That's a big crowd. That's really, really nice. I just met your coach; now I see why you won, [laughter] but they had to put -- they are tall, tall guys. Good looking guys. Sam, congratulations. Fantastic job. It's not easy, right, coach? But today, we're delighted to welcome the 2025 NCAA basketball champions, the University of Florida Gators Congratulations.
Hello, Tim. Congratulations also to a really great young head coach, Todd Golden, on the entire job he did, the season, the inspiration that he gave these players. He's unbelievable as a coach. I heard a lot of great things about him. Ooo, would I like to be his agent. Don't go anywhere, coach. Stay, coach, you can't leave And joining us this afternoon is University of Florida's interim president, Kent Fox.
Kent, good, congratulations. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a phenomenal job keeping us safe. And of course, there's no bigger Florida fan than Secretary of State Marco Rubio Pam, why don't you and Marco come up, come up, Senator, come on up, get up here, come on up here, Senator. And I see Marco's son, Anthony, is a running back for the Gators football team.
Whoa, that's not bad, that's pretty good. We're also joined by Senators Rick Scott, Ashley Moody -- Rick Scott. Where's Rick, Rick come on up, Rick. Ashley's up. Representatives Aaron Bean, Gus Bilirakis, Vern Buchanan, Kate Cammack and if you want to come on up? This stage is meant for a lot of people actually.
Byron Donalds, Randy Fine. Randy? Come on up, Randy, congratulations on your election. I was worried about you, Randy. He ended up winning by 16 points, right? I wasn't too worried. Scott Franklin, Scott, thank you very much. Carlos Gimenez, where's Carlos? Come on up, Carlos. Good guy. Mike Haridopolos, Laurel Lee, Laurel?
Laurel Lee, look at this. Hi, Greg. They don't have your name down, Greg. Get up here, Greg. Greg Steube. Anna Paulina Luna, Anna, Anna, come on, Anna. Jimmy Patronis Jimmy, congratulations. That was a big -- that was a big election. We got them all. We have Greg up here. Thanks as well to the wonderful members of the Florida State Legislature and a very special thanks to the NFL legend and University of Florida.
I mean, one of the greatest players I've ever seen, I'll tell you what, as a college player, maybe the best ever and you did damn well -- and you did damn well in the pros, too. He was great. Despite being on the Jets, you did damn well on them. Come on up here, Tim, you got to come up here Tim Tebow and he's a terrific guy.
He is a terrific guy, he's a winner. Boy, he is a winner. What did you win? Two, right? And you almost won a third. There's nobody did much better. Nobody did that. I think we -- he goes down really as one of the best, maybe the best college football player, if you think about it, based on -- we can only base it on results, right, Tim, which is all that count.
Great guy too. The 2025 University of Florida basketball team was one for the history books. And I saw a few of those games and they were tough games against great teams. You brought home the third national title in program history and made Florida the only Division 1 program ever to win three national titles in both basketball and football.
That's not bad. The team was hot from the very beginning, starting off the year with a 13 game winning streak and roaring to a 27 -- 4 record in the regular season against really, really good competition, including two wins over number one ranked opponents. In one of the pivotal moments early in the season, the Gators found themselves in a fierce battle with South Carolina, a great team, trailing the Gamecocks 52 to 38, Coach.
That's pretty good coach. [Laughter] They're not too happy about it, are they? [Laughter] That's one of those, you know, you're happy, but they're not happy when that happens. [Laughter] With 12 minutes left on the clock fighting against time, the Gators clawed your way back into striking distance. With just five seconds left on the clock, senior guard Will Richards seized his moment.
And drove in hard to sink a game winning layup, earning Florida a 70 to 69 come from behind victory. Well done. Where is uh, where's will I want to see this guy? [Laughter] That's great, Will. Boy, oh boy, these are good looking guys. [Laughter] And they're definitely -- they're definitely tall. One of my guys said downstairs, he's a big guy.
He said these are the tallest human beings I've ever seen. [Laughter] You know, I have a son who's six foot nine. But six foot nine is not -- I now see, you know, he always says dad, I'm not that tall compared to some of these guys. And now, I understand what he's talking about. [Laughter] By the SEC tournament, Florida truly caught fire.
The Gators even set a new tournament scoring record when you beat Alabama 104 to 82. In the closing minutes of the SEC Championship Game against Tennessee, the Volunteers cut the Gators 13 point lead down to five. Oh, that's called sometimes choke time, coach. [Laughter] That's never good when you take that big lead and you're all -- you're thinking about your victory speech and you forget to play basketball, right? [Laughter] You forget you've got to play golf or basketball or whatever it is. And then, all of a sudden, you say, oh, man, we could lose this sucker, huh? [Laughter] That's never good.
But you handled it. The pressure was on in, you handled it. That's when star senior guard Walter Clayton, Jr. -- I tell you, I hear he's -- he's really good. [Laughter] I see he's really rich too, you know that. [Laughter] Seize control of the game. [Laughter]
Not yet. Not yet. [Laughter]
Yeah, not yet. [Laughter] Is he coming back, coach?
No, he's -- he'll be playing in the NBA next year.
Oh, then he's richer. [Laughter] No, I hear he's unbelievable, special, going to be a very early draft choice, sir. I think.
I believe so.
If they're smart. If they're smart. Seized control of the game and scored eight straight points leading the Gators to your first SEC Championship in 11 years and earning himself a title and tournament MVP. That's great. A lot of MVP's up there. Up next was the Big Dance. Florida opened March Madness with a commanding win over Norfolk State and followed it up by edging out two time defending champ UConn, that's tough, in a thrilling 77-75 win.
Some of these games are close, coach, hey. [Laughter]
They were. [Laughter]
You know what they say about those close, that means they have a good coach. [Laughter]
I don't know about that.
Boy, you won a lot of close games here. The Elite Eight brought to a faceoff with Texas Tech down by nine with under four minutes left. Florida responded with a furious rally led by sophomore Thomas Hauck, [ph] who made back to back three pointers. Back to back. He's got good hair, too. [Laughter] [off-mic] Nice hair.
Thomas Hauck! [off-mic] thank you. [Laughter] He's got no hair loss problem I can tell you. [Laughter] Thomas was still on full display as he earned his fourth double double of the season by recording 20 points and 11 rebounds while against the Red Raiders. And with an 84 to 79 victory over Texas Tech, you punched your ticket to the Final Four.
Not easy to do. Thank you. Not easy to do, fellas. Facing off against top seeded Auburn, Walter Clayton -- again, Walter Clayton. This guy, Walter Clayton has to be very -- [Laughter] Walter Clayton Jr., turned in another big performance, dropping a career high 34 points and became the first player since Larry Bird.
How good was Larry Bird?[Laughter] In 1979 to score 30 points or more in both the Elite Eight and the Final Four. That some competition. [off-mic] They like -- they like Larry Bird. I do too. [Laughter] So in the championship game against the Houston Cougars what became one of the most hard fought title games in college basketball history, the first half was a battle over every point with both teams playing ferocious defense.
And the lowest scoring first half of a championship game since 2011. The Gators fell behind and it was looking bad. [Laughter] But in the second half, Florida stormed back with a 14-3 run. That's not bad. With less than 60 seconds left on the clock, Houston led by one point. Did you think you were going to win?
I did.
That's -- [Laughter] That's what he gets paid for. [Laughter] Shit. [Laughter] This guy's good. Houston then fouled Elijah Martin. OK, where's Elijah? Giving him two free throws which he easily sank. Were you nervous? I always think he's a guy he's got to sink -- it's not that easy. I can name a couple of very big players that didn't do too well in that circumstance.
Were you nervous when you were up there?
No. [Laughter]
Huh? [Laughter] That's pretty good. He sank them both, coach, right?
Yes, he did.
Oh, if you didn't sink him, you wouldn't be up here right now. [Laughter] And nobody would ever call you again. [Laughter] That's great. That's a lot of pressure. That's a tremendous thing. Houston fouled junior guard, Denzel Aberdeen, who expanded Florida's lead again. And that's great. Where's Denzel? I love that name.
