Walter Clayton Jr.’s fairytale Florida journey gets fitting national championship ending

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SAN ANTONIO — All things considered, cutting the net would’ve been easier.

But if this NCAA Tournament has made anything abundantly clear, it’s this: There is no Venn diagram, ever, in which “easy” and Walter Clayton Jr.’s name overlap. How else do you explain a former zero-star recruit winning most outstanding player honors in the toughest Final Four of all time? So perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that as Clayton ascended a blue-and-yellow ladder at 11:35 p.m., scissors in hand, he went to snip at a championship net … only to realize he didn’t need to.

It was loose enough, right? Four yanks later, voila: Clayton had pulled free his prize, leaving just a single strand of nylon stuck in the Alamodome rim. Then, to finish the job — the thing he’s best at, as he proved Monday night in leading Florida to its 65-63 national championship victory over Houston — two quick stabs with the scissors pried free the last thread. After a quick shimmy atop a high step, Clayton turned to face the court, removed his backward championship cap and proudly draped the net around his neck.

And lastly, for good measure? A gator chomp for the ages, gap-toothed grin and all, one that won’t ever be forgotten in Gainesville.

If Florida’s first two national championships are best remembered for going back-to-back, then this one will be reminisced upon first and foremost for Clayton, the most brilliant postseason scorer we’ve seen in quite some time. His 134 total points (22.3 per game) are the most by any player in an NCAA Tournament since “Cardiac” Kemba Walker in 2011. By scoring 30 and 34 points against Texas Tech and Auburn, respectively, he became the first player since Larry Bird in 1979 to drop 30 or more in consecutive Elite Eight and Final Four games. But maybe most noteworthy, for all the stars and future NBA studs who have emerged in Gainesville, Clayton is now the only Gator to be named a First-Team All-American and also win a championship ring.

“He got all the records, don’t he?” said assistant coach Taurean Green, the lone member of Florida’s staff who suited up for the Gators’ last two national championship teams, in 2006 and 2007. “GOAT. GOAT him. He’s a baller, man … We followed his lead. He got us to this championship.”

It is easy to say now, from atop the mountain, that Clayton was always destined for this. Couldn’t be further from the truth. As a high school senior in Lake Wales, Fla., coming off the pandemic in 2021, the 6-foot-3 guard never had the exposure that might’ve earned him a last-ditch high-major offer. So, he went where he could: Iona, where Hall of Famer Rick Pitino had just returned from his coaching exile. In two seasons, Pitino oversaw Clayton turning from a recruiting afterthought into the MAC player of the year and the apple of many high-major eyes.

After Clayton’s sophomore season, Pitino finally got his shot back in the big leagues at St. John’s. Clayton’s backcourt mate, Daniss Jenkins, followed Pitino to Queens; the broader assumption was Clayton would do the same. But something nagged at him.

The distance from Lake Wales to Queens? Almost 1,150 miles.

The distance from Lake Wales to Gainesville? A thousand fewer. A short two and a half hour drive north.

It wasn’t just that Clayton’s parents, Walter Sr. and Cherie Quarg, were still back in the Sunshine State, although that was a key draw. (To this day, Clayton wears a lion chain that he won off his dad in a one-on-one game at 9 years old. “It’s all my son,” Walter Sr. said. “He done made my name powerful.”) But Clayton’s longtime girlfriend, Tatiyana Burney, was in Florida, too — and most importantly, so was his daughter, Leilani, who was born midway through his sophomore season.

“They mean everything to me,” Clayton said in Florida’s celebratory locker room, the net still around his neck. “It’s definitely been a long journey, and they’ve seen the rough days.”

Walter Clayton scored all 11 of his points in the second half Monday. (Alex Slitz / Getty Images)

The allure of family was one thing. So was the vision Florida’s staff, especially analytically inclined head coach Todd Golden, laid out for Clayton on his visit to campus. Golden had fallen in love with Clayton’s offensive efficiency numbers at Iona and believed his scoring ability would translate. And when Clayton visited campus, he hit it off with Golden immediately.

Still, that didn’t prevent the guard from going straight to St. John’s for another visit. Recalling the Florida staff’s confidence level in landing Clayton after he left for Queens, assistant coach Kevin Hovde was honest: “About 50-50.”

Not nearly secure enough for Golden. So on Easter Sunday in 2023, Golden and associate head coach Korey McCray flew to New York for one final pitch over dinner at Sergio’s, an Italian joint Clayton picked in Pelham. When Golden and McCray got to the restaurant, there was Clayton … and former Iona assistant Steve Masiello, who was also following Pitino to St. John’s.

