Championship is tonight


Championship tonight
Florida vs. Houston
From marchmadman Updated 04/07/25, 6:00am
The Championship game is tonight, tipoff at 8:50pm, with coverage beginning at 8:00pm on CBS. Will Kelvin Sampson and Houston win their first National Championship for both, or will Florida win its third national championship and first for young Florida coach Todd Golden. Todd Golden is 39 years old and is in his third year as Florda s head coach. In his first year as Florida s coach, they lost in the first round of the NIT. Last year, they lost in the First Round of the NCAA tournament. Golden started his head coaching career with San Francisco in 2019 where he coached for three seasons before becoming Florida s head coach. In his third and final season with San Francisco, the Don s lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Prior to this run to the championship game, Golden lost every post-season game he had coached. Kelvin Sampson is the elder statesman being 69 years old. By the time Golden was born, Sampson already had 4 years of head coaching experience under his belt. Sampson s first appearance in the Tournament was as the head coach at Washington State in 1994, but he is best known for coaching Oklahoma from 1994-2006 where he made the post season every one of those 12 seasons. However, his years at Oklahoma were not exactly squeaky clean. Under Sampson's watch, Oklahoma was placed under a three-year investigation by the NCAA for recruiting violations. At the end of their investigation, the NCAA issued a report citing more than 550 illegal calls made by Sampson and his staff. The NCAA barred Sampson from recruiting off campus and making phone calls for one year, ending May 24, 2007. With the writing on the wall, Sampson bolted and left one troubled program for another he headed to Indiana to take over for Mike Davis (the Indiana coach after Bobby Knight). Indiana not being shy of troubled coaches hired Sampson knowing full well of Sampson s past troubles and NCAA sanctions imposed on him, not just Oklahoma. Sampson did not change his ways (I guess assuming he thought behaving poorly was the Hoosier way). In February of his second season at Indiana, the NCAA informed Indiana that Sampson had knowingly violated telephone recruiting restrictions and then lied about it. Two weeks later, he was fired. The NCAA then essentially banned Sampson from coaching in the NCAA for the next five seasons. So, Sampson spent the next six years as an assistant coach in the NBA. In 2014, the first year Sampson was eligible to coach again, Houston hired him as their head coach. Since then, Sampson has led the Cougars to five conference regular season titles, two conference titles, and six NCAA tournament appearances. In today s NIL era, Sampson s previous violations seem like jaywalking. So, will you root for the young coach from Florida who moonlights as a robot popper on the socials, Or the old coach from Houston who has some skeletons in his closet? Who among us doesn t have a few skeletons in our closet or tried robot dancing at least once in the mirror alone?