second round.
Ultimately, the toughness of Florida’s journey to a national championship will strengthen the Gators. Not only are they the best team in the country, but they will prove to be the toughest by a wide margin.
It all starts in Raleigh with West Regional No. 16 seed Norfolk State.
March 20, 2025, Raleigh, North Carolina
It is cold, windy and rainy in Raleigh as ace photographer Chris Spears and I check in at the Lenovo Center to pick up our credentials. The media room is guarded by a graduate of Boone High School in Orlando who has been living in the Raleigh area for 30 or so years. He confides in me that he will be quietly pulling for the Gators but he’s been told to maintain an aura of neutrality.
“Your secret’s good with me,” I tell him. He grins and whispers “thanks” back to me.
The Lenovo Center is home to North Carolina State as well as the NHL Carolina Hurricanes. In the media room there are several photos of past NC State championship teams. One, in particular, catches my attention. It’s a photo of David Thompson grabbing a rebound away from the late, great Owen Brown of Maryland. John Lucas (Maryland) and Mark Moeller (NCSU) trail the play. I remember the game well. It was the 1974 ACC Championship game in Greensboro won by North Carolina State 103-100 in overtime. Experts say it is the greatest college basketball game ever played. I can’t disagree.
Upon closer scrutiny I pay attention to the writers on press row in the background of the photo. Most of the writers in that photo have passed away. I point as I go down the row and name names. I stop when I get to this young guy with long hair and a beard, then the sports editor of the Rocky Mount Telegram.
“I was young and skinny back then,” I tell Chris, who replies, “What happened?”
A couple of hours later, Siri and the navigation on our rented Chrysler Pacfica van are having a bad day at the office. We are taken on the scenic route that takes us (twice) by old Dorton Arena. There was a time when Dorton was one of three arenas where the Carolina Cougars of the ABA played (Charlotte Coliseum and Greensboro Coliseum were the others). I still remember watching Bob Verga fire away from the time he got off the bus with that red, white and blue basketball. A few years later the Cougars moved to Denver where they became the Nuggets.
The tour of the countryside isn’t a complete disaster. We wind up at The Angus Barn where we have no reservations but are led to the upstairs lounge where the steaks are world class and the service extraordinary. This place is a must any time you visit Raleigh.
March 21, 2025, Raleigh, North Carolina
In the first 11:02 of Florida’s first round game with Norfolk State, the Gators play like their hair is on fire. With Walter Clayton Jr. scoring 13 of their first 19 points, the Gators bolt out to a 35-11 lead that expands to 53-21. That’s when the Gators pack it in. They don’t score in the last 3:15 of the half and Norfolk State finishes on an 11-0 run.
Todd Golden is steaming as he goes to the locker room.
In the Florida locker room after the Gators’ 95-69 first round win over Norfolk State, Alijah Martin is asked what Golden told the Gators at halftime.
“You see the board over there?” Martin asks. It’s a white board with writing on it, but it has a bad case of varicose veins thanks to Golden’s fist.
Tommy Haugh, who thinks Golden might have set an F-bomb record, says, “We don’t want to talk about it. We needed it though. We really needed it.”
Golden explains, “I think we played exceptionally well for the first 15 minutes then kind of exhaled … Then when we took a little bit of a breath we actually had some bad turnovers that led to transition run-outs that gave them a little juice, a little confidence.”
Once the Gators lost their mojo they never got it back. Norfolk State played the Gators evenly in the final 20 minutes, closing to within 18 with 9:26 to go, but the outcome was never in jeopardy. Still it was uninspiring. On paper a 95-69 win has all the appearances of complete domination but in reality it was a sloppy game, far from the statement Golden hoped the Gators would make.
“Regardless of the final score we just weren’t as sharp as we expect to be and what we feel like we need to be if we want to make a run in this tournament,” Golden said.
For portions of this game, the Gators played about as well as they have at any point during the season. They scored with ease because they made the extra pass to find open shooters. They dominated the backboards and that led easy points in transition. Defensively, they crowded Norfolk State shooters and ran them off the 3-point line.
But then they got lazy. The second half Gators, who outscored Norfolk State 42-37 were very average.
It wasn’t a discouraging performance because the Gators won by 26 points and there were bright spots. The Gators shot nearly 50 percent overall (29-60 for 48.3 percent) and they knocked down 10 3-pointers. The Gators outrebounded Norfolk State 41-28. The Gators had an extraordinary 20 assist on 29 made shots. At the foul line, the Gators made 27-33 shots.
Those are all good numbers but they hide the fact that the Gators could have and should have played much better.
Walter Clayton Jr. led four players in double figures with 23 points. Alijah Martin scored 17, Tommy Haugh 13 and Alex Condon 12. Will Richard didn’t score double figures (8 points) but he contributed four rebounds, five assists and a steal. Micah Handlogten and Rueben Chinyelu each had six points and eight rebounds.
It was far from perfect, but it was a win. One down, five to go.
March 22, 2025, Raleigh, North Carolina
No games in Raleigh on this day, just press conferences. There will be two games Sunday, Duke vs. Baylor in an NCAA East game and Florida vs. UConn in a West game. The media believes Duke will blow the doors off Baylor. Consensus is that Florida will lose to UConn if the Gators are unable to sustain their intensity for a full 40 minutes.