“We’re looking at the table like, what’s going on?” McCray said. “What is he there for?”

As it turns out, Masiello was handing Clayton off — for good. Clayton had made up his mind and informed St. John’s staff accordingly. Masiello was there to tell Golden and McCray personally what a high-character individual they were adding to their roster.

“The biggest recruit of my life,” McCray added. “The only one that helped me win a national championship.”

It wasn’t just Monday night, although Clayton’s 11 points — all of them in the second-half, and nine of them in the final eight minutes — plus his team-high seven assists, five rebounds and game-winning closeout on Houston guard Emanuel Sharp were necessary for the Gators to lift the championship trophy.

YOUR NATIONAL CHAMPIONS: THE FLORIDA GATORS 🏆🐊#MarchMadness @GatorsMBK pic.twitter.com/XatLv5x2hm

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) April 8, 2025

Every time Florida was on the mat this postseason, Clayton got the Gators back up off it. His 13 points in the final eight minutes against two-time defending champion UConn in the round of 32. Single-handedly outscoring Texas Tech 13-8 in the final 5:30 of the Gators’ Elite Eight comeback. Ten points in the final 4:30 against No.1 overall seed Auburn in the Final Four — again, more than the Tigers scored total during that same time frame.

There’s a reason Florida just became the first national championship team of the past 20 years to win it all despite trailing by nine or more in each of the final three rounds of the bracket. It had Clayton, and its opponents did not.

NBA evaluators, take note.

“He’s immortalized forever,” said associate head coach Carlin Hartman. “I had Trae Young and Austin Reeves at Oklahoma, and those guys are magnificent players. … Walter’s of the same ilk. I don’t see why he won’t be not just a good player, but a great NBA player.”

That belief stems from the fact that, while Clayton has a silky-smooth handle and can score with the best of them, he doesn’t have to pour in points if that’s not what his team needs.

Would it have been better if he didn’t go scoreless and miss all four of his first-half shots against Houston? Naturally.

“The rim,” Clayton joked, “was a little small tonight, you could say.”

But over the previous 48 hours, as Clayton crammed for Houston’s aggressive ball-screen blitzing, he realized he might need to be more of a passer against the Cougars. Not a problem for someone who had at least five assists in 17 games this season. Clayton specifically studied how Purdue point guard Braden Smith — a fellow first-team All-American who had a season-best 15 assists against Houston in the Sweet 16 — combatted Kelvin Sampson’s aggressive defense and brought the Boilermakers within a basket of beating the No. 1 seed in the Midwest.

But in the second half, especially once the deficit got to 12, Clayton had to put on the cape at least a little. Two free-throws 25 minutes in got him on the board, and his and-1 layup with 7:54 left knotted the game at 48 to cap a 14-3 Florida run. There was no bigger play, though, than his first and only 3 all night: Clayton flew off double down screens to tie the score at 60 with 3:14 to play coming out of a timeout.

“We have a specific action, and we ran a little wrinkle to it — a little counter — to get him an open look,” said director of basketball strategy and analytics Jonathan Safir, “ and the rest is history.”

WALTER CLAYTON AGAIN ‼️#MarchMadness @GatorsMBK pic.twitter.com/MDHz5f6iy4

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) April 8, 2025

Houston guard LJ Cryer tipped in his own miss 45 seconds later, but that was the last basket the Coogs made all night, with no stop down the stretch more critical than Clayton contesting Sharp to force the game-sealing turnover.

Clayton even had the wherewithal, before the confetti cannons erupted, to console Sharp on the court in a stroke of empathy by someone who had no obligation to do so in the defining moment of his career.

Four minutes later, Walter Sr. climbed the steps to the court proudly donning a “DAD” jersey with his son’s No. 1 underneath. Behind him, Burney carried Leilani — outfitted in a matching onesie with her dad’s name and a pair of infant-sized pink earphones — up to congratulate the man who willed Florida back to glory.

Twenty minutes later, once Clayton descended the ladder and signed a plexiglass cover over a camera lens with a light blue marker, he made a beeline to celebrate with the people he’d come to Florida for in the first place. No questions, please, no other distractions.

Except for one: A famous face, emerging from the crowd, reaching out for a celebratory embrace. It was Al Horford, the All-SEC forward who helped define the Gators’ first two national title teams. He dapped up Clayton — one legend to a newly minted one — before leaving the MOP to his family photoshoot atop a makeshift dais. As Clayton smiled with his people and the trophy no one ever would’ve expected him to hold, Horford watched on with pride.

“All-American is nice,” Horford said, “but national champion sounds better.”

(Top photo: Alex Slitz / Getty Images)

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