When the Florida Gators captured the NCAA men’s basketball national championship, Monday night, with a 65-63 nail-biter over Houston, star guard Walter Clayton Jr. completed an amazing March run in leading his team to the title.
In the tournament alone, Clayton averaged 22.3 points per game, and had back-to-back 30 points games in the elite eight and in the final four, thus making him the first player to do so since Larry Bird.
Because of his performances in this year’s tournament, he has drawn comparisons to players like Stephen Curry, Jamal Murray, and many more. However, his journey to college basketball glory was not exactly the path you would imagine.
Growing up in Florida, Clayton attended Lake Wales and Bartow High Schools, spending two years at each. In his first season at Bartow he averaged 15.4 points, 4.3 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 2.3 steals per game.
These numbers were solid, but it was not the level of production you would project to Division I college national championship for one of the most decorated programs in the country.
Now, here is where it gets interesting. In high school, Clayton was actually much better at football than he was at basketball in high school, and everybody else seemed to agree.
In high school he played quarterback, safety and kicker and ended up as a 4-star recruit. His skill got him offers from schools like Notre Dame, Tennessee, and yes, even Florida. Other schools that showed interest were Auburn and Georgia.
When he graduated high school he had to make a tough decision on whether to stick with basketball, or to continue with football. He eventually made one of the most important decisions in sticking with what he liked most, basketball.
He got an offer to continue his basketball career and play for Iona. in his sophomore year, Clayton started in 31-of-32 games and averaged 16.8 points a game, before deciding to transfer to Florida.
According to his bio at Iona, legendary coach Rick Pitino said this about Clayton.
“Walter is a dual sport athlete in basketball and football. He was heavily recruited by Power 5 schools like Notre Dame, Georgia, and Florida as a quarterback and wide receiver. He chose Iona because basketball is his first love. At 6-2, Walter has good size and distributes the ball very well. He comes from an outstanding Bartow program that went 31-1 last year.”
Obviously, receiving high praise from one of the greatest minds in the sport, Clayton then got the chance to transfer to Florida.
Funny enough, his reasoning for transferring there is described as “because we can win it big here.”
Clayton followed his heart, got an opportunity to prove that his basketball game was only beginning to develop while in high school and has now succeeded on the biggest stage in college basketball. The sky is now the limit for his basketball future.
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