LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Houston and Florida will play for the men's NCAA basketball title Monday night at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
The other 362 Division I schools remain focused on other assignments: the transfer portal. recruiting, recruiting the transfer portal, monitoring the transfer portal, monitoring their current rosters for defections to the transfer portal, eyeballing signed recruits considering de-committing and managing expectations of fans obsessing about recruiting of the transfer portal and high school prospects.
Guess what?
Houston and Florida will finish in some combination of No. 1 and No. 2 this season. These are not the Clyde Drexler/Hakeem Olajuwon Houston Cougars. And these are not the Al Horford/Joakim Noah/Corey Brewer Florida Gators.
Welcome to the 2025 NCAA title game, in which recruiting and portal rankings can be filed directly in the shredder. Neither the Cougars nor Gators ever finished close to any combination of No. 1 and No. 2 in recruiting the portal or high school talent, according to 247Sports.
This is how many top-20 high school recruiting classes the Gators and Cougars signed over the last three seasons:
Zero.
This is how many top-10 transfer classes the Cougars and Gators signed over the last three seasons:
One — by Florida, which has only Will Richard remaining from the No. 9 transfer class in 2022.
This is how many top-50 high school players are likely to start for Florida and Houston over the season's final 40 minutes Monday night:
ZERO.
Average 247Sports high school ranking of Kelvin Sampson's ferocious five that limited Duke's McDonald's All-Americans to one field goal over the final 10 1/2 minutes in the national semifinals Saturday night:
No. 135.
That would guard Milos Uzan, ranked No. 66 in the Class of 2022 when he signed with Oklahoma; center Joseph Tugler, No. 69 in the 2023 class; guard L.J. Cryer, No. 123 when signed with Baylor in 2020 and guard Emmanuel Sharp, No. 191 in 2021.
Oops.
Forgot somebody. You know, that pesky J'Wan Roberts kid. The one who had 11 points, 12 rebounds, five assists, a block and two steals when the Cougars upset Duke?
The kid who dogged Duke forward Cooper Flagg, the top prospect in the freshman class as well as for the 2025 NBA Draft, into leaving the game winning shot short?
Let me share Roberts' recruiting profile, back from 2019. I don't believe he'll mind. Sources say Roberts was a lower-level three-star recruit ranked 225th in his class. He had offers from Sam Houston State, Washington State, Texas A&M and pre-Rick Pitino St. John's.
Make a note that two of Sampson's guys upgraded their profiles before they moved to Houston via the transfer portal. But not to Must Have status.
Uzan earned the No. 45 spot last season while Cryer was sixth in the 2023 portal class.
Sampson has crushed it on the practice floor, not the portal. Houston's last three portal classes ranked 101, 31 and 146. I assume they call that coaching.
Add another zero to the list. That would be zero Houston players are projected as first-round NBA picks in June.
Surely, the recruiting gossip said spicier things about the players that coach Todd Golden collected in his first three seasons at Florida.
Nah. Golden is another coach'em up guy.
The Gators' last three high school recruiting classes ranked 61st, 51st and 31st at 247Sports. Their last three portal classes were better, landing at 35th, 12th and 9th.
But if you want to pull for the team with the most zero-star recruits Monday, the Gators are your squad.
Two Florida starters were not ranked nationally as high school players — guard Alijah Martin, who turned down Alcorn State and Jacksonville State to sign with Dusty May at Florida Atlantic and NCAA Tournament breakout star Walter Clayton Jr.
Clayton refused to take the hint that he should play SEC football and signed to play basketball for Rick Pitino, when Pitino began his comeback at Iona. But even after Clayton did good things for Pitino while taking the Gaels to the 2023 NCAA Tournament, he was not considered a prime portal catch.
The gurus at 247Sports ranked Clayton as the 69th-best player in the portal, behind Aaron Estrada (Alabama, No. 24); Nick Timberlake (Kansas, No. 30) and Tre White (Louisville, No. 32).
The rest of Golden's starting lineup was not receiving phone calls and text messages from Bill Self, John Calipari, Jon Scheyer and Danny Hurley.
Small forward Will Richard? Signed with Belmont as the No. 84 prospect in his class and then jumped to Florida as the No. 46 portal guy.
Forward Alex Condon? Climbed to the No. 214 prep prospect in the 2023 class at the NBA Global Academy.
Center Rueben Chinyelu was not a Top 100 prospect when he signed with Washington State (No. 128) in 2023 and he was not a Top 100 portal prospect when he arrived in Gainesville as the No. 104 guy in the portal last spring.
These are not the Drexler, Olajuwon Houston Cougars. Nor are these the Horford, Noah, Brewer Florida Gators.
But one of these teams will win the 2025 national title in San Antonio on Monday night.
Now return to obsessing about the transfer portal.
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