For Florida’s Clayton, spiking football and saying so long to Pitino leads to the Final Four

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Most people thought Walter Clayton Jr. would play football in college. He chose hoops.

And when following Rick Pitino after the coach moved from Iona to St. John’s seemed like a good choice two years ago, Clayton chose Florida instead.

Taking a different path has turned Clayton into one of the best players to wear a Gators uniform, and also led him down a road every college basketball player hopes to travel — the one that ends at the Final Four. He and the Gators are two wins away from the program’s first championship in 18 years.

Heading into Saturday’s game against Auburn, Clayton averages 18 points this year, 22.2 in the tournament and, maybe most important, is proving to be the most clutch player in all of March Madness so far.

In the second round, he had 13 points over the last eight minutes of a close win over UConn. In the Elite Eight, he had 13 points and two assists over the last five minutes to help Florida overcome a 10-point deficit against Texas Tech.

Hard to imagine no big schools were looking at him in high school.

“It’s just knowing some guys didn’t believe in you from the get-go,” said Clayton, who admits to playing with a Gator-sized chip on his shoulder. “You just keep on grinding. Don’t give up.”

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Clayton was a four-star recruit as a safety on the Bartow football team in Florida, about 90 minutes east of Tampa.

Florida, Florida State and Alabama were among those offering scholarships.

He said he thinks the lack of recruiting for basketball — even the Florida coach at the time, Mike White, wouldn’t give him a look — was largely based on the fact that most coaches thought football would be his sport.

But he wanted basketball, and Pitino said it was the player who pursued him, not the other way around, when the Hall of Fame coach — who won AP coach of the year honors on Friday, along with Auburn’s Bruce Pearl — was resurrecting his career at Iona.

“He was a little bit heavy, he needed to get quicker, his shot needed to get better, and he worked at it and worked at it, and sophomore year, he was MVP of the league,” Pitino said.

Clayton’s success helped the Gaels to the NIT in 2022 and the NCAA Tournament in 2023. It made Pitino an easy choice to take over at St. John’s. At that point, it was a choice between following Pitino to New York City or heading back to Florida for the late bloomer who was benefiting from the fruits of the transfer portal and name, image, likeness deals.

His girlfriend was pregnant with their daughter, Leilani, who was born in December 2023, and so the choice became easier.

“I’m a big family guy,” Clayton said. “It was kind of like I was picking between two families.”

Now that he’s part of the Florida family, he’s getting compared favorably to some of its all-time greats: Neal Walk, Mike Miller, Vernon Maxwell and half the starting lineup from those 2006-07 title teams. A few more wins and Clayton will rise even higher on that list.

Not a bad road to travel for a guy everyone thought would play football.

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