Florida Had History On Its Side For National Championship Game Monday
The National Championship game in college basketball featured two number one seeds, Florida and Houston. The Cougars might have had a home crowd advantage with the final four taking place in the Alamodome in San Antonio, and teams playing in their home state in the final four now have an 8-1 straight-up record. Yet it was only UCLA back in 1975 who then went on to win the national championship in their home state. Sticking with the theme of the historical record, favorites in the national championship game had a 41-13 straight-up record while covering the point spread in thirty-one of those fifty-four games since 1970. That was one of the reasons we backed the Gators in that title game. Florida continued to demonstrate they had grit by rallying from a nine-point deficit with 18 minutes left against Auburn in the final four to cruise to a 79-73 victory in that rematch against their SEC rivals. Once again, it was Walter Clayton, Jr. who took over the game by scoring 34 points. The Gators had only lost once since February 1st, winning seventeen of their last eighteen games. What continued to be impressive about them in this tournament is their refusal to lose in the face of adversity that they had not seen often this year, the test that Duke failed on Saturday in their game against Houston. Florida got outplayed for 37 minutes against Texas Tech in the Elite Eight and trailed by nine points with three minutes left before Clayton, Jr. put his team on his back to lead the team to a comeback 84-79 victory. The Gators made 25 of their 27 shots at the charity stripe in that game which could be decisive in the championship game. They got to the free throw line 30 times against the Tigers and made 21 of those shots. If Houston had any weaknesses, one of them was putting their opponents on the foul line as they rank 214th in the country in defensive free throw rate. After cruising through the SEC tournament with all three of their victories by nine or more points (despite the SEC qualifying a record 14 teams into the NCAA tournament), one of the question marks for this team was how they would execute in close games. After pulling out three NCAA tournament games against UConn, Texas Tech, and now Auburn, head coach Todd Golden’s teams have passed two difficult tests in that regard. He assembled a great roster with all that depth up front along with three super guards, Clayton, Jr., Alijah Martin, and Will Richard, who can all lead the team in scoring for a game like this. Florida had covered the point spread in thirteen of their eighteen games on the road when the oddsmakers installed them as the favorite. They had covered the point spread in ten of their last thirteen games played on a neutral court. In their eleven games played against teams with a winning percentage of 80% or higher, they have covered the point spread in eight of those games this year. Houston looked completely outclassed, with just eight minutes left in the second half against Duke in the final four, and they trailed by 14 points. Yet head coach Kelvin Sampson’s team persevered by going on a 25-8 run to steal a 70-67 upset victory as a 4.5-point underdog. Their comeback was impressive. Sampson’s formula for success has finally gotten one of his teams into the national championship game. It starts by playing tough defense, and Houston held the Blue Devils to just a 14 of 36 mark (38.9%) of their 2-point shots inside the arc. Sampson’s teams have usually been one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country, and they grabbed 18 offensive rebounds representing 46.2% of their missed shots. Yet what made this team different this year is they have the best 3-point shooting team in the country. Against Duke, they made 10 of their 22 shots (45.5%) from behind the 3-point line. Despite all that, in hindsight, it still feels like their victory in the final four had more to do with the Blue Devils giving the game away in the final moments. While Duke was the favorite to win the national championship of the four remaining teams, one of their potential flaws was inexperience in pulling out close games. So congratulations to the Cougars, yet they remained the team that was getting outplayed for most of their final four showdown, and history is not on their side now given the circumstances of their win. In the last ten years in the NCAA tournament, when a team rallies from a double-digit deficit to pull out a win and then is playing with short rest in the second round, the Elite Eight or the championship game, those teams have won just sixteen of those forty-three games. Since 2012, teams that just beat Duke in the NCAA tournament have won only twice in the ten games following that win, and those teams have covered the point spread just twice in those ten games. Florida rallied later to pull out a 65-63 victory against the Cougars to win the national championship and cover the -1 point spread they were laying. Good luck - TDG.
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