The Florida Gators squeaked past the Houston Cougars on April 7th at the Alamodome in a very anticipated and close matchup.
March Madness is one of the biggest American sporting events and is looked forward to every year. Only the best teams get a chance to compete in the tournament resulting in the championship to truly be the best of the best. The winner not only brings money to their school, but stamps their name in college basketball history as well.
Houston, despite their hard work ethic, were the least likely to win or even make the championship out of the four one seeds. They were doubted due to some of their early season struggles that they ended up fixing as they came into the tournament hot.
Star forward J’wan Roberts reflected on the positives of this historical season when asked what he was left with from this loss.
“The journey has been great, you know? Had a lot of ups and downs, fought through a lot of adversity, you know we all stayed together, you know we all believed in each other, and you know we just came up short,” says Roberts.
Florida didn’t win this game in their normal fashion as they are known to be a high scoring and thrilling team to watch. Throughout the regular season and their conference tournament, the Gators averaged 84.8 points per game; Florida only scored 65 points in their close win.
Florida Head Coach Todd Golden gave credit to his defense when asked what was the biggest factor to his team pulling out the win.
“Down the stretch, we just made some big-time winning place plays defensively. If it isn’t there on offense, then you have to make it on defense,” says Golden.
Florida had to fight back into the game as they went down as much as 12 points early in the first half. There wasn’t a clear spark that worked them back into the game, but their disciplined and calm play style worked them back in slowly.
Golden wasn’t fazed by going down early as his squad is used to adversity.
“When we went down 12 in the second half, we stayed the course. We didn’t point fingers, didn’t start to try to make hero plays, gambling defensively. We got rewarded because of that toughness that we displayed,” says Golden.
