Houston Falls To Florida In The 2025 NCAA Championship, 65-63
And this time, Houston was not the tougher team.
The first half of the championship game between Houston and Florida was the ugliest half of basketball in the Finals since the snooze fest between Indiana and Maryland in 2002.
The halftime score was just 31-28 and it was sort of the basketball equivalent of hand-to-hand combat.
Fortunately, the second half was more riveting. As they have done more than once lately, down 12, Florida mounted a comeback. Down 42-30 with 16:24, it looked like Houston might be able to mug the Gators much as they did Duke.
But Florida pushed their way back into it, tying the game at 62-62 with 2:18 to play.
After being shut out in the first half, Walter Clayton put up 11 in the second half, but one of the unsung heroes of this game was Thomas Haugh, who really came to play. That kid was great Monday night.
Unfortunately for Houston, Emanuel Sharp had a couple of tough plays late. With :26 left, he drove and a Florida defender knocked the ball out of his hands and bounced it out of bounds off of his leg. Then, with time running out, he tried a shot but Clayton rushed out at him, and Sharp dropped the ball rather than have the shot possibly blocked. He couldn’t pick it up again without getting a turnover, and was forced to wait for someone else.
As it turned out, that someone was Gator Alex Condon, who pounced on it and all Sharp could do was watch as time ran out.
It was a tough way for that guy to lose because like the rest of his team, he’s shown a lot of heart, but it wasn’t meant to be.
We thought that the end here might faintly echo the 1983 classic between Houston and Jim Valvano’s NC State, but in the end, the Cougars went out not with a bang, but with a whimper.
We didn’t much like losing to Houston, much less how Duke lost, but as a native son of this state, we were pulling for Kelvin Sampson and we’re sure that Lumberton, Robeson County and the entire Lumbee nation were as well. And if you have to lose, it’s better to lose to the eventual champion.
Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. Congratulations to the Florida Gators.
By the way, assuming that he doesn’t decide to leave, next fall, the Gators will introduce the nation to a 7-9 redshirt freshman, Olivier Rioux. He’s not exactly a Manute Bol stick-figure - Rioux already weighs 305. If he can play, he could be one of the greatest defensive forces in recent years. And what do you do with a guy who can dunk without jumping?