Men's NCAA Tournament 2025: Saturday's Elite Eight Winners and Losers

The first two seats at the Final Four table have been filled.

The Florida Gators battled back from down nine points inside of four minutes to pull out an 84-79 win over the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Walter Clayton Jr. showed why he is an All-American with 22 of his 30 points coming in the second half.

Things were not nearly as close in the second matchup, with Duke rolling to an 85-65 victory over the Alabama Crimson Tide in a game that showcased the Blue Devils lockdown defense.

The last two spots in the Final Four will be decided on Sunday night when defensive heavyweights Houston and Tennessee square off in the Midwest Region, while Auburn and Michigan State do battle in the South Region.

For now, let's take a look at the biggest winners and losers from Saturday night's action.

Winner: Walter Clayton Jr. and an Impressive Florida Comeback

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The Florida Gators entered Saturday's Elite Eight game riding a 28-game winning streak when leading at halftime, and they carried a 40-37 lead into the break against Texas Tech.

However, it looked like that streak was in jeopardy when a JT Toppin layup gave the Red Raiders a 75-66 lead with 3:14 remaining in the game.

Florida's next four possessions saw Thomas Haugh hit a pair of three-pointers and then Walter Clayton Jr. followed suit with two deep balls of his own, and during that same stretch the Red Raiders missed the front end of a one-and-one on consecutive possessions.

Clayton's final three ball came with 59 seconds left on the clock and gave the Gators their first lead in nearly 13 minutes of game time, and they sealed the win by knocking down all six of their free throw attempts down the stretch.

The All-American Clayton finished with a game-high 30 points, despite scoring just eight in the first half. Equally important was the 20 points and 11 rebounds that Haugh chipped in over 30 huge minutes off the bench while knocking down four threes.

The Gators advance to the Final Four for the sixth time in school history and the first time since 2014 when they lost to Shabazz Napier and UConn.

Loser: A Squandered Opportunity for Texas Tech

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It's silly to call a No. 3 seed an underdog in the NCAA tournament, but in an Elite Eight field that featured four No. 1 seeds and three No. 2 seeds, Texas Tech was the only team that was technically not supposed to still be standing based on seeding.

The Red Raiders used a 12-2 run to build the biggest lead of the game for either side when they went up 71-61 with 6:18 remaining, and they still led by nine points with 3:14 left on the clock.

However, a flurry of three-pointers by the Gators erased that deficit down the stretch, and JT Toppin and Darrion Williams each missed the front end of a one-and-one during what turned out to be the game's decisive stretch.

Williams (23 points) and Toppin (20 points, 11 rebounds) are the reason Texas Tech made it this far, and both All-Big 12 performers had terrific all-around games once again on Saturday, so a tip of the gap to the seasons they had for the Red Raiders.

The No. 1 seed Houston Cougars are now the last team standing from the Big 12.

Winner: A Statement by the Duke Defense in the First Half

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It's easy to look at a Duke offense that averages 83.6 points per game and checks in No. 1 in KenPom's adjusted offensive efficiency metric and make that the story when talking about the No. 1 seed Blue Devils.

However, they also have a dynamic defense that sits behind only Houston, St. John's, Tennessee and Michigan State in the defensive efficiency version of that same all-encompassing metric.

That was the story in the first half against Alabama.

Fresh off a Sweet 16 game where they drilled 25 three-pointers and hung 113 points on BYU, the Crimson Tide looked title-worthy heading into their Elite Eight game.

However, the Duke defense clamped down and limited the Crimson Tide to just 37 points on 5-of-19 from three-point range during the first half of their matchup, with All-American Mark Sears tallying just two points on four shot attempts.

The Blue Devils had four steals and three blocks in the first half, but it was more about chasing Alabama off the three-point line and forcing them to take mid-range shots or contested threes late in the shot clock.

The end result was a 46-37 lead going into the break.

Loser: A Rare Offensive Dud from Mark Sears

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Mark Sears began his collegiate career as a 3-star recruit at the University of Ohio, and now in his fifth college season and third year at Alabama he was one of the stars of the 2024-25 college basketball season.

He entered Saturday's game averaging 19.0 points and 5.1 assists, and he earned first team AP All-American honors while helping the Crimson Tide go from a program on the rise to a legitimate national powerhouse.

He was at the forefront of the offensive onslaught against BYU in the Sweet 16, racking up 34 points on 10-of-16 shooting from three-point range, and that was his fourth 30-point game of the season.

Unfortunately, he turned in a rare offensive dud on the biggest stage.

Following his sharp-shooting performance in the previous game, Sears managed just six points on 2-of-11 from the field and 1-of-5 from beyond the arc in his final collegiate game.

Now it's on to the pros for one of the faces of college basketball the past two years.

Winner: Duke Looking More and More Like 2024 UConn with Another Double-Digit Win

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The glass half empty question about the Duke Blue Devils all season was just how good they really were while steamrolling a mediocre field of ACC teams in a down year for the conference.

They improved to 35-3 on the year with Saturday's victory over Alabama, advancing on to the Final Four in the process, but it's how they have won that has separated them from the pack with 29 of those victories coming by 10 or more points.

It was a 20-point margin of victory on Saturday night in an 85-65 win over Alabama that leaves Duke looking very much like the best team in the nation by a sizable margin.

They have now won their four NCAA tournament games by a combined 94 points, and after a big game from Tyrese Proctor against Arizona, it was the freshman trio of Cooper Flagg (16 points, 9 rebounds), Kon Knueppel (21 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists) and Khaman Maluach (14 points, 9 rebounds) that led the way in the Elite Eight.

After slowing down a high-powered offense to advance to the Final Four, the Blue Devils will now need to gear up for one of the nation's top defenses, whether it's Houston or Tennessee that comes out of the Midwest Region.