Florida, Flagg and more feats of fabulousness from the 2024-25
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Dick VitaleApr 9, 2025, 09:30 AM ET Close Penis Vitale, college basketball’s leading analyst and ambassador, signed up with ESPN throughout the 1979-80 season. His thorough knowledge of the game is brought forth in a passionate, enthusiastic design. Vitale also contributes columns to ESPN.com.Get all set to crank up
the excitement because I’ve got my Amazing Lots Hoop Happenings from the 2024-25 season. And let me tell you, it was March Madness all year long!We had Diaper Dandies lighting it up, famous coaches rewording the record books and historic moments that had me leaping out of my seat. From coast to coast, buzzer-beaters to blowouts, this season had all of it, and I’m here to give you the top 12 sizzling storylines that made this year one for the ages.Sit back, get your popcorn and get ready for some primetime PTPer action, baby! Editor’s Picks 2 Associated The Florida Gators swamp Houston for the title. The Gators are kings of the court, cutting down the nets as your 2025 NCAA males’s basketball
national champions
. What a ride, what a run! Billy Donovan’s legacy resides on. These Gators were durable, relentless and ridiculously skilled. From Walter Clayton Jr. hitting clutch shots to his suppressing protective stop at the end of the game, Florida brought the heat all season.Cooper Flagg, a legitimate Diaper Dandy luxurious. This freshman phenom from the Duke Blue Devils was unbelievable. Points, boards, dimes, steals– he led ’em all. He was so good, he didn’t just live up
to the hype, he blew it out of the fitness center, and he’s your nationwide player of the year.The SEC was absolutely awesome. A hoops heaven all season! Count ’em: Fourteen teams in the Huge Dance. That’s a Dandy Lots, plus two. No conference brought it night in and night out like the Southeastern Conference.We got chalk in the Final Four. For the very first time since 2008, all four No. 1 seeds punched their tickets to the promised land: The Auburn Tigers, Duke Blue Devils, Houston Cougars and Florida Gators. And they didn’t just win, they controlled by
over 16 points a pop.Holy Toledo! Calipari to the Razorbacks. After 15 years in Lexington, Kentucky, Coach Cal made a splash by leaping to the Arkansas Razorbacks. And guess what? He had those Hogs dancin’ to the Sweet 16. A real game changer in the SEC.Rick Pitino, are you severe? This
guy’s a training wizard. He took the St. John’s Red Storm to the top of the Big East for the very first time in 40 years. The Red Storm rolled, and Pitino was a national coach of the year. Well deserved.Tom Izzo, Mr. Big Ten. The man, the myth
, the March legend became the winningest coach in Huge Ten history. Win No. 354 came against Illinois, and you know what? The Michigan State Spartans genius’s still got that fire in his belly.Rock Chalk royalty. Bill Self passed the legendary Phog Allen
to become the winningest coach in Kansas Jayhawks history. That’s elite territory, and Self is resting on the throne in Jayhawk Nation.Walter Clayton Jr. was Mr. Clutch. When the Florida Gators needed him most in the national title game, Final Four and Elite Eight, he provided with back-to-back 30-point games and a vital defensive stop. Now that’s how you lead your team to its very first championship game in nearly 2 decades.The year of the Diaper Dandies. We’re talking an NBA draft loaded with first-year phenoms:
Eighteen(18!)freshmen might enter the first round. And the top 9? All rookies, infant. It was freshman fabulousness all season.The Alabama Crimson Tide went crazy from beyond the arc. A jaw-dropping 25 triples in their NCAA tourney win over BYU– that’s a record! Mark Sears was cooking with hot sauce: 34 points, 10 3-pointers.
That’s what I call a 3-point celebration, and everyone was invited.Talk about historic: The Temple Owls and Syracuse Orange struck the wonderful 2,000-win mark. That’s uncommon air, as they join the all-time elite, the blue bloods of college hoops history.Let me inform you, this season was
un-be-lievable. Hoops hysteria from the opening idea to the title showdown.