Florida makes push all the way to NCAA title game, will face Houston team that pushes others around

SAN ANTONIO — Florida has gone from being picked to finish sixth in the rugged Southeastern Conference to pushing all the way to the final Monday night of the season.

Now the Gators face a Houston team that just pushes teams around with its suffocating defense.

Big 12 champion Houston and Florida will meet in the national championship game in the Alamodome to wrap up only the second NCAA Tournament when all the No. 1 seeds made it to the Final Four.

Still, this title game matchup is quite a surprise, and features two teams that haven’t been this far in a long time.

The Cougars (35-4) won their semifinal game Saturday night by overcoming a 14-point deficit in the final eight minutes for a 70-67 stunner over Duke and freshman sensation Cooper Flagg, the AP national player of the year.

That was after Florida (35-4), with AP All-America guard Walter Clayton Jr. scoring 34 points, only had to come back from eight points down after halftime in its 79-73 win over SEC rival Auburn.

Houston, which has an 18-game winning streak, is in its first national championship game since back-to-back appearances in 1983 and 1984 during the Phi Slama Jamma era.

This is Florida’s first since winning its back-to-back titles in 2006 and 2007 under Billy Donovan. The Gators, with third-year coach Todd Golden, have an 11-game winning streak since a loss at Georgia at the end of February.

The Cougars have won 30 of their last 31 games since two overtime losses over three days in a tournament in Las Vegas at the end of November. Their only loss since was 82-81 in OT on Feb. 1 to Texas Tech, an Elite Eight team. Their other loss this season: 74-69 to Auburn in the second game.

Coach Kelvin Sampson and Houston also made the Final Four four years ago, losing to eventual champion Baylor in the national semifinal in the NCAA tourney in a bubble in Indianapolis because of the COVID-19 pandemic. L.J. Cryer, now Houston’s leading scorer, was a freshman for the Bears on that title team.

Now the Cougars will play for a championship after being the first Texas team to make a Final Four held in the Lone Star State.

Florida entered Saturday’s semifinals ranked No. 2 in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efficiency by scoring 129.1 points per 100 possessions, and Clayton had his second 30-point game in a row. He is the leading scorer in this NCAA tourney with 123 points (24.6 per game) and has made 18 of 32 shots (.563) with 8 of 16 3-pointers the past two games.

Houston was ranked first in adjusted defensive efficiency at 87.4 points per 100 possessions, and was one of only four schools — all the teams that made the Final Four — to rank among the KenPom.com top 10 for both offense and defense. The Cougars were at 123.9 points to rank 10th offensively.