The Alex and Tommy Show wasn't perfect, but it sure was close

Haugh (10) and Condon (21) battle for a held ball on the Iowa game's most controversial play (Photo by Chris Spears)

TAMPA – They walked down the hallway of Benchmark International Arena in a three-man embrace. As the man in the middle, Todd Golden was the prop that Alex Condon on the right and Tommy Haugh on the left leaned on. Their heads tilted onto Golden’s shoulders, the tears of bitter defeat still wet on young, smooth faces unable to grow a decent mustache yet alone grow a full beard.

Golden’s arms tugged at their waistlines as they walked almost in lockstep. Their arms squeezed their coach tightly as they slowly made their way to the interview waiting room. Once inside they had to wait nearly 10 insufferable minutes while Ben McCollum answered the same question rephrased a couple dozen times by adoring midwestern reporters about how the Iowa Hawkeyes had pulled off a shocking 73-72 upset of the Florida Gators in the second round of the NCAA South Regional.

The wait was a cruel necessity. The NCAA brings out its vanquished warriors to answer questions after clutch your heart losses. Sometimes, like Sunday night, the wait is extended, made more painful by the words of a winning coach enjoying his moment in the sun. Once at the podium, Haugh could barely speak. He didn’t want to be there. He was still wiping tears from his swollen eyes. Neither did Condon who was better answering questions, but not by much.

Their voices barely above whisper level trembled.

What could they say? Not only did they roll snake eyes in this love-hate affair that we have with this thing called the NCAA Tournament, but their careers as Florida Gators probably reached a conclusion. The two of them are juniors, both with another year of eligibility that would allow them to come back for a chance to restore Florida’s tarnished glory after the Gators became another brick in that wall of teams that couldn’t do two-in-a-row. Duke (1991-92), Florida (2006-07) and UConn (2023-24) are the only three teams to repeat as national champs since that incomprehensible run of seven straight national titles by UCLA from 1967-73.

No one will ever win seven in a row again. Simply going back-to-back is a remarkable enough accomplishment. Nobody said it would be easy. If it were it would happen more often than three times since 1973.

So instead of leaving Florida as repeat champs, Condon and Haugh will depart having sandwiched the 2025 national title between a one-and-done NCAA appearance in 2024 and this year’s two-and-through that came to a screeching halt Sunday night. They will always be Gators, but their future basketball games will be played in NBA arenas. Haugh has played his way into lottery talk for the June NBA draft. Condon, whose draft stock seemingly tanked after the Gators lost to Auburn, has become a comet streaking across the February and March sky ever since. He’s played his way back into the first round.

If they are first rounders, which it seems they will be, they have to go. Have to.

First round contracts in the NBA are multi-year and fully guaranteed. Haugh is looking at generational wealth if he is among the first 15 players chosen, which he is almost certain to be in June. Condon’s first contract won’t be as lucrative but still worth millions and still fully guaranteed.

You go to college to prepare for life as an adult. Not everybody who leaves college will be an adult and a microscopic few – usually those bigger, taller or faster – get to leave with the promise of becoming big time depositors in Millburn Drysdale’s Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills. Haugh is 6-9, 215 pounds and this instant burst of energy who has that Larry Bird-like intangible of figuring out what the team needs most from him and then delivering every night he’s dressed out. He has skills that have been prodded along by this relentless work ethic. Scouts see a young man willing to be developed. Condon is listed at 6-11. He’s seven feet tall and possessed with passing and ball handling talent to die for. You can’t teach tall nor can you teach the kind of athleticism that is built into his DNA. With a mother who was an Olympic swimmer and a father who was an Australian Rules Football star, it’s obvious that few if any of his genes drowned in the pool.

Both of them can score, handle the ball, rebound and play defense. They can grab a ball off the backboard, put the ball on the deck and start the break. Al Horford and Joakim Noah used to do that, too. Haugh has turned himself into a reliable 3-point shooter. Inside 10 feet, Condon has moves and a floater of a shot that has become deadly.

Both of them have flaws, but that’s true of everyone who suits up. What separates them from the pack is how they have embraced this concept of hard work makes you better. There may be guys out there with more raw talent, but you can be assured there aren’t two with their willingness to be coached and pushed to find their limits.

