Houston and 69-year-old head coach Kelvin Sampson are 20 minutes from their first NCAA championship.
Despite white-hot shooting from Florida senior Will Richard, the Cougars built a 31-28 halftime lead over the Gators in the national title game Monday night in San Antonio behind seven points from backup guard Mylik Wilson.
The Gators (35-4), whose only lead came at 8-6, received 14 points from Richard as he drilled 4 of 6 3-point attempts. Houston forced Florida into nine turnovers and held All-American guard Walter Clayton Jr. scoreless.
Both teams shot a tick below 38 percent in the first half as they came out nervous and played at a frantic pace that led to a slew of rushed, errant shots. The Cougars (35-4), who entered the night as the NCAA’s leading 3-point shooting team at 39.9 percent, missed their first eight 3-point attempts while the Gators missed their first six.
The teams struggled from point-blank range, too. At the 17-minute mark, Florida guard Alijah Martin took it right to Houston center Joseph Tugler and tried to dunk over him. Tugler got a piece of the ball as Martin got rebuffed by the rim. Martin grabbed the rebound, but J’Wan Roberts snuffed his follow while knocking the ball off Martin out of bounds.
Less than a minute later, Houston backup center Ja’Vier Francis found an open lane to the hoop but missed his powerful one-handed dunk try.
When Richard cashed his third 3-pointer at the 6:10 mark, he forged a 21-21 tie — which only appeared to make the Cougars play even harder. They reeled off eight straight points in 42 seconds to build the game’s biggest lead.
Cryer started it by swishing a 25-footer for Houston’s first 3-pointer. Then Francis swatted a Micah Handlogten layup to trigger a fast break that ended with Emanuel Sharp lobbing an alley-oop to Wilson for a jam.
Florida tried to run after the made basket, but Sharp hustled back to force a jump ball. When Clayton misfired on an off-balance trey, the Cougars surged into transition again and Cryer found Wilson on the wing for a banked 3-pointer that boosted the lead to 29-21 with 5:01 to go.
The Gators followed that with their third travel and ninth turnover of the half, which encouraged head coach Todd Golden to call a timeout and calm things down. Alex Condon stopped Houston’s run with a layup and Richard added a 17-foot jumper as the Gators narrowed the gap to 31-28 by the break.
