Clayton drives to the basket against Auburn during the Final Four on Saturday in San Antonio. / Greg Nelson/Sports Illustrated
Having already done everything asked of him—which was a lot—Florida Gators guard Walter Clayton Jr. scored his final points of the night while walking toward the Alamodome locker room. He autographed a 14-year-old kid’s white sneaker when the kid dangled it over the railing. You know you’ve made it big when someone takes off a shoe and asks you to sign it at the Final Four.
“I’ve seen it all year,” Clayton said, his demeanor even-keel as always. “It’s nothing crazy.”
There was a time, not long ago, when no basketball fans wanted Clayton’s autograph. He was known more as a football player in high school and was a largely unrecruited hoops prospect out of Lake Wales, Fla. His college career began at Iona, where then-coach Rick Pitino watched a workout that was livestreamed during the pandemic and declared Clayton, “Fat, slow and can’t shoot … but he can pass.”
It took him two seasons with the Gaels to prove himself worthy of a starring role back home with the Gators. This season, as a senior, he became the first first-team All-American in program history, and in this NCAA tournament, he has put himself in the company of March Madness legends.
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Clayton lit up the Auburn Tigers for 34 points Saturday night in a 79–73 Final Four triumph, carrying Florida to the Monday title game. That followed a 30-point effort against the Texas Tech Red Raiders in the Elite Eight, making Clayton the first player to score 30 or more in a regional final and national semifinal in 46 years.
Last one to do it? Larry Bird.
As was the case against Texas Tech, Florida needed all of Clayton’s greatness to advance. He is a takeover specialist, impervious to pressure, capable of seizing key moments and making them his own. In both of these last two games, Clutch Clayton has either scored or assisted on every Florida field goal in the final 4½ minutes—six baskets and three assists, all to big man Thomas Haugh.
“Unbelievable,” Florida forward Alex Condon said. “It’s a pleasure to share the court with Walt. I’ve never seen someone like that.”
“He’s incredible,” Haugh said. “On and off the court, he’s a great dude. We trust him in those situations.”
Clayton said his earliest Final Four memories were watching Kemba Walker take over for the UConn Huskies in 2011, then the Louisville Cardinals guard tandem of Peyton Siva and Russ Smith in ’13. He’s now one game away from joining them in the history books.
Clayton essentially called game Saturday night with Florida holding a three-point lead, 71–68, with less than 100 seconds remaining. The Gators actually over-passed the ball on the play, neglecting to take a couple of open looks from three-point range. As Auburn scrambled to get back into position defensively, the possession looked like it could end badly.
But Clayton took over yet again, driving from the left wing and getting to the basket for a driving banker and a foul on Auburn guard Denver Jones. Clayton wound up on the ground after the bump from Jones, but the shot went down and so did the free throw.
Clayton shoots over Jones in the Final Four on Saturday in San Antonio. / Greg Nelson/Sports Illustrated
Florida maintained a two-possession lead the rest of the game, but Clayton also chipped in a clinching assist on an inbounds play to Haugh with 37.9 seconds left.
“He’s poised, calm and collected, confident in himself,” Gators guard Will Richard said. “We have that confidence in him.”
Clutch Clayton also had a Coach Clayton moment Saturday night. At halftime, with the Gators down eight points and the Auburn front line dominating its matchup with the Florida big men, Clayton called together the Gators’ quartet of big men to deliver a calming message.
“Don’t listen to what anyone is saying, just play like you guys do,” related 7-footer Micah Handlogten. “He knows how we play, and it really helped us kind of slow down and just not think when we play.”
That was a welcome change of tone after assistant Carlin Hartman came in ranting at the Florida big men.
“Coach Hartman, he was pouring out his heart because that wasn’t us, that’s not how we play,” forward Rueben Chinyelu said. “Then [head coach Todd] Golden stepped in and he was calm. Just like with your family, your mom is mad and then your dad comes in and he’s just trying to make everything better. He just calmed me down, and then before we left the locker room, Coach Hartman came back to being pretty positive and pretty calm. And I think that kind of hit a point and got us going.”
The Florida big men turned up the defense in the second half, throwing bodies at Auburn All-American Johni Broome and wearing him down. Broome had 12 points in the first half and just three in the second, finishing 6-for-14 from the field and 3-for-7 from the foul line.
“He had a great first half,” Golden said. “We didn’t have anybody that could stop him. He was getting to his spots. We stayed the course. We didn’t double him. I think we wore them down a little bit.”
While Broome was wearing down—and not getting enough help from Auburn’s perimeter players—Clayton was stepping up. Now he’ll lead Florida into Monday night as the program looks for its first national title since going back-to-back in 2006 and ’07. In a fitting coincidence, the coach of that team, Billy Donovan, was announced as a new member of the Naismith Hall of Fame earlier Saturday.
Donovan had a lot of great players during that run—Joakim Noah, Al Horford and Corey Brewer leading the way. But none of them turned in a Final Four performance like Walter Clayton did Saturday night, putting the Gators on his back and joining Larry Bird in the record books, then autographing a shoe on the way out.
