With legends watching, the takeover of Walter Clayton Jr. hits the last four: “It is special”

At this stage, Steph Curry comparisons could be inaccurate.

Regarding the greatest shooter in the history of the NBA, Curry has never shone like that on the biggest scene of university basketball. He never struck an impossible autumn 3 corner, when his team desperately needed it, did not score 34 points to push his team to the national championship match, did not dazzle a football stadium filled with 68,252 fans.

Curry, 37, saved all of this for the NBA. But Walter Clayton Jr. in Florida, 22 years old, 6 feet 2 inches and 195 pounds, does it now.

God is fun to look at.

And good news for you, in the event that you have not closely followed one of the greatest performances in the history of the NCAA tournament: Monday, you still have a chance to watch this March magician.

You have already missed the show.

On Saturday evening, on the biggest stage of his life, Clayton flocked 34 points out of 18 shots, leading the Gators best classified to a 79-73 victory against the dry enemy and his head of Auburn, obtaining a place in the national championship. The Gators will meet Houston for the title.

Clayton is only the 15th player in the modern era to go more than 30 in a Final Four match, joining a list of heavy strikers who includes Danny Manning, Glen Rice, Danny Ferry, Sean Elliott and Carmelo Anthony.

Anthony was in the building on Saturday, Honoré at halftime as an incorporation to the renowned temple in 2025. He was a first-year student during his performance over 30 years old, a revelation for Syracuse, third head of series in 2003, when he led the Orange to his first national championship.

He was able to watch Clayton only one-literally, because Anthony scored 33 in the national semi-final, while Clayton scored 34. He said Athletics Subsequently, he is “an incredible Walter fan”.

“His rhythm, the way he controls the game, his confidence, he has a little Damian Lillard in him,” said Anthony. “His ability to make shots, his playing capacity, the way he flows with the game, you don’t see many players and leaders play like that.”

And then, perhaps the most true thing about Clayton: “If you can see Walter play in person, that makes the difference.”

Whether on television or in person, everyone should have expected. All that Clayton does is to intervene and take control of the matches when it seems that his team is on the verge of collapse. He did it in the second round, saving the Florida from the anticipated elimination against the two reigning champions by defending when he resumed the last eight minutes, marking 13 of his 23 points. In the return of Gators’ Elite Eight on Texas Tech, he drained two do you themselves?! 3S in the last 107 seconds.

Of course, he was going to do the same in the Final Four.

Florida had seemed to be and half awake for the stretching of the first half on Saturday, but Clayton kept them at a strike distance, marking 14 points while Auburn took an advance of eight points in the locker room.

It was not surprising that Clayton obtained buckets, but how he did – mainly by attacking the edge, often finding a wide open way in the basket. Six of his 11 brands on Saturday were layups, including a wild bank and a bank out of the glass with 2:24 to make which gave Florida an advance of 71-68 and sent Clayton on the line, where he finished a perfect 7 out of 7.

“In transition, we did not do a job good enough to recover and build a wall,” said Auburn’s associate coach Steven Pearl. “But we are going to look back at five or six of these transitional lay-ups and, as we have guys who are closed at the edge and he always ends the contact.

“He had 34 points, I would say that half of these errors were our mistakes and half was that he was just a very good basketball player.”

Friday, Clayton remembers looking at the former Grand Uconn Great Kemba Walker Tear in March 2011, scoring 271 points in total while he was putting the Huskies in the Big East Tournament and the national title championship. Clayton made a fairly good impression of Walker: he has 185 points during the eight games of Florida in the playoff series (62 in three dry tournament games on the way to this title and 123 at five NCAA tournament games).

However, he is not impressed by himself.

Asked on which shot on Saturday will remember the most, the children will speak in 10 years, Clayton has been shifted.

“I don’t know,” he said. “If we don’t do it (Monday), they will probably not talk about them.”

Clayton embodies the word “Chill”, one of his favorite descriptors by talking about his team, his atmosphere at halftime, his general mood of life. After his post-match press conference, he traveled a golf cart through the Caverneux Alamodome, scrolling through his phone and looking at the protruding facts of Florida’s victory (the strong directors presented many of his own shots). He traveled the locker room with Ralph Lauren Polo slice slides and was more excited to talk about putting them on sale than talking about what he did 30 minutes earlier when he wore sneakers.

All of this is fun, of course. But that’s also what Clayton and the Gators expect.

Clayton has spent the last three weeks to continue, putting so much absurd performance that his teammates do not have many words for what he does.

“It is special,” said Will Richard, before Thomas Haugh and Alijah Martin echoes Richard with the same explanation and not descriptive.

But Clayton had a different word to describe herself who applied himself, he said, his feeling on Friday and now, with the national championship:

“Ready.”

(Photo: Sam Hodde / Getty Images)