New angle of Walter Clayton Jr.’s title-saving Florida play is simply breathtaking

He may not have had his best shooting performance with the national title on the line, but you know what, Florida basketball superstar Walter Clayton Jr. delivered for this team when Todd Golden needed him to. All we have to talk about is the final play of the game.

With time winding down and the Gators clinging to a 65-63 lead, Houston standout Emanuel Sharp had the ball in his hands and he was ready to fire off a 3-pointer to give his team an unreal win. Nope, not on Clayton's watch. As you'll be able to see in the video below, he sprinted to get to his man and Clayton completely changed the history books with the way he was able to close things out:

Walter Clayton Jr. came up with one of the best defensive plays in Florida history

That view of this sequence really is fantastic. Coming out of the timeout, Kelvin Sampson had a great play drawn up and he clearly wanted the ball to be in Sharp's hands for the final shot. Everything went to plan for Houston, as for a split second it looked like a wide open three would be there for the taking.

However, Clayton sniffed things out and indeed closed down on Sharp, leaping high into the sky to make him second guess his decision to fire off a potential game-winner. With Sharp also leaving his feet, he knew he couldn't make contact with the ball again, so he was hoping a different Cougar would be there to clean things up.

That didn't happen and Florida was able to celebrate winning its third national title in program history. On the night, Clayton shot 3-of-10 from the floor and he was 1-for-7 on his 3-point attempts. People were bashing him for his poor shooting performance, but he can silence everyone down thanks to his incredible defensive play. He can also remind the haters that he's now a national champion too.