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The Breakfast Buffet: March Madness Edition

Here’s today’s installment of “The Breakfast Buffet”, a daily column that can be found here every single morning getting you caught up to date on everything that’s happened from the day/night before and everything that’s going to happen in the next 24 hours.

Things To Sample

Walter Clayton Jr. won the game for Florida with his defense
Two days after scoring 34 points in the national semifinals against Auburn, the Gators’ All-American guard made his biggest impact in a non scoring role. With Florida holding a two-point lead on the game’s final possession, Clayton completely neutralized Houston’s Emmanuel Sharp and didn’t allow Sharp or anyone else on the Cougars’ roster to even get a shot off. He finished with 11 points, seven assists, and five rebounds all while making a big statement to players everywhere: You don’t need to always score to have a major impact on the final result of a game.

Florida took a major step as a program with its third national title
Are the Gators officially a blue blood? They’re pretty close. With Monday night’s win, Florida tied Villanova as programs that own three national titles. The only programs that have more are Kansas, Indiana, Duke, North Carolina, UConn, Kentucky, and UCLA. It feels significant that the Gators were able to win a national title post-Billy Donovan, who prior to Monday was the only head coach to ever win a national title at Florida.

The 2025 Final Four was one for the ages
Remember when people were complaining about this year’s NCAA Tournament? This year’s rendition of the Final Four produced three compelling games and ended in dramatic fashion as Florida erased a 12-point second half deficit to beat Houston 65-63 on Monday night in the national title game. In nearly 20 years of covering college basketball at the national level, I’ve never seen three games in the Final Four as compelling as the three that occurred over the past few days in San Antonio.

On The Side

  • 39-year old Todd Golden is the youngest head coach to win the national title since Jim Valvano led NC State to immortality in 1983.
  • One of the most amazing parts of Florida’s run to a championship? Prior to this season, neither Golden nor this nucleus of players had ever won a game in the NCAA Tournament.
  • Florida trailed by nine or more points in the second half of each of its last three NCAA Tournament games and still wound up winning the 2025 national title.
  • Houston’s last three appearances in the Final Four — 1983, 1984, and 2025 — all ended with a loss in the national title game.
  • After tallying 22 points and six assists in the Sweet 16 against Purdue, Milos Uzan’s production level for Houston dipped significantly. The 6-4 point guard scored a combined 19 points and only handed six assists in the Cougars’ final three games of the 2025 NCAA Tournament.

Leftovers