Cnn
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A last university basketball game remains during the 2024-25 season and if the final Four on Saturday is an indication, it will be the walk.
Florida and Houston will come up against Alamodome from San Antonio for the male title after a national semi-final which was simply magical. The Gators came to this point by surviving a heavyweight fight with his compatriot of the Sec Auburn, on what overcome the tigers through the heroic of Walter Clayton Jr. The cougars obtained their path in this competition with one of the most improbable returns in the history of the Final Four which included the train of six with 75 seconds to play.
The two teams will need the Sunday rest day. Houston’s head coach Kelvin Sampson said his players would still have a lot in the tank after their incredible rally against Duke.
“The lives are so consumed by our next match, your next match. I’m glad that last night is our last game, that we have a next game,” he said. “It’s a good thing for this group because I liked to train this team.”
The game between the Gators and the Cougars takes place at 8:50 pm HE on CBS and combines the n ° 1 seeds of the West region and the seeded n ° 1 in the Midwest region.
If you want to watch via streaming services, Fubo wears the game, as is the March Madness Live application.
If the styles make clashes, then we have an intense battle on Monday.
Houston came in one of the best defenses in the country, which was a key factor in his victory against Cooper Flagg and Duke on Saturday evening.
At the other end of things, the Florida’s explosive offensive can barely be contained once it begins and Gators Guard Clayton is the straw that arouses the drink.
“We are an elite offensive team, a defensive team among the best 10. It is an offensive team of the TOP-10 and an elite defensive team,” said Florida coach Todd Golden. “I think it will be a contrasting battle in this way. I hope we can go up and down the game.
He added: “They are absolutely an elite team. The way they keep, they will make things very difficult for us. I think they are going to put pressure on the ball screen, try to get the ball out of Walt’s hands. But they turn, they are long, they play so hard, so hard. We are going to have a great mental and physical hardening if we want to give us a chance.”
Gators have an average tick of more than 85 points per game and were in absolute tears this season. Cougars only grant 58 points per game and can increase the pressure in the blink of an eye while the Blue Devils learned on Saturday – Duke made a free basket in the last 10 minutes of his match against Houston.
“They are the best defensive team in America. They just have a great identity as a program to be both physical and mentally. This is something that we have tried to trust this year,” said Golden. “Houston, I would say that this is an excellent example of that. Not only this year, but the coach Sampson and his program have done so for a long time now. ”
The Final Four was all about Clayton and LJ Cryer of Houston. Expect much more than the same on Monday.
Clayton succeeded in something only one other university player did when he scored 34 against Auburn in the Final Four: consecutive matches accumulating more than 30 points in the Elite Eight and Final Four. The only other player to withdraw this feat was Larry Bird, the legendary Indiana state and the star of the Boston Celtics.
It was Clayton who took the biggest crunchtime shots after the Gators overcome the strong first half of Auburn. In fact, when the tigers took an advance and dominated the first stages of the game, it was Clayton who kept them in the competition by hitting the basket several times for the Layups and having 3 points.
He shares this in common with Cryer, who was Houston’s only positive point in attack for a large part of Saturday evening. The senior goalkeeper at some point had half the points of his team before the rest of the cougars team woke up and caught fire in the last minutes.
“Our best player, the guy who kept us in the game, was LJ. He kept us in touch with them. So when the time came, we had the opportunity to take the lead when we could put a play for play on them, LJ was the guy,” said Sampson.
Each player will be at the center of the opposing defense on Monday evening, and Golden said that Clayton’s teammates should have to intensify the same kind of look he appreciated on Saturday.
“I think Walter will be able to run a little, keep them on their guard regarding the fact that he is going to get out quickly and let someone else play the game or enter painting,” he said.
Sampson is 69 years old while Golden is 39 years old. They are very different chief coaches, but they share one thing in common: they are both prosecuted their first national title on Monday.
Golden is known to be an analysis whiz that turns to the figures to guide its game plans, while Sampson is much older.
“We are very analytical in everything we do. We are talking a lot about this. Whether it’s the construction of the list, whether planning, the decision of whom I want to play, the game screening reports, etc.,” said Golden.
“It’s more than anything specific, the way I like to explain it, a macro perspective on our decision -making and our way of building. We try to collect as much data as possible with regard to the consequences. It’s not always going to work.
Sampson said that he had definitely learned coaches like Golden and Jon Scheyer from Duke, another young head coach who already succeeded at the start of his career.
“The match is in good hands with the young coaches. I think they are better set up to sail in these agitated waters that we have in front of us that perhaps the old people who trained the game when there was no shooting stopwatch, no three-point line. Then we had a 45-second clock.” I know that I learned from their.
But this respect does not mean that Sampson does not seek to mark one for the former sports on Monday.
“Last night, I received so many sms. I didn’t go back. There are too many to look at it. I didn’t even spend them all,” said Sampson on Sunday with a smile. “I saw Tubby (Smith) and Rick Barnes, Tom Izzo, (Gregg Popovich), a bunch of older coaches. They all had messages similar to me: winning one for the old people, something like that. ”