Florida Gators Advance To National Championship With Win Over Auburn

SAN ANTONIO-- The Florida Gators are heading to the national championship. Behind a 34-point effort with five 3-pointers from All-American guard Walter Clayton Jr., which set a new program-high for points in a Final Four game, and a dominant defensive effort in the second half with 12 turnovers forced in that span, the Gators on Saturday defeated Auburn, 79-73, to advance to its first national championship game since 2007 and fourth overall in program history.

"It's pretty incredible, man," third-year head coach Todd Golden said. "We worked pretty hard to get here. In three years, been fortunate to build a great staff that is aligned, that works really hard for each other."

Trailing 46-38 at halftime with 12 points from Auburn's Johni Broome, the Gators went on an 11-0 run early in the second half, which included a pair of 3-pointers from Clayton Jr. and Alijah Martin, to take a 51-49 lead. Broome was held to three points in the second half.

"Walt kind of got our bigs together at halftime and gave us a nice little pep talk," Thomas Haugh said. "That's not the game of basketball, that's not the style of basketball we played at the beginning, out physical us. That gave us extra motivation. Coach Hartman got on us a lot at halftime, too. That helped a lot going into that second half."

Clayton Jr., has he's done for most of the season, continued to come up in clutch moments down the stretch as Auburn continually fought back. Trailing 55-51 near the 12-minute mark, the Wooden Award finalist drilled another 3-pointer to make it a one-point game. A pair of free throws shortly after from Clayton Jr., combined with one from Denzel Aberdeen, tied the game before Martin took the lead with a fast-break dunk off a steal with 9:54 left.

The lead changed five more times over the next four minutes before Martin, again, recorded a fast-break dunk, this time with two Auburn players defending, off a steal from Rueben Chinyelu to put Florida up 66-63.

"It feels good getting this win, being back in the national championship," Martin said. "I don't remember last time that we been here. Super grateful for these guys. Those dunks, I was just thinking just going to dunk it, honestly."

Auburn's Chad Baker-Mazara made it a one-point game with a pair of free throws before Clayton Jr. hit his fifth 3-pointer of the evening with 4:29 left. The senior would go onto score seven of Florida's final 10 points, which included a pair of free throws with nine seconds left after Chinyelu grabbed an offensive board off a missed free throw from Haugh.

Chinyelu, who was largely relied upon to guard Broome after first-half struggles from Alex Condon, finished with a game-high nine rebounds, while Haugh had another strong game off the bench with 12 points, seven rebounds and two blocks.

Next Up Florida will play the winner of Saturday night's matchup between Duke and Houston in the national championship, which will be played Monday at 8:50 p.m. ET.