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Golden Guards: How Florida built the best backcourt in the country on its way to the Final Four
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GAINESVILLE — Walter Clayton Jr., Alijah Martin, and Will Richard exited the Exactech Arena tunnel and lingered on Billy Donovan Court a little longer than any other night, hugging family members, signing basketballs, and snapping photographs with waiting fans.
Florida’s starting guard trio had just smashed Ole Miss 90-71 on Senior Night, scoring 46 points between them and closing out a 27-4 regular season, the best for the proud Florida basketball program since 2014, when Donovan’s last great Gators team rattled off 30-consecutive wins on its way to a perfect SEC record and a Final Four.
On the campus of the University of Florida, Heisman-winning quarterbacks get on-campus statues and football sets the seasons, but basketball is important.
The coaches and players who laid the foundation of 10 Elite Eights, 6 Final Fours, and more wins this century than any other SEC program save Kentucky aren’t just ghosts or names and numbers honored in record books or rafters. They are living and breathing human beings, watching closely from both far and nearby, guardians of the Gators’ legacy.
And on this night, Gators everywhere wanted to freeze this Florida basketball season in time.
Players, mothers, fathers, siblings, fans. No one wanted to leave. Not yet.
Sure, March Madness was still to come for this elite group of Gators.
Many at Exactech Arena on that warm early-March evening in Gainesville suspected that the best might be yet to come for Florida. But in that moment, you can never be too sure, and so people stayed, seeking out one final memory in this building, with this special team.
And so, as they’ve done all year, Walter Clayton Jr., Alijah Martin, and Will Richard delivered, taking every picture, signing every autograph, shaking every hand.
Better days were ahead, of course.
A week prior to the Senior Night romp over an outstanding Ole Miss team that would ultimately reach the Sweet 16, Florida ushered in March with a 89-70 decimation of Texas A&M with College GameDay in the house. The Gators haven’t lost since, barnstorming their way to 10-consecutive wins, including a SEC Tournament title where they won all 3 games against top 20-KenPom opposition (Missouri, Alabama, Tennessee) by at least 9 points and last weekend, the thrilling comeback win over Texas Tech where the Gators erased a 9-point deficit with 3 minutes remaining to advance to this weekend’s Final Four in San Antonio.
The best backcourt in college basketball
You can’t tell the story of this incredible Florida team without telling the story of the senior guards who, along with junior reserve Denzel Aberdeen, make up the best backcourt in college basketball.
Florida is one of just 8 schools this century to win 20 games or more on 20 occasions. But this year’s Florida team felt different, an inflection point ball club somehow more important than so many of the successful teams that preceded it. An SEC Tournament title and a sixth Final Four, under a third different coaching staff, were loud statements to the cynics who wondered, in increasingly harsher tones, whether Florida basketball was bigger than the pile of wins and trophies accumulated under future Hall of Famer Billy Donovan.
Almost every elite program in the sport has these moments.
Duke nearly fired Mike Krzyzewski after 3 seasons, which saw the future legend begin ACC play 13-29 before finally getting the proud Blue Devils back to the NCAA Tournament in Year 4. Duke won 5 national championships in his tenure after the rugged start.
Dean Smith took over a wounded North Carolina program in 1961, with the Tar Heels on probation thanks to a point-shaving scandal at NC State and the archaic NCAA rule that allowed them to punish any public school in the same state university system as a program guilty of NCAA violations. He made 11 Final Fours and won 2 national titles after being burned in effigy in his early days on Carolina’s campus. Houston will play in its 8th Final Four this weekend, but before they took a chance on a then-toxic Kelvin Sampson in 2014, the Cougars had made just 1 NCAA Tournament since 1992.
No one’s mistaking Florida for blue-bloods North Carolina or Duke, but 3 years ago, the Gators were at a crossroads.
Mike White never cratered the Florida program, but when he left Gainesville for a perceivably lesser job at Georgia in 2022, many offered hushed questions about whether White’s consistent winning seasons and NCAA Tournament appearances were more than enough at Florida in an AD (After Donovan) world.
When Florida’s replacement for White, the baby-faced and relatively inexperienced Todd Golden, went 16-17 in his first season, the hushed tones swelled into a dull roar.
Golden, though, went about his business with a resolve and self-belief that’s rare for a coach his age.
Bit by bit, he and his staff constructed a roster he felt was ready to make the NCAA Tournament in Year 2 and, with that box dutifully checked, compete for the SEC championship in Year 3.
Golden’s roster construction started with the backcourt.
There’s not a single top-100 recruit in the group. Not even 1 of the 3 starters garnered a Power 6 (now 5) scholarship offer out of high school. Two of them, Clayton and Martin, were more highly regarded high school football players than hoopers. Reserve Denzel Aberdeen was the most highly regarded recruit of the 4, a 3-star recruit ranked 150th in the 247Sports composite, but Aberdeen wasn’t even the most coveted prospect on his high school team. That was teammate Riley Kugel, who until this past recruiting cycle was the lone top-100 player to commit to Golden but who transferred to Kansas and then Mississippi State after last season.
