Clayton is a one-man Gator rescue
Trailing the 2-time NCAA champions, Florida needed everything its top player could give them.
The face was vaguely familiar, but the game wasn’t. Neither were the circumstances. Connecticut’s men began their 13-game NCAA tournament win streak, the one that brought national championships in 2022 and 2023, with an 87-63 first-round ambush of Iona, in Albany. Rick Pitino was coaching Iona at the time, and he always draws the eyeballs, and back then everyone was whispering that his next game would be at St. John’s, which it was. There was also a young guard named Walter Clayton Jr., who led Iona that day with 15 points, not that any of them mattered.
“I believe UConn has all the metrics to win the national championship,” Pitino said at the time, and he was right. As the Huskies did that, Iona’s footnote shrank and shrank.
On Sunday, Clayton was back. He was still a junior but also a senior of sorts, since he had now had a baby daughter, Leilani. He had also come to Florida, where he found like-minded transfers on the perimeter and several skilled big men. This time he had the better club, but it took almost two and a half hours for Florida to establish that, with UConn coach Dan Hurley screeching like a human smoke alarm on the other sideline, pushing his Huskies to exceed themselves, to enjoy their status as a surprise team. It was pure NCAA theater, the guys in the dark uniforms gaining energy with each minute, the guys in the white uniforms playing with cement shoes and foggy heads, slowed by fear and frustration. Florida survived, 77-75, but the sole reason was Walter Clayton Jr., and his refusal to let Connecticut complete the circle.
With 9:24 left, Connecticut led Florida by six. The Huskies’ fans were joined by Duke fans, in Raleigh, who wanted to see a No. 1 seed get bounced. It seemed highly likely. Florida couldn’t make a foul shot, couldn’t deal with Hurley’s perpetual-motion offense that is so much more watchable and effective than the high pick-and-roll sets that dominate today’s game, couldn’t get a loose ball, couldn’t find a rhythm against a defense that was guarding the UConn streak like a diamond. The Huskies were doing everything right except shooting, which turned out to be a problem when Clayton decided to annex the game. Three 3-pointers, each one more important than the last, rescued the Gators, and the final one provided a six-point lead with 1:07 left.
That’s what it means when athletes and coaches say, “Your best players have to be your best players.” They aren’t insulting your intelligence. They’re saying that teams, when they run into resistance, must lean on their stars, and Clayton might have to visit a chiropractor to recover from all the weight he was bearing. UConn had guys like that the past two years: Adama Sanogo and Donovan Clingan, who combined for 40 points and 22 rebounds in that Iona game, and then Stephon Castle, now lighting it up for the San Antonio Spurs. Florida had Clayton on Sunday, to the tune of 23 points and five 3-pointers.
Al McGuire always said that the national champion had to go through such a wringer at least once on its tournament run. Connecticut seemed to contradict that by winning every one of those 12 games by double-figure margins. But McGuire was right, if you remember Christian Laettner against Kentucky, and Tyus Edney against Missouri. Being shot at without result, as Churchill said, can be exhilarating. Also educational.
Clayton didn’t have to be in Connecticut’s sights on either occasion. As he grew up in Lake Wales, Fla., his calling card was football. Notre Dame and Tennessee visited because he was a 6-foot-3 defensive back with speed. One night he stuck out his hand and the football stuck to it and he took it 78 yards for a pick-six touchdown. His coach said Clayton brought “intellectual brutality” to the game.
“But I got to the point I hated football practice,” he has said. “I was out there getting hit all day in the hot sun. I’d rather play basketball.”
Clayton transferred to Bartow High and won two state championships. Because of Covid-19 restrictions, Clayton didn’t get as much basketball exposure, and his most prominent suitors were Jacksonville and East Carolina. He went to Iona and averaged 16 points his sophomore year. Pitino did indeed go to St. John’s, but Todd Golden, the Florida coach, had already spotted him as a portal candidate. Coming home was the key.
The KenPom.com metrics list Clayton as the third-best player in Division I, behind Duke’s Cooper Flagg and Auburn’s Johni Broome. But it’s not just in the stats. Clayton averages 17.3 points and is a 38.7 percent three-point man, and there are quite a few of those. It’s not how many but when. If it means drilling a 3-pointer from an awkward angle over four outstretched Connecticut hands, that’s a mission Clayton is glad to accept.
“We played in a manner that gave us a chance to win,” Hurley said. “Credit Clayton. He made several NBA-level shots off the dribble down the stretch. But if this had to end, I wouldn’t have wanted it to lose to a lower seed. There was some honor, I guess, in how we played.”
There was, and yet Hurley had to tarnish it when he came off the court, saw Baylor’s team getting ready for warmups against Duke, and blurted, “I hope they don ’t fuck you the way they fucked us,” referring to the officials. Hurley has had massive impulse control problems all season long, beginning with technical fouls that began an 0-3 meltdown in the Maui Classic, and with pleas to the TV networks to show other coaches misbehaving, not just him.
He told one official that “I’m the best coach in the sport,” and should be listened to, as such. After a win at Creighton, he waved bye-bye to the fans. And yet Hurley has been resolutely public about his season of agony, allowing extensive access to 60 Minutes, sitting for a ESPN documentary. It’s almost like he’s testing a sitcom pilot. Come see “The Hurleys,” featuring a demented coach and his unsympathetic wife, Andrea, who often says she’s mortified by Dan’s tantrums over a “stupid game.”
On Sunday he was unusually reflective about the alter ego who seems to rip out his own heart with each possession. Coaches don’t usually shine the light on their own souls. When they do, the public generally is not invited.
“There’s a lot of rewiring I’ve got to do, because you just get caught up with this tidal wave of success that we’ve had,” Hurley said. “You lose perspective. It will be nice to get to a normal offseason and just get back to myself, and coach, and not have to throw out first pitches. You should only be ringing stock market bells and throwing out first pitches when you win your first national championship. I won’t have to do things like that. I’ll be able to just focus on the season and make better decisions.”
There were real tears in the Connecticut room, from Hurley and many of the players. The NCAA tournament does that, and will still do that, regardless of how many NIL opportunities and contracts the players sign, or how much money is wagered. It’s an emotional coast-to-coast pageant, charged by single elimination. Every game is Game 7. And, for the vast majority, it’s the final time they’ll play in front of spectators and pep bands and TV cameras.
A No. 1 seed has to deal with the torrent of shame that will follow it home after a first-weekend loss, and will only be stanched by a national championship the next year, the way Virginia did in 2019. The flip side of the One Shining Moment is the Eternal Black Cloud. That’s why your best players have to be your best players, and why Walter Clayton Jr. won’t have to be the best player who had to turn in the uniform on Sunday.
Really good piece. If UF plays for the title, Clayton will be the reason. I've always been impressed by him. No matter his prior titles, I am NOT impressed by Hurley. I'm glad he didn't have an interest in Kentucky. The tunnel conversation was beyond the pale and unsurprising. And on social media a reporter asserted that his tablemate was accosted by someone demanding the video be taken down. Don't know how accurate, but it was an interesting detail.