SAN ANTONIO – With 20 minutes separating the top overall-seeded Tigers from their first-ever national championship appearance on the hardwood, things certainly seemed to be trending in the right direction.
Heading into the locker room at the break, Auburn held a 48-36 lead. It had turned the ball over just twice and was shooting a whopping 52% from the field, scoring 1.44 points per possession despite going just 3-of-15 clip from beyond the arc. Additionally, the Tigers were dominating the halfcourt sets and held the nation’s second-best transition offense to zero fastbreak points in the first stanza.
“Played beautiful basketball in the first half. We were prepared. We had a great game plan. They executed it really well. We only turned the ball over twice,” said Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl.
But when the buzzer sounded, sending things into the second half of play, there was a swift shift in momentum, and the Gators’ March Madness rallies continued.
After a sequence of traded baskets in the early goings of the second half, Will Richard sparked a Florida 11-0 run over an 81-second span, setting the tone for the final 20 minutes en route to the Gators’ 79-73 triumph, which ended the Tigers championship hopes and put a bitter end to a historic season.
“Second half, Florida's effort and energy, the fact that we're not as deep as what we normally are, was a factor. I thought fatigue was a factor. As a result, we weren't able to maintain control of the game,” Pearl said.
The clean style of play for the Tigers quickly diminished as they turned the ball over a whopping 12 times in the second half and were unable to get into any rhythm offensively. As a result, they ended the half with a 33% clip from the floor. Additionally, Auburn allowed the Gators to control the glass with a plu-10 advantage in the second half, ultimately losing the battle on the boards 39–30. This came after a 17-16 advantage for the Tigers in the first half.
“We just did not execute offensively in the second half. We just didn't,” Pearl said.
“Honestly, I just feel like we probably just felt the fatigue a little bit. Turned the ball over. Had a lot of careless turnovers that in the first half we didn't really have. I feel like that's just what gave them the part to take the lead,” added Auburn guard Denver Jones.
Jones had the daunting task of slowing down the nation’s hottest player: Walter Clayton Jr.
Clayton was in large part the sole reason Auburn didn’t hold an insurmountable halftime lead as he poured in 14 first-half points. After going for 30 points in the Gators’ Elite Eight win over Texas Tech, Clayton followed with an astounding 34-point performance on Saturday night.
His Steph Curry-like style of play allowed the Gators to settle into their halfcourt sets in the second half as he found a handful of creative ways to get his shot off time and time again. With Auburn trailing by just one point after an emphatic Alijah Martin dunk at the 5:27 mark, Clayton delivered the killshot with 12 points in the final four-plus minutes.
“Honestly, just doing a lot of dribble handoffs, a lot of actions just run through him. Just constantly moving. I feel like that is just what gave him some of the looks he had tonight. Just a lot of hand-offs, a lot of drives. That's what it was,” Jones said of guarding Clayton.
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Logan Fowler is a Senior from Sumiton, Alabama and is majoring in journalism. He joined the Plainsman in Spring 2024.
You can follow him on X (Twitter) at @loganffowler
