By Steve Reed

The Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. — 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 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¢-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 SEC 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.