With under six minutes to play in San Francisco, it looked like the magic was going to die for Florida Basketball. The Gators were down by ten, and while they had kept Texas Tech's mostly in check, the shots weren't going down for Florida.
Then Walter Clayton remembered he was playing in the house that Steph Curry built, morphed into Curry, and turned in a performance that will forever live in Gator lore.
Florida Basketball: Green Light To Shoot
Clayton keeps getting compared to Curry because he takes shots that 99% of players in America would be dissuaded from taking. And yet, much like he did against UConn, Clayton is in that elite 1% who can take and make those shots.
As Thomas Haugh said of Clayton after the game, he's a "cold man." As the pressure ramped up and it looked like the curtain might be closing on the season for Florida, Clayton seemed to embrace the moment the most.
Clayton's three with a minute to play to take the lead is the very type of shot that Curry made time and again with Golden State to win three NBA titles in Oakland in 2015, 2017, and 2018 before the Warriors moved to San Francisco in a shiny new building and won another title in 2022.
The grand irony of Clayton's performance is that he didn't score for the first 15 minutes of the game, and yet, 30 years from now, when we all recall last night, that's not a detail anyone is going to remember.
Florida is going back to the Final Four for the first time since 2014, and while there were plenty of role players like Haugh who played their part, the Gators would not still be dancing if it wasn't for Clayton and his 30 points in San Francisco.