Denzel Aberdeen. I have a place in Aberdeen, Scotland. I like that name. [Laughter] Aberdeen. And he's a good player, coach, huh?
Very good. [Laughter]
I wouldn't -- I'd like to have him say no, not that good. [Laughter] You look like a good player. On Houston's final possession, the Gators clamped down, pressured the ball. That's right. I saw that game. That was a crazy game. And forced a turnover. The ball rolled loose. And the Gators clinched the National Championship 65 to 63 in one of the most exciting games and championships they've ever had. [Applause] That's true.
Great coaching. Lesser teams would have crumbled. That was a hell of a game. Tim, what do you think? Pretty good, right?
They're the best.
Huh, that was pretty good. [Laughter] And uh, under that pressure, very few teams could have withstood that. That was an amazing moment actually. And those two throws -- free throws by Denzel were pretty amazing. But time after time, you refuse to let up. I mean, think of it, all these close games and against great teams.
And a lot of those guys are going into the NBA. And you won coach. You just kept winning. You refused to let up when the odds were against you. And that's the mark of true champions, all of you. The coach is great and the team is great. And the coach feels really -- I asked him the first question, how do you think you'll do this year?
You know, in other words, forget about last year, how are you doing this year, right? [Laughter] We always think forward, coach. But he said he thinks he's going to have a fantastic team. Will you go in ranked top five or so or one or maybe?
It will be top five.
Five. Good, coach. That's good. Well, if you're top five, that means with you as a coach, you're going to win, right. So I think so.
[off-mic] [Laughter]
So again, congratulations to a well-earned victory. And all I can say is Go Gators! We love you in Florida, I'll tell you. We love you in Florida. And now, Coach Golden. Coach? Thank you, coach.
Whoa. That's my passport. [Laughter] First of all, thank you, Mr. President --
Thank you.
For inviting my team and our program to the White House to celebrate our national championship. It means everything to us, so thank you very much.
And we're going to take you to the Oval Office next.
We're going to go to the Oval Office after this.
Yeah, it's the Oval Office after this, right?
Yeah. It's -- and then we just want to thank all of our friends and family and supporters of our program that are here today, uh, enjoying this moment and celebrating with us. If it wasn't for your support all year we wouldn't be here, so thank you all very much. Um, Mr. President, I'd like to think of our program, uh, similarly to how you think of the United States.
We're a meritocracy, all right? We work really, really hard. No matter what you look like or where you come from if you put the team first and win, we're going to play you. And we have a program full of that, guys that have great attitudes, great work ethics, most importantly, want to be at the University of Florida.
All right? We have young men that have great physical tools, great basketball talent. In fact, as Mr. President said, a number of these guys will be participating in the NBA next year or when their time at Florida is up. But the reason why we were successful this year is we had incredible team talent. We had guys that were willing to play together, sacrifice individual stats and records for the greater good of the group, and it led us to a 36 and 4 record and a trip to the White House I'm incredibly proud of my players and our staff and the work that we've done over the last year, and our goal is to do everything we can to put ourselves in position to be here again next year.
But we've got a lot of work to do in the meantime. But again, Mr. President, thank you so much. And to show a token of our appreciation, we have an autographed team basketball and a Donald Trump jersey with number 47 on it all right, to honor your 47th term as president of the United States of America.
Thank you very much. That's beautiful. Thank you.
Thank you all very much. Go Gators
If they want -- I'm not sure they'll want to. I think the most exciting room anywhere in the world is called the Oval Office. And I'm going to invite the coach and the team down to the Oval Office. I might even ask our great Representatives, Senators, Marco, everybody to come down with them and we'll take some pictures in the Oval Office.
And I have a special little coin for them, a really nice coin. I hope they never lose it because, if they do, it's a lot of money, that coin. But -- so, let's see. Do you want to go to the Oval Office?
Yes, sir.
I thought they were going to say that. Thank you all very much. Great team, great, great everything. Thank you. Fantastic. Thank you very much.