The time has come, ladies and gentlemen — for that one, shining moment.

After 66 games and countless busted brackets, March Madness has met its grand finale between No. 1 Houston and No. 1 Florida. The stage is finally set for a title game between two of college basketball’s juggernauts.

Florida and Houston clawed their way back from halftime holes against Auburn and Duke, respectively. With their second-half surges, these programs didn’t just punch tickets to the big dance — they kicked the doors off the hinges on every single social media platform.

For Houston, this is a chance to rewrite a story decades in the making. The Cougars have made it to the national title game twice, in 1983 and 1984, only to come up heartbreakingly short.
Houston’s six Final Four appearances without a championship are the most of any program in NCAA history.

For head coach Kelvin Sampson, one of the winningest active coaches without a crown, the time for a coronation feels overdue.

Now, going on almost 20 years since Sampson roamed the Oklahoma sidelines, he’s reached the pinnacle of his profession — his first national championship game as a head coach, and all the “what-ifs” are there.

If he wins one more game, he’ll hit the 800-win milestone.

If he wins one more game, he’ll be the oldest coach to ever win a national title, surpassing UConn’s Jim Calhoun at 68.

In his 11 years at the helm of Houston, Sampson has racked up 299 wins, boasting a stellar 78.3% winning percentage. Since his departure from college basketball after two controversial — but undeniably successful — seasons at Indiana, Sampson has reinvented himself with the Cougars.

At Houston practices, Sampson runs a no-nonsense drill — he tosses a ball out, and two players battle for it — there are no whistles, no freebies. That gritty, physical mindset has turned the Cougars into the top defensive unit in the country. 

On Saturday night, Duke held the height advantage with a lineup full of 6-foot-5 and taller athletes. Yet Sampson’s aggressive, in-your-face defensive style slowly chipped away at the Blue Devils.

Florida is returning to a familiar stage. The Gators ruled the college hoops world in 2006 and 2007 with back-to-back titles but haven’t danced this deep into April since. This marks their fourth overall championship appearance — the first dating back to a runner-up finish in 2000, before the Billy Donovan-led dynasty put Gainesville on the basketball map.

But there is a new kid in town, and he is the best player in this matchup.

Walter Clayton Jr. is like a basketball boogeyman in high-tops. The senior guard keeps showing up in the biggest moments and leaving scorched nets in his wake. He’s the first guy since Larry Bird in 1979 to have back-to-back 30-point performances in the Elite Eight and Final Four. On Saturday, he torched Auburn for 34 and splashed five threes like he was playing H-O-R-S-E alone in the driveway.

Florida looked half-asleep while he sat on the bench in the first half. But once Clayton re-entered, it was like he flipped the breaker and brought the offense back to life. Auburn threw everything at him — long forwards, tight contests and switches — but Auburn was trying to catch lightning. 

Run him off the arc? He drives. Crowd him in the lane? He floats one in your face. Put a body on him? He just shrugs, steps back and buries it anyway.

Bruce Pearl tried chess. Clayton played streetball poetry.
Florida’s back in the big one. Florida quietly built an offensive machine ranked No. 2 in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency, and head coach Todd Golden knows smooth scoring isn’t enough. 

To beat Houston — the nation’s defensive Death Star holding teams to a stingy 58.5 points a night — Florida needs more than buckets. They’ll need brains, balance and maybe a little bit of that old-school Gator bite.

Now, as for the history between these two squads? It’s a blank canvas. The Gators and Cougars have crossed paths only twice, both times in the boogie-woogie 1970s. But come tonight, that brief history becomes the prologue to something much bigger.

One team seeks vindication. The other, a return to glory. The madness is winding down, but the real story is just getting started.