SAN FRANCISCO – After a 20-minute drive (with police escort), the Florida team bus turned off Geary Boulevard and then made a quick left onto Point Lobos Avenue. As the vehicle began creeping down the steep hill, the view off the right side gave way to a stunning panorama where the California cliffs met the Pacific Ocean. 

The view instantly caught the attention of the Gators. 

“Whoa, bro!” shouted Will Richard. “That’s lit!” 

And lit it was. Minutes later, the UF basketball team climbed out of the bus and walked onto the wide-open beach below the Lands End Lookout. Thomas Haugh wasted no time, kicking off his slides and jogging off by himself to take in the spectacular vista and wade into the surf. 

“I love the ocean,” Haugh said. 

For about 30 minutes, the coaches and players got in their third “grounding” session of this unique and once-in-a-lifetime road trip west. A five-hour flight, three-hour time change and interrupted sleep routines required some outside-the-box thinking. UF strength/conditioning coordinator opted for the short field trips where feet meet actual ground – connecting to the Earth’s electrical charge, according to “grounding” theory – and provide a positive impact to body, health and mood.  

It’s worked well so far. 

“We’re undefeated when we ground,” UF coach Todd Golden said.

 

Tommy loves the water. @ThomasHaugh4 #Gators third “grounding” walk was another NoCal beauty. pic.twitter.com/f7TJqXORBx

— Chris Harry (@GatorsChris) March 28, 2025

The goal, of course, is to remain so through Saturday night, when the top-seeded Gators (33-4), on a roll of eight straight wins, clash with third-seeded Texas Tech (28-8) in the NCAA West Region championship game at Chase Center. UF grounded early Thursday, then ground its way past 4-seed Maryland later that night in the “Sweet 16” round. The Red Raiders did the same, rallying from 16 down in the second half (and 13 with five minutes left) before ousting 10-seed Arkansas 85-83 in overtime in the regional nightcap.
 
Now comes the “Elite Eight,” where the Gators are fully grounded in the reality of the task ahead – the Red Raiders finished the regular season ranked ninth in the Associated Press poll and boast the No. 5 offense in the country – and even more grounded by the stakes in front of them: a trip to the Final Four in San Antonio, Texas next week. 

[Read senior writer Chris Harry‘s “Pregame Stuff” setup here]

“Texas Tech is a really good team,” senior All-America point guard Walter Clayton Jr. said. “They got two great bigs and they can shoot it.”

UF, of course, can counter with more of the former and a good dose of the latter. The fourth-ranked Gators’ depth eventually flattened the 10^th-ranked Terrapins, and their “Crab Five” starters that carried them with overloaded minutes all season. Similarly, the Red Raiders are not the deepest bunch. They had four players log at least 37 minutes against the Razorbacks, with guards Christian Peterson (22 points, a trio of 3s) and point guard Elijah Hawkins (4 points, 5 assists, 5 turnovers) at 44 and 45 minutes, respectively.

Tech plays through its two standout forwards, second-team All-America sophomore JT Toppin (18.2 points, 9.3 rebounds per game) and junior Darrion Williams (14.8 ppg), but would love to get back sharp-shooting fifth-year guard Chance McMillian, who goes 43% from the 3-point line and has missed the last four games with an oblique injury. The Red Raiders thought McMillian would be available for Arkansas, but scratched him on game day. 

“We were planning on dressing him out and when we got to the arena, he just came to me and said he couldn’t do it,” Tech coach Grant McCasland said. 

On the Florida side, the Gators temporarily lost sophomore 6-foot-11 forward Alex Condon, the team’s top rebounder and fourth-leading scorer, in the first half against Maryland when he re-injured the right ankle that cost him four games during the regular season. Condon, though, returned midway through the second half and played through the sprain, though far from at full strength. 

Condon got extra treatment, slept overnight in a Game-Ready ice-compression device and wore a boot all day Friday, except for the few minutes he walked the beach and dipped the ankle (swelling down significantly from the night before) into the 55-degree water. He did participate in the team’s practice Friday afternoon. 

“I feel like I’ll be ready to go for [Saturday],” said Condon, whose availability, be it in the starting lineup or off the bench, would give the Gators a significant advantage over a Tech team that plays the overwhelming bulk of its minutes with the 6-9 Toppin and 6-6 Williams as its tallest bigs. “We’ll see how it goes, but that’s the plan as of right now.”

How Condon moves at Saturday morning’s shoot-around will either alter or solidify that plan. Preceding that walk-through practice will be another grounding session, across the street from Chase, at Bayfront Park that overlooks the Central Basin of the San Francisco Bay.

UF grounded there Thursday about eight hours before pounding Maryland. It’s a thing now. A good thing. Just like what this Florida team has going and wants to keep going. The Red Raiders are between the Gators and their ultimate goal. The stakes speak for themselves. 

Fifth-year guard Alijah Martin won an Elite Eight game with Florida Atlantic two years ago. He’ll have some words for his teammates beforehand Saturday. He previewed them Friday. 

“Stay humble,” Martin said. “Treat it like another basketball game, don’t get too amped, too rowdy, or so anxious or too inside yourself. Stay level-headed through all of it. It’s a long game, a lot will happen, but we’ll be ready for it.”

Thursday night, when the bus pulled up to the hotel following the Sweet 16 victory, Golden got up from his front-row seat, made his way to his players in the back, said a few words and dismissed them with the customary “Gators on 3!” send-off. This time, with a twist. 

“Don’t let the dream season die!”

In a perfect orange-and-blue world, the Gators will be grounding in San Antonio next week. 

Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu