The Florida Gators won their first national championship since 2007 Monday night, rallying to topple the Houston Cougars 65-63. The Gators won for several reasons, foremost among them an absurd level of talent across a balanced lineup in which five different players averaged at least 9.9 points.
But what cannot be denied is the Gators opportunism. When given an inch, Florida took a mile. And the 2025 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament was a fire sale of space.
No team made more out of big deficits than Florida. In the Elite Eight, the Gators trailed Texas Tech by nine points with three minutes to play. They scored 18 points in that final stretch to turn a four percent win probability into a Final Four berth. They trailed Auburn by nine points early in the second half of their Final Four win. Houston led by a dozen at the first media timeout of the second half. The Cougars were up one with two minutes to play. This is how their last six possessions unfolded:
- missed three (blocked)
- missed jumper
- turnover
- turnover
- turnover
- turnover
With the game on the line, Florida rose to the occasion and Houston did not. This was especially cruel for Houston, who suffered the same fate it bestowed upon Duke two days earlier. The Cougars had a 1.5 percent win probability with 8:17 left in the national semifinal. It was up to 2.9 percent as the Blue Devils led 64-55 with just over two minutes to play. But Houston clamped down, forced the ACC champions into two turnovers and two missed shots in the closing seconds and escaped with a win.
Indeed, this was the tournament of collapse. Unforced errors doomed teams across the bracket. Florida capitalized on its composure and escaped an embarrassment of its own making when holding off a battered UConn team in the round of 32.
Texas Tech lived to see its matchup with the Gators after Arkansas blew a 13 point lead in the final five minutes of their Sweet 16 matchup (two percent win probability). Vanderbilt biffed a 12-point second half lead. Texas's luck evaporated in the First Four alongside a 10-point second half lead vs. Xavier. Texas A&M's Sweet 16 dream died when a 57-47 lead somehow became a 91-79 loss to Michigan. In all, Florida bucked an otherwise disturbing SEC trend.
However, it wasn't just the SEC that lulled its fans into false senses of security and dreams of grandeur before taking it all away. No. 1 seeds Houston and Duke were marked for failure in a tournament that demanded it. That made it fitting as Emanuel Sharp left his feet, pulled his shot back down and was forced to watch as his national championship dream tick away with every bounce of
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