Finale: No. 4 Florida 86, No. 6 Tennessee 77

What happened

Nashville, Tenn. – Senior Point Guard Walter Clayton Jr. Tennessee and his Rauhus Partisan home in fourth place in Florida held 22 points and Florida for an 86-77 victory in the championship game of the Southeasters Conference Tournament 2025 in the Bridgestone Arena 2025 for the first tournament title of the program in 11 years.

Clayton, who was the head of the UF in all three tournament games and was appointed MVP of the event, scored seven out of 18 shots, including four 3 points that go with five rebounds. Senior Guard Will Richard Had 17 points, striker in the second year Alex Condon scored 13 points and nine rebounds while storming in the second year Thomas Hagh It added 11 points and six rebounds (five on the offensive) from the bank. Grad Guard Alijah Martin gave a fifth double figure scorer with 10 points, four boards and a ridiculous exclamation mark in the last seconds of the game.

Uf only shot 42.3 percent against the nation's no. 3 defense, but did nine 3S and was both enormous and from the free sausage line 19-to-22 in the second half (86.4%) and 25 out of 28 for the game (89.3%)-to set the volunteers with a 2-point first promotion with a 14-2 times one Reduce 14-2 times.

The gators won the battle of the boards (39-25), including 15-5 at the offensive end.

Florida led nine, 39-30 at halftime and took the lead over double digits in the second half. The Gators were by 13 years old a few times, but Ut made an 8-0 run with all eight points from the guard Jordan Gainey (Game-High 24) To make it a five-point lead within nine minutes. There Clayton beat a 3-point for an eight-time lead to achieve a 3-point lead. Back the Vols and took the lead again to five, but another Clayton 3-ball started a run of 11: 2, with Hagh hit another on the way to push the Gators around 14 with a little more than four minutes.

The Vols went up to eight with 1:55, but the gators spread the ground, beat the UT printing and received a slam slam slam from Martin on a great feed from Hagh and climbed 10 with less than a minute.

What it means

Remember that the gators in the SEC were selected by the forecastors in the previous season between the sixth to ninth place. Instead, they have claimed their first basketball championship of all kinds (regular season or tournament) since 2014.

In the spotlight

This '24 -25 team for a man (and especially for trainers Todd Golden), now has a special place in the UF sports history.

Stagating statistics

Do you remember when the Gators scored a seasonal lows of 44 points on February 1 at Knoxville in Knoxville? Forty -four. Seems like another season.

Next on

Florida (30-4) will return home this afternoon and gather for the NCAA tournament show on Sunday evening to see which it will have regionally as No. 1 seed. Tennessee (27-7) is a castle to be a No. 2 seeds.

E -mail senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.rufl.edu