Golden wasn’t concerned with ratings and rave prospect reviews.
“We don’t care about rankings,” Golden told SDS before Senior Night. “We know what the rankings say, but we know what we see and trust our process. We want guys who want to be Gators, first and foremost. We want guys who want to work hard and accept that they’ll be coached hard. We will develop you if you play at Florida. We will work hard for our players, and we want players who work hard for us.”
To tell that story, it’s easiest to go in chronological order of arrival, guard for guard.
Will Richard
In senior guard Will Richard, Florida found a foundational player who embodies what Todd Golden envisioned his program could be, both in terms of the type of person Golden wants to recruit and the type of development and growth a player in the Florida program will make if they buy in, accept hard coaching, and work.
“Will, when we first got down here, we didn’t know anybody. We were flying around trying to figure out who to add to the program. The last stop on our first tour, you know, that Coach Kevin Hovde and Coach Jonathan Safir and I had was in Nashville to go see a Belmont transfer named Will Richard. And the funny thing is, out of the 6 guys that we saw on that trip, he was the only guy that ended up coming to Florida,” Golden told SDS. “But you know, when we first met with him, we were like, ‘Dude, this guy seems awesome.’ Great attitude. Great eye-contact. Super mature. And we left and said, if we can get this guy, I think that would be a really good start. And he came down on a visit, committed, and you know, we got to meet Al and Helen (Will’s parents) and spend time with them. And we’re like, if we can get guys like this, like, we’re going to be in good shape here.”
Richard has now started 100 games for the Gators and this season passed program legends Al Horford and Joakim Noah on the all-time scoring list at Florida. Richard was named to the All-SEC Tournament team when the Gators won the tourney title last month, averaging 17 points per contest in Nashville, just minutes from where his college career began.
In the NCAA Tournament, Richard has played some of the most consequential minutes of the Final Four run, especially in Florida’s epic comeback win over 2-time defending national champion UConn, when Richard scored 15 points, grabbed 6 rebounds, and produced 3 steals, including a crafty back tap to Alex Condon that led to this run-out dunk to give the Gators a 3-point lead in a game they’d never trail again.
The UConn back tap play, where Richard fought through bruising UConn screening efforts to make a winning defensive play, exemplifies the growth that Golden has seen in Will since the day he arrived.
“To have Will 3 years, in today’s game, we are fortunate. His growth from the day we got him until now is remarkable. He’s become a more complete player. He was always able to shoot and scored a little bit, but now he is rebounding much more consistently. He is defending more consistently. He’s making plays out of ball screens more consistently. Will deserves as much credit as anybody for the success we’ve had.”
Now Richard is the consummate leader, one of the loudest voices in a locker room where players demand accountability.
“He’s an incredible leader,” Golden said of his first Florida commit. “He brings his voice to practice every single day. When you have one of your best players and one of your senior leaders that loves practicing hard and doing the little things every day, that makes it so much easier to coach the younger guys hard in that regard as well.”
Denzel Aberdeen
Richard’s consistency and development story tracks the tale of Aberdeen, Florida’s other key 3-year contributor and the least celebrated — but hardly the least important — of Florida’s quartet of marvelous guards.
In an instant gratification world where players who don’t start or command starter minutes or post big scoring averages often hit the portal in search of the coach or program that promises they will, Aberdeen is a throwback.
A junior from Orlando who grew up a Florida fan, Aberdeen stayed despite a freshman year that involved limited minutes and a sophomore season where he wasn’t assured of any certain role. Aberdeen seized a role as a vital defender and additional guard off the bench late last season and has parlayed that into a junior year where he garnered SEC Sixth Man of the Year buzz.
“He’s amazing,” Golden told SDS of Aberdeen. “He is what everyone in college athletics could still be. When I got the job, me and Jonathan Safir drove together to Orlando to meet him and his family. He was committed to the prior staff, and we were prepared to sell our vision and talk about what we want to do, and he was just like, ‘No, I’m good. I’m coming to Florida. I want to be there. And we left saying ‘Hell yeah. That’s our kind of guy.’ Then he had the tough freshman year, didn’t play a lot in the SEC, one of the best leagues in America. But Denzel didn’t pout. He didn’t blame anyone else. He came back, didn’t play a lot again early in the year, kind of was stuck behind some guys, but he kept working. Denzel has such a consistent approach. He just got better and better and teammates were saying, ‘Man, this guy is playing really well on the second unit.’ And then he earned a role down the stretch and played fantastic for us in the SEC Tournament, played well in the NCAA Tournament. It gave us confidence going into this year that he could be a consistent part of the rotation on a team we thought could be really good. Now he’s earned a starting role in our program as 3 seniors get ready to move on. What a great story.”