Plus there aren’t many out there with such a winning pedigree. As freshmen they helped transform Florida from the 16-17 team in 2023 that was a first round TKO at the hands of UCF to 24-12, reaching the SEC Tournament championship game and first round of the NCAA. As sophomores, Condon started and Haugh came off the bench as invaluable cogs in Florida’s 36-4 NCAA championship wheel. They were on the floor for their defense on the last stop of Houston that required five guys, each one executing the assignment flawlessly to preserve a championship win. On the final play when Emanuel Sharp left the ball rolling on the floor after Walter Clayton Jr. did a fly-by to keep him from shooting, it was Condon who made the head first dive, beating Ja'vier Francis to the ball, securing the national championship.

Last year they had important roles that made the team click. This year they were stars. Haugh made first team All-SEC and either second or third team All-America on all the reputable teams by averaging 17.1 points and 6.1 rebounds. In the game with Iowa he had 19 points, six rebounds, two assists and two steals. Condon should have been first team All-SEC but the coaches voted him third team and the AP to the second. He averaged 15.1 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game. In the season finale he had 21 points, five rebounds, seven assists and a steal.

Not bad for a couple of former who-dat recruits.

Haugh was Richmond-bound before Florida offered thanks to former assistant (now Columbia head coach) Kevin Hovde. Hovde, who played and coached at Richmond prior to Florida, was on Haugh when he was a skinny kid at New Oxford, Pennsylvania, which was before he started getting noticed at The Perkiomen School, a private prep school between Philadelphia and Allentown. When the Gators said come on down he did without hesitation.

Condon is sort of a bonus baby. Todd Golden was scouting the Nike Global Summit for Rueben Chinyelu when he noticed Condon playing for the Australian team. Chinyelu signed and spent his freshman year at Washington State. In serious need of someone tall – Golden’s first year at Florida was a vertically challenged team – Golden took a chance and Condon said yes. The bonus was two-fold. First of all, Condon proved capable of playing Division I basketball at a high level. Secondly, Chinyelu came to Florida after all, this time in the summer of 2024.

So, two chances taken, both of which panned out far better than anyone might have imagined when Golden first signed them. And now, unless forces that we cannot even comprehend intervene, they will be leaving.

As they sat on the podium Sunday night, both of them attempting to answer questions with broken hearts, it was clear that what happened against Iowa had the effect of a 9-inch stiletto plunging deep into their hearts multiple times. It wasn’t just losing a ball game. No, this was painful for reasons that go far beyond a W or an L in the standings.

They love Todd Golden. They love the assistant coaches and support staff that has worked with them three years at Florida. They love their teammates, who really are like extended family. They love the University of Florida, love Gainesville and the state of Florida where they go fishing in a boat they share when they have time away from basketball. There is that old Southern saying "twin brothers from different mothers." That's Tommy and Alex.

But the chance of a lifetime awaits them now and Sunday night they knew this was the last rodeo. When they hear the call of the NBA first round they will answer yes.

It would take a miracle of feeding the 5,000 proportions for them to be back for one more chance to earn another national championship ring. Don’t count on it happening but as the immortal Lloyd Christmas once said after getting a one-in-a-zillion type of answer to his question, “So you’re telling me there’s a chance?”

A chance. There’s always a chance. A billion or so years ago – give or take a million here or there – a meteor struck the earth north of Starke, Florida. Where it exploded on impact became Kingsley Lake, the greatest water ski lake known to mankind. Three miles across in any direction, 90 feet deep at its deepest point and white sand on the bottom of crystal clear water. Another Kingsley Lake event could happen again. There's always a chance but don’t count on being alive when it happens a million or so years from now.

The late, great Dan Jenkins once wrote, “A man can travel far and wide – all the way to shame or glory and back again – but he ain’t never gonna find nothin’ in this old world that’s dead solid perfect.”

Dead solid perfect would be Tommy and Alex coming back for one more go at it. Unfortunately, there’s nothing dead solid perfect.  Having those guys as Gators for three years was close, though.