Florida ends UConn's bid for third straight national title with 77-75 March Madness win

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — For 30 minutes, UConn showed the mettle and toughness that delivered back-to-back national championships for Dan Hurley, outplaying top-seeded Florida in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

And then Walter Clayton Jr. took over.

The Gators' first-team All-America guard scored 13 of his 23 points in the final eight minutes on Sunday, including two crucial 3-pointers down the stretch, and Florida rallied to a scintillating 77-75 victory over the Huskies, ending UConn’s pursuit of a third straight title.

Florida (32-4) advanced to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2017 and will play Colorado State or Maryland in the West Region semifinals in San Francisco.

“This is a great win for our program,” coach Todd Golden said. “The time was now for us to take that next step. Again, Florida basketball, back where it belongs. Being in the Sweet 16 is a great step in the right direction. ... We made winning play after winning play down the stretch in the last six minutes.”

There's little doubt about that.

But they also had help from the Huskies, who made some uncharacteristic mistakes, including twice allowing the Gators to corral offensive rebounds off missed free throws, resulting in four second-chance points.

The Huskies (24-11) came in with modest outside expectations as a No. 8 seed but led for most of the second half. During his postgame news conference, Hurley struggled several times to hold back tears.

“This was just historic run that these guys have been on and the guys that have worn the uniform the past couple years,” Hurley said. “If it’s going to come to an end for us, I wouldn’t have wanted it to be in a game where we lost to a lower seed.

“There’s some honor, I guess, in the way that this went down.”

UConn was seeking to become the first team to three-peat since UCLA’s run of seven straight titles from 1967-73.

The Huskies won the 2023 title in Houston and last year in Glendale, Arizona, joining Duke (1991-92) and Florida (2006-07) as the only schools to win back-to-back since the Bruins’ run under John Wooden.

Florida entered the game as a 9 1/2-point favorite and ranked No. 1 in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efficiency by scoring 128.9 points per 100 possessions, and the Gators of the powerful Southeastern Conference joined fellow 1-seed Duke as the only teams to rank in the top 10 on both sides of the ball, making them a popular pick to cut down the nets.

But the Huskies' defense stymied Clayton and company for most of the game, holding Florida to 35% shooting through the first 30 minutes to build a 52-46 lead.

The Gators chipped away and then Clayton showed why he's one of the best players in the country.

He made a 3 from the right wing with 2:54 left to put Florida ahead 62-61, and teammate Will Richard followed with a steal and dunk. Clayton's 3 from the same spot with 1:06 left made it 70-64 — part of a 14-3 run that gave Florida an eight-point advantage with 40 seconds left.

Even when Florida seemed to have the game in hand, UConn kept fighting. Thomas Haugh's two free throws with 5.9 seconds left pushed the Gators' lead to five to seal the win.

Hurley watched, arms folded, standing on the sideline as Liam McNeeley’s 3-pointer at the buzzer sailed skyward and dropped through the net as the horn sounded.

Afterward, Clayton thanked his teammates for believing in him after his rough start.

“We knew this game wasn’t going to be easy,” Clayton said. “(UConn) has got a championship pedigree, back-to-back champions. That’s a great team. They had that experience. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy. We kept our composure.”

McNeeley led UConn with 22 points, and Alex Karaban scored 14. Alijah Martin contributed 18 points for Florida and Richard had 15.

UConn: A major rebuild is in store for the Huskies, who struggled to replace losing four starters to the NBA last season.

Florida: The Gators took a huge step forward. Golden has resurrected the program in a span of three years, but he had never won a March Madness game before this year.

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here.

Florida guard Alijah Martin celebrates after scoring against UConn during the second half in the second round of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Sunday, March 23, 2025, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Delaware lawmakers put aside protests from major investors and approved fast-tracked legislation Tuesday night that backers say will protect its status as the corporate capital of the world after criticism by billionaire Elon Musk and other influential business titans rattled public officials.

The bill is headed to Gov. Matt Meyer, a Democrat who met with corporate leaders about their concerns about precedent-setting court decisions governing corporate conflicts of interest and urged lawmakers to quickly pass changes to the law.

They did, sending the bill through both chambers within two weeks of its introduction, despite shareholders’ lawyers and pension funds slamming it as a giveaway to billionaires and corporate insiders. The House approved it Tuesday night, 32-7, after a unanimous Senate earlier in March.

Delaware’s experienced corporate law courts and their well-developed body of corporate case law have become the go-to destination to settle all sorts of business disputes as the legal home of more than 2 million corporate entities, including two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies.

The state also reaps billions of dollars from the activity, making lawmakers nervous that corporations could flee Delaware and undercut a major source of revenue that funds one-third of Delaware's operating budget.

After two hours of debate Tuesday, Rep. Krista Griffith told colleagues that the bill was complex, but the reasons for voting for it were simple: “Protect Delaware’s economy, protect future opportunities for the people in our state. We have the best business court in the nation.”

However, an opponent, Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton — referring to the business courts as Delaware's “golden goose” — warned that the changes being passed could end up "cooking that golden goose.”

A legal challenge is widely expected after Meyer signs the bill.

In hearings, lawmakers were warned by corporate lawyers and state officials that businesses were contemplating moving their legal home — a “Dexit,” as it has been dubbed — and that startups are being advised to incorporate elsewhere, such as competitors Nevada or Texas.

Corporate leaders complained about a lack of predictability, clarity and fairness, lawmakers were told.

Last year, Musk slammed Delaware, saying “Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware” and instead recommended Nevada or Texas as destinations after a Delaware judge invalidated his landmark compensation package from Tesla worth potentially more than $55 billion.

Musk and Tesla are appealing in the state Supreme Court, and Musk’s companies — Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink — all departed Delaware for Nevada or Texas.

The fallout seemed to accelerate in recent weeks when the Wall Street Journal reported that Meta Platforms — the parent company of social media platforms Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — was considering moving its incorporation to Texas. Meta — run by billionaire chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg — didn’t confirm the report.

The bill has come under withering criticism that it will tilt the playing field decisively against investors, including pensioners and middle-class savers, and make it harder for them to hold billionaires and corporate insiders accountable for violating their fiduciary duty.

They argue that the bill overturns decades of court precedents. But its backers say it is only affecting newer precedents, modernizing the law, clarifying gray areas and maintaining balance between corporate officers and shareholders.

The bill changes several provisions.

One, it gives corporate officers and controlling stockholders more protections in certain conflict-of-interest cases in state courts when fighting shareholder lawsuits.

Two, it limits the kind of documents that a company must produce in court cases and makes it harder for stockholders to get access to internal documents or communication that could prove time-consuming and expensive for a company to produce — not to mention, damaging to its case.

Institutional investors warn that such a law may prompt them to push corporations that they own to incorporate elsewhere.

Follow Marc Levy on X at: https://x.com/timelywriter.

FILE - Elon Musk departs the Capitol following a meeting with Senate Republicans, in Washington, Wednesday, March 5, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file)