Aberdeen’s story makes him a beloved member among Gators fans, who appreciate a player who doesn’t immediately think the grass is greener elsewhere.
When injuries to Alijah Martin and Walter Clayton Jr. forced Golden to juggle his lineup in the middle of SEC play, no player on Florida’s roster received a louder ovation than Aberdeen when he was announced as a starter for the first time in his career. When Aberdeen buried a 28-foot 3-pointer in Igor Miličić Jr.’s grill to snuff out Tennessee momentum in the SEC Championship, the Gators fans rained down chants of “Den-zel Aber-deen” in the largely pumpkin orange-filled Bridgestone Arena. Aberdeen has brought that toughness to the NCAA Tournament, playing a critical role in Florida’s comeback win over UConn and scoring 12 points on 5-7 shooting in a Sweet 16 win over Maryland.
In an age of the sport where it’s hard for fans to fall in love with a player who may be here one day, gone the next, these moments say everything about what a player like Aberdeen, the rare one who does stay, means to a team now playing in the Final Four.
Walter Clayton Jr.
Walter Clayton Jr. arrived at Florida third, but his commitment to the Gators might have been the moment this Final Four run was born.
“When you’re trying to turn a program, when you are working to get a program back where it’s been, you have to hit on some big time recruits that kind of change the trajectory of your program, and landing Walter was obviously that,” Golden said earlier this month.
Florida knew St. John’s, who had hired Clayton’s first college head coach, Hall of Famer Rick Pitino, would fight tooth and nail to get Clayton to leave Long Island for the bright lights of the Big East in Queens.
In the end, family won out, and Clayton, who grew up a country boy in tiny Lake Wales, Florida, came home to play for the team he loved as a kid.
By now, Clayton’s story is well-known.
But before he was the matter of fact John Wick-style assassin hitting video game 3s in Steph Curry’s building to lift Florida to the Final Four, he was a highly regarded Power 5 football recruit, recruited by the likes of Georgia, Notre Dame, and Florida State to star on autumn Saturdays.
Basketball was his true love, though, so Clayton bet on himself, and cashed in on the chance Pitino offered him, becoming the MAAC Player of the Year as a sophomore before transferring to Florida as one of the best scorers in the transfer portal in 2023.
Clayton was sensational as a junior, earning All-SEC honors and averaging 17.6 points per game. Clayton also cemented his reputation as a fearless shooter whose range is “in the building,” no matter the building.
“I haven’t worried about missing shots since I was a kid, if ever,” Clayton told SDS earlier this season. “If I am playing, the shots are going up. They won’t all go in, but they are going up.”
But even with Clayton’s confident shooting, Florida had a problem entering the 2024-2025 season.
Point guard Zyon Pullin had moved on, and the Gators were left wondering who would run the offense. Golden bet that Clayton could switch positions as a senior and play point guard in the SEC. Enough folks doubted the decision to vote Florida outside of the top 5 in the preseason SEC media poll.
Clayton did what he’s always done and bucked the doubters.
Now, he’s a Consensus First-Team All-American (the first in Florida history) leading the nation’s second-ranked offense into the Final Four, where he’ll face an Auburn team against whom he dished out 9 assists on The Plains in February.
“When you think about the season Walt has had given a whole new set of demands we placed on him, I don’t think that was something he got enough credit for throughout the season. The growth he’s made this year I think has been exceptional. I’m not sure he got the national recognition he deserved that way for much of the season because we all know how difficult the transition from being a scoring, off-ball guard to being a lead guard is and he’s done it seamlessly,” Golden told SDS after Florida won the SEC Tournament.
For Clayton the biggest reward has been playing at home, near his young daughter and family, for the team he loves.
“I’m just blessed to be a Gator,” Clayton told SDS before Senior Day, before adding that the gift of playing with his teammates, especially the Florida backcourt, is his favorite thing of all.
“The 4 of us? I’ll take me and our guards and my guys against everybody,” Clayton says with a smile. “I think we’re the best backcourt in the country. We all worked to be here, though. It took a lot of days in the gym and a lot of fight to come together and become that. It’s something you earn.”
To Golden, it’s Clayton’s embrace of being a Gator and his embrace of any role necessary to win that defines him more than the dizzying confidence with which he puts up shots most players would find unthinkable.
“The best part about Walt is he absolutely loves being here. He loves being a Gator. He loves going to class and school here. He loves the fans. He loves the fact his mom came to so many games. He loved the challenge of playing lead guard and he loved performing when he knew people weren’t sure he could. It’s a really special story. I’m so happy for him.”
