2025 Final Four Preview: A Look at Florida vs. Auburn and Duke vs. Houston Matchups

For just the second time in NCAA Tournament history, the Final Four are all No. 1 seeds.

Duke forward Cooper Flagg makes a three-point shot against Mt. St. Mary's in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on March 21, 2025, in Raleigh, N.C. Stephanie Scarbrough/AP Photo

We started the 2024-25 college basketball season with 364 teams in Division I, 68 of which made the NCAA Tournament. Those 68 have since been trimmed to just four–the Final Four, which will take place at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

Basketball fans will see the four No. 1 seeds, marking just the second time in March Madness history that the Final Four is made up of only the top seeds, joining the 2008 tourney.

The first matchup Saturday will be an All-SEC battle as Florida faces Auburn, and the second pits Duke versus Houston. Here’s how those two matchups break down, with spots in Monday’s National Championship Game on the line.

Florida (34-4) vs. Auburn (32-5)

As great and historic as the SEC was this season, these two programs were a cut above the rest. Auburn won the SEC regular season championship with a 15-3 conference record, but Florida then won the Southeastern Conference’s tournament title and enters on a 10-game win streak. The two matched up once this season, and the Gators prevailed over the then-No. 1 Tigers, 90-81, in a road game on Feb. 8.

Both teams have a First-Team All-American in Walter Clayton Jr. of Florida and Johni Broome of Auburn. Clayton leads all players in the 2025 tournament with 89 points, including a 30-point outing in the Gators’ Elite Eight win over Texas Tech. Broome had an equally sensational showing in the last round as he had 25 points on 10 of 13 shooting, to go along with 14 rebounds in a victory over Michigan State. That made Broome the second player in March Madness history to have at least 25 points and 12 rebounds on 75 percent shooting versus a top-2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, joining Larry Bird (1979).

The teams, however, are much more than their star players, as both the Gators and Tigers rank among the top three in Division I in offensive efficiency. But they’ve achieved those lofty rankings in different ways.

Florida ranks third, among those 364 teams, in points per game (85.4) thanks to its high-octane offense that loves to push the pace. The Gators get shots up early in the shot clock, and even if they don’t convert, the squad often nabs the offensive rebound.

Florida ranks 11^th in the nation in offensive boards per game, and those often lead to additional 3-point opportunities. Todd Golden’s squad averages 9.9 made three-pointers per game, and Auburn happens to be 1-3 when allowing at least nine made three-pointers, compared with a 31-2 record when allowing eight or fewer.

As for the Tigers, they don’t push the tempo as much as Florida, but Auburn does something exceptionally well that leads to success in all levels of basketball. The Tigers don’t turn the ball over and have the sixth-lowest turnover rate in the sport. That allows their bevy of playmakers additional possessions to light up the scoreboard as the team boasts five players averaging in double figures. Auburn also has the defensive edge and ranks third in Division I with 6.0 blocks per game. That interior defense has Auburn allowing the lowest two-point percentage (41.8) of any team in the tournament.

Duke (35-3) vs. Houston (34-4)

This matchup is a complete contrast of styles as Duke has the nation’s top-ranked offense, while Houston counters with the No. 1 defense. The Blue Devils have rolled through 2025 March Madness with a plus-94 point differential that is the ninth-best ever for a team entering the Final Four. Duke is also the fifth team in the last 20 years to shoot at least 50 percent from the field in its first four tourney games, and freshmen have been the ones powering Jon Scheyer’s team.

Cooper Flagg, projected to be the top overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, is averaging 18.9 points on the season, the most by a freshman on a Final Four team since Carmelo Anthony with Syracuse in 2003. Flagg, however, has plenty of help, courtesy of Kon Knueppel, who is coming off back-to-back games with 20-plus points, and 7-foot-2 center Khaman Maluach. The big man is converting a staggering 87 percent of his field goal attempts in the tournament and will be a matchup nightmare versus a Houston squad with no rotation players taller than 6-foot-8.

For all of the superlatives on Duke’s offense, the same can be said about Houston’s defense. It is allowing 56.5 points per game in the NCAA Tournament, the fewest of all 68 teams, and the Cougars have kept all four March Madness opponents to at least 10 points under their season scoring average. That includes a second-round victory over Gonzaga, which boasts the No. 2 scoring offense in college basketball, so Houston has shown it can put the clamps on highly efficient offenses.

The Cougars aren’t all about defense, though, as they also rank fifth in the country with 39.7 percent from beyond the arc. Each of the team’s top three scorers is connecting on over 41 percent from deep, and that could mitigate Duke’s size advantage in the paint. Also, the Cougars have an advantage over not only Duke, but Florida and Auburn as well, and that’s geography. Houston’s campus is less than 200 miles away from the Alamodome, and local fans will be pulling for their fellow Texans as UH has hopes of becoming the first team in 50 years to win a national championship in its home state (UCLA won in San Diego in 1975).