For only the second time in college basketball history (2008), all four No. 1 seeds reached the Final Four. Florida, Duke, Houston and Auburn are the only programs left standing after a chalk-filled NCAA Tournament. The Gators needed a late rally from 10 down to eliminate the three-seed Texas Tech while Duke continued its hot shooting to take down two-seed Alabama. Houston's defense held two-seed Tennessee to 15 first-half points, and Auburn stayed in control against the two-seed Michigan State.
All four head coaches in this year's Final Four (Todd Golden, Jon Scheyer, Kelvin Sampson, Bruce Pearl) have never won a national title, but one will walk away with the hardware after Monday night's championship game. While Sampson is entering his third Final Four and Pearl will be coaching in his second, this marks Golden and Scheyer's first Final Four as a head coach. While Scheyer has previous coaching experience under Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski as an assistant, Golden had previously served as the head coach at San Francisco before taking the same role at Florida.
This season, Golden led Florida to its first SEC Tournament title since 2014 and entered the NCAA Tournament as the one-seed in the Midwest region. Now in their first Final Four since 2014, Golden has put together one of the best rosters in the country with the Gators. Much like other teams in the nation, Florida has taken advantage of the transfer portal and brings a lot of experience to the Final Four.
How many of Florida's starters are transfers?
Since Florida's 99-94 win over Alabama on March 5, it has used the same starting five of sophomore Rueben Chinyelu, senior Walter Clayton Jr., sophomore Alex Condon, senior Alijah Martin and senior Will Richard. Of those five, only Condon began his career with the Gators.
Chinyelu played his freshman season at Washington State, where he averaged 4.7 points, five rebounds and shot 61.7 percent from the floor. In his first season with the Gators, Chinyelu is scoring 6.1 points and putting up 6.5 rebounds per game while his shooting percentage has slightly dipped (59.5 percent). Clayton played each of his first two seasons at Iona, achieving his best season in 2022-23 with 16.8 points per game. In his two seasons at Florida, Clayton has been a consistent go-to option from deep, shooting 38.5 percent this season and scoring more than 18 points per game.
Martin spent his first four seasons at Florida Atlantic and was a major part of the 2023 Final Four team, including 26 points in the Final Four loss to San Diego State. He has started all but two games he has played in with the Gators this season and has averaged a career-high 14.5 points per game. Richard has started all 38 games for Florida in his third season with the program. Richard played his freshman season at Belmont in 2021-22 before transferring. Like Martin, he has averaged a career-high 13.3 points per game this season and has been effective from the floor (49.2 percent).
Outside of Martin, this will be the first Final Four appearance for the rest of the players and Golden. Despite that, Florida scores the third-most points per game (85.4 points per game), which is higher than any other team in the Final Four. With 6-foot-10 Chinyelu and 6-foot-11 Condon inside and the collegiate experience from Clayton, Martin and Richard, Florida is going to be difficult to slow down as it pursues its first national title since it went back-to-back in 2006-07. SEC foe Auburn awaits on Saturday.