This moment deserves a trophy of its own.
Indeed, University of Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. lent a humble hand to University of Houston’s Emmanuel Sharp after a surprise ending to the NCAA Men’s Championships.
While the Florida Gators celebrated their 65-63 win against the Houston Cougars in the final game at San Antonio’s Alamodome, the team’s guard stepped away from his teammates to console a seemingly devastated guard on the opposing team.
“This is what sports are all about,” the official NCAA March Madness account captioned an April 7 post on X (formerly Twitter), alongside a video of Clayton comforting Sharp as he kneeled with his head in his hands. “Even after becoming a National Champion, Walter Clayton still took time to console Emanuel Sharp.”
The game, which had fans on the edge of their seat until the very last second, earned the Gators their first national championship since 2007—and their third overall. After all, the Gators’ men’s basketball team has earned quite a reputation among supporters for being a “second-half team.”
As for how they turned it around after being down 31-28—which is the lowest-scoring first half of a championship game since 2011, per NBC News—at halftime? Clayton, who was named Most Outstanding Player after their victory, made it clear that it was a team effort.
“We just stayed together man,” the athlete told Fox Sports’ Andy Katz. “I’ve been preaching it all year. We got a group of guys that love each other. We’re together on and off the court, we got a great brotherhood. We were just able to stay together through adversity.”
“It ain’t just about me,” he continued. “It’s still surreal right now. I can’t even lie, it’s a great feeling.”
And when it comes to what Houston coach Kelvin Sampson had to say about his team’s loss at the finals, he simply pointed out a few adjustments that Sharp could have made on the court.
“At the end, you’ve gotta get a shot,” Sampson told reporters at a post-game press conference. “You’ve gotta do better than that.”
“He probably should have shot-faked that,” he added of Sharp. “Both those guys, [Will] Richard and [Alijah] Martin, both really good defensively. Clayton made a great play on that. But that’s why you’ve got to shot-fake and get in the paint.”
But even before the Gators won the championships, Clayton shared that the Gainesville, Florida, team had nothing but unwavering trust and confidence in each other.
“Man, I just got a bunch of guys around me that trust me,” Clayton told CBS Sports’ Tracy Wolfson after beating the Auburn Tigers 79-73 two days prior to the finals. “I say it all the time. Those guys trust me to take those shots and some nights they fall and tonight was one of those nights.”
