Bruce Pearl and Todd Golden have been close friends ever since the Gators’ head coach served under Pearl nearly a decade ago. But during the Final Four showdown, their bond took a backseat as the two friends went head-to-head. “It is (awkward) because the relationship is that close,” Pearl admitted this week. “But if we have to play each other, let’s do it for a championship. I’m so proud of Todd and so happy for him.” Pearl knew Auburn’s 35–5 record and the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament could be a game-changer — but things didn’t go as expected.

For 20 minutes, Auburn looked like a team on a mission. The Tigers came out aggressive, locked in, and seemingly unfazed by the looming challenge Florida presented. With a halftime lead of 46–38, it felt like Bruce Pearl’s squad was ready to make a statement. But what followed was a second-half stumble that turned promise into heartbreak, as the Florida Gators stormed back to steal the game 79–73. So, what went wrong? Well, the Head coach has got an answer!

During a post-game conference, Bruce Pearl didn’t hesitate. “Yeah, we knew they’d come out aggressively. But I was hoping that our starters would be able to withstand. I did not call timeout the first four minutes. I was trying to get to the TV timeout. We got to it. And, you know, obviously, those starters, my top five players, all seniors.”

“I just think that, again, we came out offensively, and we just— we didn’t run some of the things that we had talked about running the way we talked about running them,” Pearl admitted. “And so just 12 turn was bad execution, bad decision making, bad passing, catching. Took a lot of shots that we did not want to take.”

The Tigers had 14 total turnovers, giving Florida 16 points off those mistakes—more than double of Auburn’s 6 off Gator errors. And when the Tigers tried to answer in transition, they came up short again, scoring just 2 fast break points compared to Florida’s 4.

Yet, for a moment, it all looked possible. Chad Baker-Mazara led Auburn in scoring with 18 points on 6-of-10 shooting, including 4 threes. Dylan Cardwell was efficient down low with 9 points and 8 rebounds. Denver Jones chipped in 10. There were moments when Auburn’s offense flowed, and the team fed off each other’s energy.

But the second half belonged to the Gators, who outscored Auburn 41–27 in that stretch and chipped away at every bit of the Tigers’ early momentum. Auburn’s largest lead—9 points—was erased as Florida’s depth and intensity wore them down. However, the coach also felt that Johni Broomi could have done more to stop Walter as “height made the difference”. No, Broome didn’t sit back too.

He explained the reason for his inefficient defense. “I mean, my elbow felt fine going into the game,” Broome said honestly afterward. “Obviously, I mean, here and there it was bothering me a little bit, but I mean, nothing that I couldn’t play with.”

And he played through it. Broome logged 34 minutes, scored 15 points, grabbed 7 rebounds, and even added 2 assists, 3 steals, and 2 blocks. But down the stretch, when the game slowed, and every possession mattered, he couldn’t quite find his rhythm. He admitted as much.

“You know, I feel like we got the looks that we wanted to get,” he said postgame. “I wasn’t able to capitalize and finish them.”

The game had flipped. What once looked like a composed Auburn offence slowly unraveled as Florida turned up the pressure and brought out the best of their depth and size. Worse? It wasn’t only Broome but the entire team suffering due to him.

How did Broome’s brilliance fade late as Florida shut down title dreams?

When the final buzzer rang out inside the Alamodome, Auburn star Johni Broome didn’t walk. He stood still. Frozen. Bent over with his hands on his thighs and his head down, feeling the full weight of a season that had just slipped away.

For Broome, the face of this Auburn team, the ending was especially painful. “It’s been a special year, probably the best year of my life,” Broome whispered, fighting back tears in the locker room. “I wanted to win the national championship. It hurts. This team was special.”

Why not? The game began with Broome looking every bit like the National Player of the Year contender he’s been all season. He scored 12 points in the first half, bullying Florida’s frontcourt and controlling the paint. Auburn led 40-32 at halftime and looked poised to punch its ticket to the championship game.

But Florida had other plans—and fresh legs.

The Gators are uniquely equipped to deal with elite big men, rotating in four capable frontcourt defenders: Alex Condon (6’11”), Rueben Chinyelu (6’10”), Thomas Haugh (6’9″), and Micah Handlogten (7’1″). Florida’s coaching staff made it a mission to wear Broome down. By the 10-minute mark in the second half, it was working.

“Everybody got a piece of him,” said Florida associate head coach Carlin Hartman. “We could see by that 10-minute mark he was really starting to get fatigued.”

That fatigue showed. After scoring 12 in the first half, Broome was held to just three points in the second. He didn’t score at all in the final 15 minutes and 12 seconds of the game. In that stretch, he missed three free throws, two field goals, and committed three costly turnovers—including an offensive foul.

Florida’s strategy was simple but effective: force Broome to shoot over his left shoulder and deny him deep position. They didn’t double him—they just kept throwing bodies at him, rotating fresh defenders, and taking every opportunity to test his pain tolerance.

“Every time Florida had a chance, they were hitting that [elbow], and that’s part of the game” added Pearl. 

Despite the injury, Broome gutted it out. He wore a sleeve from bicep to the wrist to protect the elbow. But Florida knew that, and they didn’t hesitate to test it. Every bump, every shot to the arm—it added up. And Broome, for all his heart, simply ran out of gas.

Even so, Auburn scored just 8 points in the paint in the second half—down from 26 in the first. They also committed 12 turnovers in the second half, compared to just 2 in the first. Florida, meanwhile, logged 20 second-half deflections, turning up the defensive pressure in a way that completely flipped the game.

The Gators (35–4) flipped the script after halftime, holding Auburn to just 27 second-half points and forcing 12 turnovers after coughing it up only twice in the first half. They dominated the boards too, out-rebounding Auburn by 10 in the second half after being down by one before the break.

“If this season does end with a long run in March, Johni Broome will go down as the transfer maybe in the history of college basketball,” Bruce Pearl once said.

Broome gave Auburn every chance. But when the Tigers needed to close—when they needed to write a different ending—the Gators had the final word.

And for Auburn, a season of greatness ends not with a roar, but with a quiet realization: the margin for error in March is razor-thin.