Unbreakable

 The One That Got Away is not a movie high on the viewership list for either Duke or Auburn, whom a lot of the smart guys figured would be playing for a national championship Monday night. You don't reach the heights they have if it is.

Duke, the 1-seed in the East, was looking more and more like your national net-snipper, Cooper Flagg 'n' them having stampeded through the bracket with an average winning margin of 23.4 points. And Auburn, the 1-seed in the South, was the overall top seed and had Johni Broome, who was the player of the year in college buckets if Flagg wasn't.

All of which fails to explain why Broome was weeping into his jersey at the end Saturday night, and why Flagg and the Dukies were wandering the floor in a someone-just-lifted-my-wallet daze. And why it's Florida and Houston who'll have Monday's big date.

What does explain it is one incandescent player, and another movie title.

Or in other words: Walter Clayton Jr. and True Grit.

Clayton did all his usual Clayton things in Florida's 79-73 knockout of the Tigers, scoring 34 points, dropping five threes and making a sprawling swipe of the ball in the final seconds to keep it inbounds and in Florida's possession, thereby certifying the W. Auburn had the Gators down eight at the break, but Florida went on a 13-3 run to open the second half, and the battle was joined in earnest.

And Clayton?

Combined with his 30 points in the Gators' win over Texas Tech in the regional final, it made him the first player since Larry Bird 46 years ago to rack back-to-back 30-spots this far along in Da Tournament. He's the leading scorer in Da Tournament and certain to be its Most Outstanding Player if the Gators hoist the big trophy tomorrow night.

But first, they'll have to get past the True Grit part of this tale.

That belongs to your Houston Cougars, who are so gritty you can taste it on your tongue just watching them. They were down a 14-point hole to the Blue Devils with eight minutes to play last night, and they were still down nine with 3:03 showing. With 75 seconds left, they were seven points adrift. With 34 seconds, six.

After which they outscored Duke 9-0 the rest of the way to claim a 70-67 win.

"Hang in there. Hang in there," Kelvin Sampson kept telling his guys as the clock tipped toward the halfway point of the second half.

Hang in there, they did. Though not in a pretty way, because pretty is not what Houston does.

What it does is put a pillow over your face and smother you, which is exactly what it did to Duke. Across the final ten-and-a-half minutes, the Blue Devils made just one field goal. They scored nine points. This from a team that averaged almost 83 points per game this season.

And so on to Monday night, when two unbreakable forces will try to break one another. It'll likely not be poetry in motion. Forty minutes (or perhaps more) of barbed wire and hearts left on the floor probably hits closer to the mark.

Whoever bleeds last wins.