Todd Golden concurs with the thought that the Gators have to play 40 minutes with intensity and focus. UConn isn’t the same UConn that has won consecutive national championships, but the Huskies are formidable because they play ferocious defense. This is a physical, experienced team that Golden believes is very capable of getting back to the Final Four. For the Gators to beat them, it will take a consistent, sustained intense effort.
Golden plays the disrespect card again.
“They have multiple players that have won national championships that expect to win this time of year,” Golden said. “For us, this is a relatively new position for us with the chance to advance to play in the Sweet 16. It gives us an opportunity to keep the chip on our shoulder. I do still think the main people that think we're going to advance is the people in our locker room. We've got to make sure that we play that way tomorrow.”
Dinner is with Kevin Brockway of the Gainesville Sun at The Capital City Chop House, which just happens to be 200 yards or so from our hotel. This is where we intended to go Thursday when Siri was dazed and confused. Steaks are good and the house salad is huge and loaded with something other than lettuce.
Over dinner we talk about the Sunday noon matchup with UConn. A rock fight is expected but we are of the opinion the Gators will show up with focus and intensity from the opening tip.
March 23, 2025, Raleigh, North Carolina
Suppose they gave a Wrestlemania event and a basketball game broke out? Well, that’s what happened when the Gators faced off with UConn, winner of 13 straight NCAA games and the last two national championships. From the opening tip until the clock struck zero in Florida’s 77-75 win, UConn was determined to force the Gators into a test of physicality.
“We dragged them into a game that was the only way to give ourselves a chance to win,” UConn coach Danny Hurley said.
This is how Tennessee beat the Gators in Knoxville. The Vols bludgeoned the Gators for 40 minutes. The zebra crew let that game evolve into a bare knuckles affair that the Vols won by 20 points. As physical as Tennessee was in that game, UConn took it to a new level and the zebra crew of Tommy Morrissey, Ron Groover and Courtney Green were complicit.
The Huskies might have gotten away with stealing a game against the region’s No. 1 seed except for one minor little detail. In constructing the Florida roster, Todd Golden had the players to deal with anything an opponent threw at them. UConn’s defense got the Gators out of sorts in the first half when the Huskies slugged their way to a 31-31 tie.
“I thought we had some uncharacteristic errors in the first half and not just with ball handling and turnovers but with rebounding,” Golden said. “Offensive execution … we weren’t ourselves the way we needed to be in the first half.”
UConn forged to a lead that hovered around 4-to-6 points for most of the second half. The Huskies had ample opportunities to break the game open, but they couldn’t hit the big shot that would have opened the floodgates. Florida made just enough shots to hang with UConn, but it was clear the Gators needed a spark to wake them up.
The spark the Gators needed came in the form of dunks on back-to-back possessions by Rueben Chinyelu, the second coming with 8:45 left in the game. Though the Gators still trailed by four (52-48) but those two power plays had the effect of a jolt of electricity through the Gators.
When Walter Clayton Jr. drilled a 3-pointer that narrowed the UConn lead to 52-51 with 7:37 left, the entire demeanor of the Gators on the court seemed to change. From that point onward, this became Florida’s game.
Offensively the Gators got into a rhythm. Defensively the Gators got stops. At both ends of the court the Gators seized the momentum.
“We made winning play after winning play down the stretch in the last six minutes after about 34 minutes of it not looking like it was going to go our way,” Golden said.
Throughout the SEC portion of the season the Gators were at their best when they got into a comeback groove. This would be a recurring theme in the NCAA Tournament when the Gators executed a 12-point turnaround, going from six down to six up. The difference-maker against UConn was Clayton who scored 13 of Florida’s 22 points during a run that took UF from a 52-48 deficit to a 70-64 lead.
The Gators got a 62-61 lead by running a curl play for Clayton, who hit a three with hands in his face with 2:57 left in the game. He hit a pair of free throws with 1:45 left and off the exact same curl play, nailed another three for a 70-64 Florida lead with 1:07 left in the game.
“We trust him to take and make big shots when we need them,” Will Richard said.
From six down to six up, a 12-point swing that was a sign of things to come down the road.
The dagger that plunged into the Huskies’ hearts came with 40 seconds left when Alijah Martin picked off an offensive rebound on a missed free throw by Alex Condon. On the right side of the lane, Condon’s miss caromed into Martin’s hands. He took one dribble, elevated and dunked for a 72-64 lead.
“I can’t remember exactly what happened but he [Martin] somehow caught it with nobody within 10 feet of him around the rim and he was able to dunk it,” Golden said.
UConn was able to make it close in the final minute, but the shift in momentum gave the Gators enough of a cushion that UConn couldn’t overcome.
It takes a 6-0 record in the NCAA Tournament to win a national championship. The Gators escaped Raleigh with two but most important they showed that no matter the style of play, no matter how physical it gets, they could adapt to the circumstances and win. Merely good teams fold under the pressure of a UConn on the big stage but Florida showed true greatness. The moment and the circumstances weren’t big enough to swallow up Florida’s drive to prove the tournament committee got it wrong by seeding the Gators No. 4.
The Gators felt disrespected and were out to prove they were in deed the best team in the country.
Tomorrow: It’s off to the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight. When the Gators depart San Francisco, they take their hearts with them.
That was one of the worst officiated games I have ever watched. It was if the officials were told to allow UConn to hammer Gator players without getting called for a foul