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National semifinal day at the 2025 Final Four in San Antonio will go down in the history books as one of the best ever. A chalk bracket through the first two weekends of March Madness left us with all four No. 1 seeds — Florida, Auburn, Houston and Duke — in the Final Four, but the semifinals did not disappoint.
It turns out that when you put the four best teams in the country under one roof for a night of hoops, great things happen. The Final Four delivered two classics that will live on in NCAA Tournament history.
In the first semifinal, Florida rallied from an eight-point halftime deficit to pick up a 79-73 win thanks to an incredible 34-point performance from Walter Clayton Jr. Then, Houston capped the night off with one of the best comebacks in tournament history to knock off Duke 70-67 and advance to the title game.
Now, the champions of the two best conferences in the country will battle for the national championship on Monday night (8:50 p.m. EST). Fitting, right?
Here are the three biggest keys that will decide who cuts down the nets.
1. How does Florida handle Houston's aggressiveness on defense?
Florida has been excellent in the clutch so far in this tournament, but there is a reason that it has had to come up with so many heroics during this run to the title game. The Gators have been uncharacteristically sloppy with the basketball and have hurt themselves with self-inflicted mistakes throughout the tournament.
During the season, Florida took care of the ball very well and was usually very sound offensively, but that hasn't always been the case in this tournament. The Gators have turned the ball over 69 times in five games so far in the Big Dance, which has really halted their offensive progress during some games.
That isn't going to cut it against a Houston defense that will apply the pressure and make things tough for Florida all night long. The Cougars boast the best defense in the country and are extremely disruptive, and Florida will have to work hard to be efficient all night.
Florida's secondary players are going to have to be sharp in this game if the rest of the tournament is any indication of how Houston is going to play them. Specifically in the Cougars' matchup against Purdue, who has another one of the best point guards in the nation in Braden Smith, Houston constantly sent traps and double teams at him to make him give the ball up.
Clayton is having an all-time tournament run, but he isn't the same kind of passer that Smith is. Houston will very likely trap him in a lot of the same ways that it did to Smith, and Florida's supporting cast will have to make plays with numbers advantages in order to win.
That hasn't always gone well for Florida in this tournament as the Gators have struggled to protect the ball. Houston and all of its long limbs in the front court will make that an even tougher task. If Kelvin Sampson decides to take Clayton out of the game with his game plan, who will step up in his place?
2. Can Florida's bigs stand up to the physicality?
This is in a similar light as the first key, but is still worth its own section. Handling physicality and aggressive, trapping defense are the two most important things any time you play against Houston, and the latter may be just as big of an issue as the former for Florida.
Florida's bigs aren't soft by any means, and there are four of them in Alex Condon, Thomas Haugh, Rueben Chinyelu and Micah Handlogten, but teams have been able to push them around at times in this tournament. UConn was very physical up front in the Round of 32, and so was Auburn at times in the Final Four. Johni Broome ended up wearing down against that depth in the second half, but he had some success early on with a full gas tank.
Having Chinyelu and Handlogten, two non-factors offensively, on the floor will already make things difficult for Florida to run its offense. However, they should have no trouble banging bodies inside with the likes of J'Wan Roberts and Joseph Tugler. Haugh has also had an excellent tournament and has given Florida some punch offensively when it has needed it.
The X-factor in this department is going to be Condon, who has been a bit of a wild card over the last few weeks. He injured his ankle in the Sweet 16 against Maryland and hasn't looked like himself since, but he will have to bring his A-game on Monday night.
Condon had an especially rough day on Saturday against Auburn. He seemed sped up and full of adrenaline on offense, causing him to finish the game with just one point on 0-for-5 shooting. The Houston bigs will try to go at Condon and bully him on both ends, and he must stand up to it in order for Florida to get the win.
3. Can Houston get any offense inside the 3-point line?
For most of the Final Four against Duke, Houston seemed down and out in large part because its shot quality on offense was not very good. The Cougars' small backcourt struggled to get anything going in the paint against a much bigger Duke squad, leading them to settle for a lot of 3-pointers.
Florida doesn't quite have the same size on the perimeter that Duke does, but the bigs on the interior will still be a major deterrent. Houston's guards struggled to get all the way to the rim against the big front court of Duke, and Florida presents a lot of similar challenges with its size.
That makes J'Wan Roberts a big factor in this game in a way that he wasn't offensively for much of the Duke contest. The length and athleticism of Cooper Flagg and Khaman Maluach limited Roberts for a lot of that game, but the late-game hero should have a much bigger role throughout Monday night. Roberts is excellent at scoring in the post, especially when he gets to his right shoulder, and he should have opportunities to do so against a Florida front line that isn't quite as explosive as those two Blue Devils.
One way that Houston mitigated that against Duke, outside of getting hot from the 3-point line, was by crashing the offensive glass. Sampson and company grabbed 18 offensive rebounds in the semifinal and rebounded each of its last four misses. Florida has been a little bit vulnerable on the defensive boards, only grabbing about 70% of opponent misses in the tournament, and Houston can make a big difference on the interior by crashing the boards.
If the Cougars can't do that, scoring in the lane could become a bit of a chore and the offense could struggle to score once again. Houston may be able to survive that — like it did in games against Purdue and Duke — but it will make it a lot tougher against a Florida team that has more avenues to get downhill and has the best scorer on the court in Walter Clayton Jr.
