April 7, 2025 10:18PM CST

Wow! What a physical final game. I loved it. Houston turned up the physical intensity with 10 minutes left in the Semi-Final against Duke and then just kept it going into Monday night's Final. They built a big lead, but Florida showed toughness and fought back in the second half. In the pre-game, they talked a lot about the coaches ages. Kelvi...n Sampson would be the oldest to win a national championship and Todd Golden would be you second youngest behind Jimmy V. Then I saw the stat that tonight would be Kelvin's 300th win at Houston and his 800th win overall. With a stat like that, it just felt that a Houston win was inevitable. But it was Florida's night. They had to overcome deficits in several tournament games and did it again. That final play for Houston was so anti-climatic.

Side note, due to his past, I was never a big Kelvin Sampson fan, but I was cheering for him tonight. I can not cheer for Florida. They beat UCLA in the NCAA Championship game in 2006, knocked UCLA out in the semi final in 2007, and then knocked them out in the early tourney rounds in both 2011 & 2014.

I loved seeing the Hakeem Olajuwon being interviewed in the pre-game on ESPN. I feel like the 1983 Phi Slama Jama was just the other day. That was the year (and specifically the Houston vs Louisville semi-final game) where I got addicted to March Madness.



In the FINAL LEADERBOARD, David Templer takes the top spot. David had the best Day 1 and also was the leader at the end of Round 1. He hung around the top of the leaderboard the whole tourney. Jeff Bloomquist takes second place. Kevin Whisman and Haley GalliganMilinkov tie for third. The entire Top 10 will get a prize.

In the SWEET 16 pool, Patrick Russart and Greg Grinter tie for the top spot and will split the first and second place prizes. Both ended with perfect SWEET16 brackets. W.David takes third.

In the inaugural WOMENS LEADERBOARD, Los Williams takes the big prize of $700 with UConn as Champ. Jackson Mistretta takes second place and Tony Pacelli takes third.

All of this year's winners can be found on the FINAL RESULTS page. See you next year!