Alijah Martin
Even with Clayton, Richard, and Aberdeen in the fold, Florida lost in the first round in 2023-24.
The Gators scored prolifically, dropping 100 points at a 1.33 points per possession clip in a 102-100 Round of 64 loss to Colorado last March. The Gators lost despite Clayton’s otherworldly heater to close the game, when he dropped a flurry of triples to erase a double-digit deficit and tie the game at 100 late. But in the end, Florida and its 94th ranked defense fell one stop short of the second round.
When Golden and the Florida coaching staff sat down last spring to figure out how they wanted to build the 2024-25 roster, they were determined to make sure they’d never be miserable defensively again.
Enter Alijah Martin.
A starter and all-NCAA Tournament regional selection on Florida Atlantic’s 2023 Final Four team, Martin was the last of the Owls to enter the portal after the departure of his head coach, Dusty May, for the Michigan job last March.
Martin’s FAU backcourt mate, Johnell Davis, was the top-ranked player in the portal, and Davis was intrigued by the Gators and the opportunity to potentially play side-by-side with the explosive Clayton.
But Florida liked Martin, a combo guard known more for his defense and 3-point shooting than being a light-up-the-box-score scorer. Like Clayton, Martin was more highly regarded as a football prospect than a basketball player. Martin brings a football player’s tenacity to the basketball court, a grit and toughness that might surprise anyone who talks to the soft-spoken former all-state quarterback from Mississippi.
“I’m not sure I’ve met a tougher or more determined to win player than Alijah Martin,” former FAU and now Michigan head coach Dusty May said of the Florida guard earlier this season. “You’d be hard-pressed to meet a nicer person, either. There is no reason you can’t be exceedingly kind and incredibly tough all at once.”
For Florida, Martin’s toughness, along with his ability to guard, jumped off film. A 2-time all-conference defensive team selection, Martin was the missing link Florida’s staff believed they needed to become a SEC contender capable of playing deep into March.
Once Martin got on campus, he was even better than advertised.
“When I look at the biggest areas that Alijah has impacted our program, number one is his competitive nature,” Golden told SDS this week, ahead of the Final Four, where Martin will become the first player in college basketball history to start for 2 Final Four programs.
“As soon as we got him on campus last summer, we felt that right away, from the pickup runs to the Friday morning conditioning sessions when he was first to show up and work. He just had a level of toughness and maturity and competitiveness that we were missing last year. And you know, we were excited about it in the summer but then as you get into the fall, you see he’s able to maintain that consistent level of competitiveness. That’s when we were like, all right, this guy is a special leader in that way.”
Martin has delivered on the court as well, Golden told SDS. It isn’t just the shooting, though Martin is 1 of 3 Florida shooters, along with Clayton and Richard, to make at least 75 3s and shoot 35% or higher.
It’s his defense.
Martin finished the season ranked top 5 in the SEC in defensive win shares and defensive box-plus minus, 2 data points that measure the impact Martin has on the floor defensively against what happens when he is off the court.
In Florida’s second-round win over UConn, Martin’s 14 points, along with his tremendous defense on UConn sharpshooter Solo Ball, kept the Gators in the game until Clayton exploded late. Martin’s offensive rebound and dunk was also vital as Florida closed the win late.
Against Texas Tech, Martin made an acrobatic layup with Florida down 10 points to jumpstart the Gators’ comeback, then buried 2 vital free throws late to seal the win. Whatever he’s been asked to do, he’s done to help the Gators win.
“He’s been incredibly efficient,” Golden told SDS. “He’s done a great job being able to take on more ball handling responsibilities. Generally, Alijah is guarding the best perimeter offensive player for the opponent, and you know, he does a great job rebounding, making winning plays. Alijah completed this group. He was kind of the missing piece, and his presence and his production has really completed this team.”
Gators vs. Everybody
On paper, you’d be hard-pressed to imagine a backcourt without a single 4-star recruit or top 100 player could be the best in America.
But Florida’s guards have never cared much for what scouts or people thought of them on paper.
It’s that mentality, the “me and my guys vs. everybody” attitude, that makes these Florida guards so exceptional.
Alijah Martin is fond of talking about the “gift of playing at the University of Florida” and how motivating it is for Florida’s players to take advantage of the opportunity. He expanded on what he meant by that after Florida won the SEC Tournament when I asked him about the legacy of the 3 senior guards in Gainesville.
“Legacy? I say it’s the underdog legacy,” Martin told SDS. “We are all underdogs. We all, quote unquote, weren’t supposed to be here. But it just shows you that you just put your head down, you work, and you put God first, you could be anywhere you want to be.”
Even the Final Four, 2 wins away from being a national champion.
Neil Blackmon covers Florida football and the SEC for SaturdayDownSouth.com. An attorney, he is also a member of the Football and Basketball Writers Associations of America. He also coaches basketball.
