San Antonio – It would be too simplified to say that Florida is a version of the Monebal College basketball, while Houston runs the OKLAHOMA sports version in practice. Cougars also use analysts and gators were rough enough to wear Auburn John Broome.
But with 69 -year -old Kelvin Sampson, who was to become the oldest coach who won the basketball title Division I, if Houston wins, and 39 -year -old Todd Golden has been preparing to become the youngest coach from Jim Valvano in 1983 to do it if Florida prevails. from different eras.
“We are an elite offensive team, the TOP-10 defensive team,” Golden told San Antonio on Sunday. “(Houston is) Top-10 offensive team and elite defensive team. I think it will be a contrasting battle in this way.”
All this is best captured through defining each team.
On one side is a silk guard in Florida Walter Clayton jr., which is the embodiment of the transmission portal era. After the Easter Sunday dinner in 2023, he committed himself to the Gators with the Golden in the Italian restaurant Sergio’s, the Italian restaurant in the Westchester region known for his crabs and vodka Penne, to which Clayton unexpectedly invited St. John Steve Masiello – also In the recruitment process now Rick Pitina after he played the first two seasons in Ioně-with.
On the other hand, Houston’s low -strength is J’wan Robertswho is in his sixth year with the program after he committed to Cougars before the transmission portal started. He played for Sampson long enough to share a court with Quentin Grimes, now in his third NBA season.
And both stars benefited in their appropriate programs as a result of the foundations that their head coaches emphasized.
The most difficult part of Florida’s stop begins with an attempt to slow down Clayton down. The player of the year 2022-23 Maac of the year was the best overall player in this NCAA tournament. On Saturday’s finals he scored 34 points against Auburn, including a rush of weighting units into the trash, which was admitted by Tigers staff, as they could be-voned by a high degree of difficule.
His half-back 3 against Texas tech in Eight Eight Tkalcovská as the most daring and important shot of the Florida run in this tournament, binding the game in the last two minutes after Gators deleted a 10-point deficit.
0:35
Walter Clayton Jr.’s Late 3s Powlel Florida on Final Four
Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. He hits a pair of 3-clutches to send Gators to Final Four.
Clayton bloomed as a full-time Florida guard after moving outside the guard to start this season, giving the first ever honor of the first team All-American. Clayton became a fearless Maestro in a team that Golden built with quality depth, top shooting and a deep and harsh front honor.
He looks back at the embarrassing dinner with Golden and Masiello and laughs, “They thought they would have a battle recruitment in the middle of the restaurant.”
Instead, he returned to his home state without a drama and since 2007 Gators led to their first national game. Florida built the presence of Jalen Brunson for the program. Clayton likes Comp, although Brunson is not his favorite NBA 2K player, because “they got him too small”, which makes him susceptible to more defense.
Clayton also said it developed through learning from Golden’s Analytics-Forward Phiwer.
“It just gives it a different view of the game – what is a good shot, what is a bad shot, what percentage of shots we come back,” he said. “That gave me other glances.”
Florida list is a mixture of portal, secondary school and international recruitment. Houston’s not very different – Cougars have key portal additions Lj Cryer and Milos Saan. But Sampson is defy that the guts of the program remain an old school.
Growth of players like Roberts, from skinny reflection to hunting Cooper Flagg The Final Four lacks a critical shot, remaining Sampson’s preferred team building method.
Roberts hit two critical feasts, which eventually secured the victory over the Duke of Duke, a willing home of both and one on Saturday. With 19 seconds on the lessons, Houston’s assistants watched with arms connected on the bench. After the first shot of the murdered home, Quannas White moved to court to make a coaching point, quickly retreated back to the arm castle when Roberts Line-Drove in the second free throw.
Since the summer, Roberts shot 150 free throws a day to prepare for the moment. He summarized the prevailing atmosphere of what Houston manages the program in this way: “I feel that you never want to leave it down,” he said of Sampson, adding fear of how the practice was, as evidenced by a significant motivator.
Sampson has certainly developed in this era, but has not changed aspects essential for building his program.
“Well, everyone is sitting around and thinking (which players) returning,” he said. “We always know who is coming back. So we really don’t concern people who don’t know it. And when we bring new people – three really good freshmen are coming – they have to learn how to be basketball players.
“Our players will not ask them about many things. We do it here.”
Hiring Sampson and Golden reflects their different ways to the top of the title and the era from which they come from.
Florida Athletic Director Scott Stricklin traveled to Indianapolis in March 2022 to meet Golden, then coach in San Francisco, before the first round of Dons against Murray State in the NCAA tournament. The parties personally met for the first time at the Le Meridien Hotel in Indianapolis, directly next to St. Elmo’s, in a meeting room named after the anti -cultural actor Steve McQueen. It was a suitable environment because Stricklin was looking for another type of thinker for the changing landscape of sports.
When identifying the Golden, who had not yet won the NCAA tournament game, Stricklins predicted the end of the era of the teams simply to supply talent. “Understanding how all the pieces fits together and have analytical (view), I think it will help you on this day and age,” said Stricklin.
What separated Golden was an understanding of the analysis and a detailed plan on how to use them in a modern game. Stricklin wanted to be the place where the puck was aiming. “So I thought that everything was going on at the time we were hiring Todd,” he said. “So we tried to get there, and I had a lot of people who asked why we couldn’t hire a quote,” established coach. “”
In 2014, Mack Rhoades faced a much different hiring of circumstances when he brought Sampson. Fresh from a five -year punishment of demonstration causes stemming NACAA violations in IndianaSampson worked near Houston Rockets nearby.
Houston has just finished his first year at the American Athletic Conference and was not at the NCAA tournament all four seasons of tenure of James Dickey.
“We both needed each other,” Rhoades said on Sunday by phone. “We needed someone to resurrect the program. And needed a second chance.”
Rhoades remembered Sampson’s intention in an interview, a clear vision of Negotiali. They will play harder than the opponent. Players will go to class. They will be trained hard. The family will be in the forefront. Rhoades laughed when he remembered that Sampson said that parents could call something like academics or character, they just don’t play time.
Sampson wanted a chance to renovate his reputation. Rhoades remembered that Sampson told him, “Do you know what comes when Google now my name?”
Rhoades added, “He wanted to change this heritage for his family.”
3:16
As Kelvin Sampson made Houston basketball with a real family business
When Kelvin Sampson prepares Houston for Final Four, he and his family are thinking about their journey through university basketball.
After being hired in Houston, the former athletic director of Sampson in Oklahoma, Joe Castiglione, sent him an unconventional congratulatory gift: Ladder to his office. The ladder was an award of previous championships and a symbol that came more.
The ladder was used by a lot, because Houston reached two final four under Sampson and has the longest active strip of sweet 16 performances in a country with six straight.
On Monday, a program built at the old Grit school meets a team based on designs, staying in advance in the new era. However, the courageous team will still use analytics and the analyst team will still hang hard.
They will play to limit networks either for the oldest coach in the history of sports to win the title or for one of the youngest who seeks to establish themselves as the face of the next generation.
Styles make fighting and Monday offers a convincing contrast.
