WATCH: Walter Clayton Jr. & Alijah Martin preview national title game

SAN ANTONIO — The Florida Gators are one win away from their first national championship since 2007. UF faces fellow 1-seed Houston in the title game on Monday at 8:50 p.m. ET. on CBS.

Florida advanced the NCAA Tournament Final with a 79-73 win over Auburn in the Final Four. Walter Clayton Jr. led the Gators with a career-high 34 points and Alijah Martin scored 17.

Below are video interviews with Clayton and Martin on Sunday at the Alamodome. Both met with the media to preview the matchup against the Cougars.

Walter Clayton Jr. interview

Alijah Martin interview

Clayton & Martin Q&A

On his conversations first like with Todd Golden about moving to point guard:

WALTER CLAYTON JR.: He just told me he was going to put some trust in me to have the ball in my hands a little more, obviously with ZP leaving this past year. I played point guard in my life before. I’ve had the ball in my hands.

It was smooth. I was confident. These guys around me helped me be confident in that move also.

On their reaction to the replays of Alijah Martin’s dunk:

ALIJAH MARTIN: Yeah, I just seen the replays. I’m getting tagged all across the blogs and stuff like this. What was going through my mind was get two points, honestly, when I seen he was kind of late. I had a chance to purge, so I did it obviously.

WALTER CLAYTON JR.: I’ve been waiting for him to dunk on somebody all year. I was in the back of everything like, Oooh. It looked a lot better in real life, man, in real-time. I don’t think video do it no justice.

On how Victor Lopez has helped keep you guys fresh throughout the NCAA tournament:

ALIJAH MARTIN: Yeah, man, Vic is great at what he do. We enjoy the weight room. We have an unbelievable time in there. It’s not torture or anything. It’s fun in the way we do it. We get better at it, whatever we do, so…

On how Todd Golden’s analytical approach has made the players better:

WALTER CLAYTON JR.: Yeah, it just kind of gives like a different viewpoint of the game, of what’s a good shot, what’s a bad shot, what percentage of the shots are we getting back. It kind of gave me a different viewpoint coming here. Definitely enjoy learning that side of the game.

ALIJAH MARTIN: Yeah, like Walter said, honestly it’s a different perspective of basketball, honestly. It’s just a credit to him and how smart he is, how good he do his job.

On how transfer L.J. Cryer has helped elevate Houston:

ALIJAH MARTIN: Honestly, I don’t know. I look at the game as basketball. I look at everybody else as regular humans. No discredit to him, but… I’m just excited for my day, honestly. We’ll see what that brings.

On Kevin Hovde showing Clayton videos of Jalen Brunson on his recruiting visit:

WALTER CLAYTON JR.: Yeah, I had Coach Hov out there with me. The conditioning is called Plyo. He saw a little bit of that. Yeah, we went out and got some food after he was showing me a lot of film on what the Knicks run for Brunson, kind of the things he wanted to do on offense. Definitely enjoyed it when he came down and visited.

On why the Gators are so resilient and their unwillingness to lose:

WALTER CLAYTON JR.: Yeah, I’ve been saying it for a while now. Just the togetherness of our team, the love we all got for each other, allows us not to break apart during adversity. Yeah, man, we just stay together in those moments. I can’t speak for Houston team, what they got going on in the locker room. They seem like a very together team also. It should be a good 40-minute fight.

ALIJAH MARTIN: I agree (smiling).

On how Golden and the staff won him over when recruiting him from Iona:

WALTER CLAYTON JR.: Just their willingness. I think that kind of show how bad they wanted me. That was one of the things. It was very smart of them also, me and my high school coach talked about it afterward, how they got to see me as soon as basically just after I left St. John’s. Only a couple hours, got up there, got to dinner. Yeah, man, I was able to spend like three hours reflecting on Florida visit, St. John’s visit, thinking about some things, some family stuff also. They came up and I ended up committing that night.

On how much it means to see fans embracing the team:

WALTER CLAYTON JR.: I’m just thankful, man. Obviously, Florida basketball has a great history. I grew up watching it. Obviously, we got T. Green on the staff to tell us about the experiences. Just a great feeling to go out there and win games, having Gator Nation supporting us.

ALIJAH MARTIN: That’s what it’s about, just embracing the fans, them embracing us. That’s what we put the work in for. When we put that jersey on, it just means more.