SAN ANTONIO — Cigar smoke wafted around the Alamodome a few minutes after the final buzzer sounded, emanating from parts unknown as the Florida Gators ran down the steps from the court.
The players moved methodically along the baseline as they gave high fives to a delirious student section, all of whom quickly overcame the disbelief of a frantic final seconds that gave the program its third national title in men’s basketball by stealing one, quite literally in the case of forward Alex Condon on the final play, from the Houston Cougars, 65–63.
As they made their way back onto the court to cut down the nets, performing the Gator chomp all along the way, they passed SEC commissioner Greg Sankey. He stood there stoically looking out into the crowd before eventually flashing a thumbs up and letting out a sly grin to his wife, Cathy.
Sankey is a modest New Yorker—for the most part—when he wants to understatedly brag about his league in interviews or behind the scenes, but he can toss that to the side after Monday night.
He can puff his chest out from now until next March. Though he wouldn’t get caught doing it, a sheepish victory lap may be in order.
The best conference in the country this basketball season reigns supreme in the end.
“It feels like [validation] to a certain extent, but if you asked me if we lost, I would say we had a great year no matter what. You go back to November and December, we won so many nonconference games we set ourselves up to get 14 teams in,” Sankey says. “They’ve been through some hard stuff if you play in our league. It’s not about what I think though, it’s about what happened on the floor.”
“I think you just saw us break through this year, but it’s been years in the making and there’s a lot of factors that have led to it,” adds Garth Glissman, SEC associate commissioner for men’s basketball. “At the league office, our job is to serve our teams. To create a level playing field from a scheduling standpoint, from an officiating standpoint, from a marketing and promotion standpoint, so that ultimately the cream can rise to the top. And our players and coaches and schools deserve all the credit for this historic season.”
It can be easy to distill SEC dominance in men’s hoops this season, with a title capping off a multiyear rebuilding process and renewed investment on the hard court from each of the conference’s 16 schools.
A record 14 programs went dancing in 2025. The Auburn Tigers were an easy selection as the No. 1 overall seed. Florida, an early favorite to win it all after making it through as SEC tournament champions, was the only one left standing.
Far harder to make sense of is what happened on the court on Monday night, a frantic final 40 minutes that became the product of yet another comeback from the Gators—which had mounted four of them in their six NCAA tournament games, including three straight from down nine or more points. They trailed by as many as a dozen in the second half to the hard-charging Cougars and survived a relatively cold shooting night (39.6% from the field and 6-of-24 from deep) that saw them fail to make a field goal in the final three minutes.
“The way we won tonight, it’s just an exclamation mark on the year,” said guard Walter Clayton Jr., the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player. “It’s great to win like that, knowing the fact that we’re a brotherhood together, and we’ve been picking each other up all year.”
Clayton has usually been the one picking his team up, not the other way around—even if that’s what transpired against Houston. The guard from Lake Wales, Fla., by way of the Iona Gaels, was far from his usual self after scoring or assisting on every basket in the final four minutes of the Elite Eight against the Texas Tech Red Raiders and in the Final Four versus Auburn.
Against Houston in the highest pressure of games, Florida’s all-time leading scorer in an NCAA tournament took 25 minutes to score his first points. There were just under eight minutes left in the game before he made a field goal, pumping his fists in unison after sliding into the basket stanchion for an and-one that tied the game at 48–48 and unleashed a back-and-forth sprint to the finish where neither side led by more than three.
“Our guys have been really good all year staying the course. In this tournament, especially after the first round, every team you play is going to be really, really, really good. You have to have the mental toughness to be able to withstand a little adversity,” Florida coach Todd Golden said, shards of a net still around his neck after cutting it down just after “One Shining Moment” played. “We didn’t point fingers, didn’t start to try to make hero plays, gambling defensively. We got rewarded because of that toughness that we displayed.”
Golden might be in line for the biggest comeback of any in orange and blue this season even if he did not speak directly about a dark spot on his résumé during the NCAA tournament that he won’t be able to completely erase in the eyes of some.
In November, just as the season was just getting underway, a Title IX complaint was filed against the 39-year-old regarding alleged sexual harassment. The school investigated it for months before determining in January that there was no evidence to indicate the alleged harassment “occurred within the university program or activity.” It was later dismissed just as conference play began in earnest.
“I’m just a piece of this puzzle. I’ve been able to put together an incredible staff and recruit great student-athletes over these last three years,” said Golden, who became the youngest coach to win the national title since Jim Valvano in 1983, coincidentally also against Houston. “We’ve stayed the course all year and worked really hard. My best answer is I’m just really proud. I’m proud to be the head coach of Florida. I’m proud of the way our players performed. I’m proud of the way our staff prepared our guys to become national champions.”
“He’s always been honest with me. He’s always been open. We’ve had a great relationship from day one,” Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin says. “From the very first time we had a conversation, it was an easy conversation. I know he’s a guy we can trust. But I was really impressed just the way he blocked out distractions early on and focused on this team and what he could control.”
It wasn’t a complete circle-the-wagon type of moment for the Gators, but it certainly brought the team together as they doubled down on focusing just on basketball. The results spoke for themselves after that, following up their first loss of the season at the Kentucky Wildcats by trouncing the then No. 1 team in the country in Gainesville, Fla., a 73–43 victory over the Tennessee Volunteers that allowed many to think that winning rings was actually realistic.
“We’re like, O.K., this is happening. Not something that you want to hear have happen in the program that you’re in, but we’re like, we’re just gonna stay the course,” sophomore center Rueben Chinyelu says. “We didn’t panic. It wouldn’t get to our head. We just knew that, O.K., this happened. Sometimes the roads are bumpy, stuff happens. You just have to know what the big picture is, which is making it to and winning the national championship.”
Bumpy is certainly one way to sum up the final few minutes for Florida, which didn’t make a field goal in the final three minutes but still managed to hit key free throws down the stretch to eventually take, and hold, the lead. Far more impressive was forcing four turnovers in the final 2:05 and holding Houston scoreless in the process, part of the kind of grit that you need to celebrate deep into the night along the Riverwalk with a wooden championship trophy in tow as the team left the Alamodome, joking around with some NCAA officials by checking to make sure it was real.
They sure earned more than a replica, the real thing soon on its way back to campus as a fitting cherry on top of a magical run for both Florida and the suddenly hoops-mad conference they now get to lord over as reigning national champs.
“I’m not going to make bold predictions about running off, you know, records? I’ll just say this, I feel like we’re just getting started when it comes to SEC basketball. We’re just getting started,” Glissman says. “I’m only 20 months into the job. This is addicting.”
That’s understandable. In a certain league, some comebacks really do mean more.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Florida’s Comeback Title Win Puts Exclamation Point on Special SEC Basketball Season.