The pinnacle of March Madness arrives on Monday, with the Florida Gators set to take on the Houston Cougars in San Antonio for the 2025 NCAA Tournament's national championship game. All eyes will be on the Alamodome as two of the top-seeded teams in the Big Dance collide for all the marbles in the culmination of the 2024-25 men's college basketball season.
Make no mistake, this epic promises to be an all-timer, with a fresh young coach leading his team against a grizzled veteran — both looking for their first national titles. In one corner, you have one of the most prolific offenses in the nation with Florida; the other corner features the stingiest defense in the land with Houston.
On Sunday ahead of the action, Todd Golden spoke with the sports media and shared his thoughts on what is the peak of his young coaching career and what he expects to see from his opponent on Monday night. Take a look below at everything he had to offer.
READ MORE: Gators Wire's expert predictions for Florida vs Houston in NCAA Finals
On Florida's scouting of Houston
"They're the best defensive team in America. They have just a great identity as a program of just being both physically and mentally tough. That's something we've tried to pride ourselves on this year. Houston I would say is a great example of that.
"Not only this year but Coach Sampson and his program have done it for a long time now. Talk about resilience and toughness, I feel like they showed that in a big-time way last night. I think they were down 14 at one point, down seven with a minute and a half to go. Never quit, never gave up. Didn't hang their heads. Made some big-time winning plays down the stretch to take that game away from Duke.
"I think your comparison is right now. I think Tennessee is a very good comparison in terms of their culture and their identity and toughness, the way they defend. We'll look at that film a little bit for us as a way to attack it a little bit. Houston obviously is exceptional. It's going to be a big challenge for us tomorrow night."
On deciding to move Clayton to point guard
"He did a really nice job for us off the ball last year playing with Zyon Pullin, being a secondary handler, play-maker. We saw some really great examples of his ability to make plays out of the ball screen. Watching him play pickup, pushing the ball in transition, he showed to us and proved to us that he could do that, become the primary ball handler, lead the team.
"I think he's done an incredible job of getting himself in great shape. He works on his game a ton. Having someone that's such an elite threat to score with the ball in his hands at all times obviously makes everybody else so dangerous as well. A lot of questions were asked last summer and this fall if we would have enough ball handling on this team, enough play making.
"Obviously, Walter has quieted those concerns and has led us to the national championship game."
Is it fair to call Houston-Florida a contrast of style?
"Yeah, it's funny, analytically, us and Houston, on KenPom, ...
