Gators Todd Golden Gives High Praise to Walter Clayton Jr.

The Florida Gators head coach didn't hold back when hyping up his star point guard

Kyle Lander | Mar 21, 2025

Florida guard Walter Clayton Jr.'s time at Florida has been special / Denny Simmons / The Tennessean / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Florida Gators

RALEIGH, N.C. – Florida Gators guard Walter Clayton has been on a tear this season.

Where to even begin? He took home SEC Tournament MVP honors as he led the Gators to their first SEC Tournament championship since 2014. Then, he became the first player in program history to earn first-team All-American status. Along with his teammates, he helped drive the Gators to a one-seed in the NCAA Tournament.

These accolades have catapulted Clayton into the ranks of one of, if not the best players at his position in the eyes of Florida Gators head coach Todd Golden

“A lot of people questioned his ability to play point guard at the SEC level, and he, in my humble opinion, is playing like the best guard in America right now,” Golden said.

These accomplishments are also being cherished in real time by the Gators’ star.

“It definitely means a lot,” Clayton Jr. said.

He didn’t transition into this kind of player overnight, though. Clayton Jr. worked hard to elevate his game. He took a leap and developed into a more well-rounded point guard if the Gators were to get to where they are today, which his head coach noted.

“He had a great year for us last year, playing alongside Zyon Pullin, but the strides and the growth that he's made this year, I can't say enough about him and the work he's put in to get there,” Golden said.

Clayton Jr. is averaging 17.5 points, 4.3 assists and 3.8 rebounds per game this season. And while the 4.3 assists isn’t leading the country, this is nearly double the 2.6 he posted in his first year with the program and good enough to be tied-fourth in the SEC.

Additionally, the fact that he was able to maintain his scoring while taking this jump in assists just shows the level of consistency that he’s playing with and why this Gators team is playing so well.

“He’s consistent,” Golden said. “He works hard. He asks a lot out of his teammates, but he always delivers himself. Walter Clayton is very, very, very impactful as to why we’ve been able to kind of raise the level of our program.”

Having the level of a player like Clayton Jr. on your team will always give opposing head coaches headaches. They have to spend more time focusing on how to stop them to give their team the best chance to win and Norfolk State’s head coach Robert Jones knows that their best chance against the Gators will be just to limit the first-team All-American.

“He's been difficult for everybody in the country,” Jones said. “Like I told our guys, we just want to slow him down. I'm not going to use the word stop because a kid like that is going to get enough touches…We just can't allow him to have a big, big game.”

Florida's first game in the NCAA Tournament will take place at 6:50 p.m. on Friday against Norfolk State. It will be televised on TNT.