What a ride.
In the blink of an eye, the 2024–25 college basketball season is officially over. Of the 68 teams who competed in the 2025 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, the Florida Gators were crowned champions after their amazing 65-63 comeback victory over the Houston Cougars in the final seconds of the game. The win marked the program’s third championship — the first in the illustrious career of young head coach Todd Golden.
The number of NBA prospects that went through this specific tournament is utterly astonishing, to say the least. From the No. 1 seeds all the way down to the No. 16 seeds, each and every single team in this tournament was absolutely loaded with talent, and I can’t help but marvel at the fact that we’ll be seeing a good majority of these players tearing it up in the pros.
This week in Lato’s Lens, I’ll break down who I think belongs on the All-Tournament team. Unfortunately, creating an All-Tournament team only allows me to select five players — a number so small compared to the pool of talent in the tournament. With that said, here is my 2025 NCAA All-Tournament team:
Guard: Walter Clayton Jr. (Florida)
After the tournament, it’s fair to say that Walter Clayton Jr. rightfully earned his spot on my All-Tournament team. The senior guard was awarded Most Outstanding Player for both the SEC and NCAA tournaments, being nothing short of heroic throughout the entirety of March.
Clayton Jr. averaged 22.3 points, 3.3 assists and 3.3 rebounds per game in the Big Dance, becoming the first player since Larry Bird in 1979 to record back-to-back 30-point games in the Elite Eight and Final Four. Not to mention, he was unranked in high school. Clayton Jr. started off as a highly-touted wide receiver prospect on the gridiron, receiving several offers from big-time Division I programs. However, he decided to bet on himself, committing to play basketball at Iona for then–head coach Rick Pitino before transferring to Florida after his sophomore season. His success story is one like no other, and his future basketball career is certainly bright moving forward.
Guard: LJ Cryer (Houston)
LJ Cryer was undoubtedly the centerpiece of the Houston Cougars team that made a run to the national championship game. The emotional leader and veteran guard drilled several key shots throughout the tournament and rose to the occasion when his team needed him the most. The Cougars’ road to the national championship was perhaps the hardest of anyone in the tournament, as they had to play teams like Gonzaga, Purdue, Tennessee and Duke just to get there — and Cryer delivered in every single one of them.
Cryer averaged 18.7 points per game while shooting 43% from the field, including a 30-point performance in their second-round contest against Gonzaga and a 26-point performance in the Final Four against Duke. He will go down in history as one of the best players to ever go through head coach Kelvin Sampson’s program and a crucial figure in Houston’s rise to national prominence.
Forward: Cooper Flagg (Duke)
If I haven’t already talked about him enough, Duke’s Cooper Flagg arguably had the best overall tournament of everybody on this list. The crazy thing is he’s still supposed to be a senior in high school. The projected No. 1 overall draft pick and ACC Player of the Year did all he could in Duke’s run to the Final Four, averaging 21 points, eight rebounds and five assists.
One of his more notable performances of the tournament came in the Blue Devils’ 100-93 win over Arizona in the Sweet 16, where Flagg outdueled Arizona’s Caleb Love with 30 points, six rebounds and seven assists. The sky is the limit for the 18-year-old from Maine, and I can’t wait to see where his career takes him.
Forward: Thomas Haugh (Florida)
Virtually unknown prior to the tournament, Florida’s Thomas Haugh has recently exploded up draft boards after his astounding performances in the Gators’ championship run. Despite coming off the bench, Haugh’s presence — both offensively and defensively — was simply impossible to ignore. The sophomore forward from Pennsylvania came up massively in huge spots, especially in the Gators’ 84-79 win over Texas Tech in the Elite Eight, where Haugh delivered a stellar 20-point, 11-rebound double-double to catapult Florida to a comeback victory. Without Haugh on the bench, I think it’s highly unlikely that the Gators would have made this run, giving himself a spot on the All-Tournament team.
Center: Johni Broome (Auburn)
Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl commonly refers to 2024–25 SEC Player of the Year Johni Broome, who transferred from Morehead State in 2022, as one of “the most impactful transfers in college basketball history,” per ESPN. Broome’s numbers in the tournament indicate exactly that. The senior recorded a double-double in all but two games of the NCAA Tournament, averaging 16.8 points and 12 rebounds.
Not to mention, Broome went down late in the Tigers’ Elite Eight matchup against Michigan State with apparent knee and elbow injuries. Despite being banged up, Broome ended his collegiate career with a solid 15-point, seven-rebound performance the following game against eventual champion Florida. Broome’s heroics in Auburn’s valiant 32-6 season will be remembered forever