Todd Golden, now with a SEC Tournament championship and the most wins (70) in three seasons than any coach in UF history, will seek his first victory in the NCAA Tournament.
Coaching/Confidence Combo Looks Familiar
Wednesday, March 19, 2025 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
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By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – With inside a minute to play (and the outcome no longer in doubt), the Florida Gators broke through the Tennessee full-court press Sunday. Forward Thomas Haugh dribbled toward the baseline, then lobbed a perfect alley-oop pass at the rim, where guard Alijah Martin elevated for a two-handed slam-dunk that sent the UF section behind the team's bench at Bridgestone Arena into delirium.
As the players sprinted back up the floor (and the final seconds ticked away), Florida coach Todd Golden turned his back on the action, raised his arms toward the adoring fans and broke into a triumphant Gator chomp, as his team capped a run through the Southeastern Conference Tournament at Nashville with a convincing 86-77 defeat of the sixth-ranked Volunteers in Sunday's championship game.
"We loved it," All American point guard Walter Clayton Jr. said of his coach's gesture. "I think everybody who's a Gator loved it."
Back in Gainesville, the greatest Gator of them all was tuned in. And, once again, Steve Spurrier was thoroughly impressed.
"Just the way they hustle, the way they play defense and just their attitude. There is no loafing in these guys. They hustle all over the place," Spurrier said this week from his "ambassador" office at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. "Obviously, Todd and his coaches emphasize that. It begins with him and the assistants, then it goes through the older guys, those seniors. Clayton Jr. and Will [Richard] and Alijah [Martin], those guys get after it and play so hard every game."
Next up for the fourth-ranked and No. 1-seed Gators (30-4) is Friday night's date against 16th-seeded Norfolk State (24-10) in the NCAA Tournament West Region opening round at Raleigh, North Carolina. UF has won six straight and 12 of the previous 13, with a dominant plus-16.2 average margin over their 34 games this season. Is it any wonder Spurrier has appreciation for this bunch?
But let's look a little closer:
Fast-paced, high-scoring, entertaining brand of basketball that wins.
Outstanding, exciting players who routinely manhandle opponents.
Animated, brash coach who exudes confidence and talks about winning championships.
Remind you of anyone?
Former UF football coachSteve Spurrierand wife Jerri at a basketball game during the season.
"Confidence is very important," Spurrier said. "You can sense the way Todd talks that their goal is to win it all. They don't talk too loud about it, but he'll say if we play to our capability and standard, we got a chance. I think he's said that, right?"
Right. He actually goes a step further and says, "If we do this, this and this, we will win the game."
Back in November, when Florida was readying to go to a holiday tournament in Orlando, Golden said it was the first of four chances for the team to win championships during the '24-25 season, with the SEC regular season, tournament and NCAA Tournament to follow. The Gators won the ESPN Events Invitational over Thanksgiving, finished second to Auburn by a game in the regular-season standings, then claimed their second of three titles with the run in the Music City last weekend. Right now, they have the look of a team that definitely can play for that coveted third. The big one.
Or, as Golden told his team Feb. 8 in the locker room after its impressive 90-81 defeat of top-ranked Auburn on the road: "Bottom line, after today, we understand there is no ceiling for this group. We talk about it all the time: We're trying to be the best team in the country, trying to be a 1-seed and we're trying to go get a natty."
Here they are. Now, here they go.
From his mid-court, front-row seat at Bridgestone Arena last weekend, Chris Doering cheered wildly for his alma mater. The former All-America wide receiver, UF record-holder for touchdown catches and now SEC Network analyst has marveled at how the '24-25 Gators have taken on the personality of their coach. He's seen it work before. Chris Doering
"Just like we did, as a team, took on the air of Coach Spurrier. We knew how good we were and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy when we took the field," Doering said. "Since I've watched this [basketball] team, even dating back to the pre-conference schedule, you saw how ultra-competitive they were, just fighting and diving for loose balls, contesting shots, crashing the offensive boards. Getting guys to play that way from opening tip to the end of game, coaches are tasked with that. It's not easy. And then you have the fiery way Todd is on the sidelines; hugging guys and pushing them back onto the court when they're diving out of bounds for 50-50 balls … I mean, they're playing the way they're coached."
And walking the walk with a swagger. From the top on down.
Now comes the really hard part. Winning in the one-and-done tournament setting will be tough enough, but the Gators will have to do so wearing the target of a No. 1 seed and standing beneath the shower of so-called "rat poison" raining down in the form of gushing accolades and predictions from pundits who have pegged UF as the overwhelming favorite to capture the national championship.
This time last week, there was debate about whether the Gators were worthy of a No. 1 seed. Beating No. 21 Missouri, No. 5 Alabama and No. 6 Tennessee in what amounted to a road game over a 50-hour span – doing so by an average of 15 points, no less – altered the narrative.
"Yeah, it's changed a lot over the past week. And, yeah, it is a challenge and something this team hasn't had to deal with," Golden said. "The message to the guys [Monday] is that we can't forget why we got [here]. And now that we're starting to get a lot of respect, and different people are selecting us to win the national championship, which is an incredible honor, we can't let that soften us up. We can't let it change who we've been over the course of the season."
The theme of this team since last summer has been rooted in an underdog mentality, starting with the head coach who went to college as a walk-on. None of the assistants have head-coaching pedigree (yet). The three seniors (Clayton, Richard and Martin) went un-recruited by the biggest programs in their respective home states and got to UF via the mid-major and transfer-portal route. The two sophomore forwards (Alex Condon and Thomas Haugh) were nowhere to be found in the top 150 of their senior-year prep recruiting class.
This UF team was picked anywhere from sixth to ninth by preseason publications.
"Overlooked guys with a chip on their shoulder, starting with the coach," Doering said. "Remember how Coach Spurrier dealt with LSU because they didn't hire him [in the 1980s]? Or Kentucky because Bill Curry fired him when he got to Georgia Tech? And Georgia?"
For the record: Spurrier went 11-1 against LSU, including a 58-3 win at Baton Rouge that still stands as the worst home loss in Tigers' history; Spurrier went 12-0 against Kentucky (coached by Curry), including wins of 73-7 and 65-0; Spurrier was 11-1 against rival Georgia, including the most lopsided victories in the series' storied history.
Golden, who came from the University of San Francisco, may not have any personal vendettas or lived Gator history to use as motivation, but he has tremendous belief in what he's built with this program and with these players. And he's ferociously competitive – if Golden wore a visor, he'd have thrown it a bunch – which definitely manifests itself through the players he hand-picked for the same reason.
"He does such a good job of making sure we're confident in what we do every day and the work that we do and understanding we're definitely one of the best teams in the country," Clayton said. "But he also makes us understand we can't get arrogant or too big-headed about it and think we can just show up and win. He does a good job of balancing our confidence and making sure that we still respect the people we're going to play."
What Golden's Gators have done – the second-most wins heading into the NCAA Tournament in program history – has been nothing short of spectacular, but only one team can win the whole thing. UF is not only good enough, but a fashionable pick to do so. When the ball is tossed, Golden will see that his Gators unleash an orange-and-blue hell.
It's in his DNA. And now theirs.
Another championship is at stake.
"You just got to be honest with yourselves about it. It's in front of us. We're going to try to chop this tournament up a little bit and focus on the first weekend and do everything we can to get out of Raleigh," he said. "We're trying to enjoy it, man. We have a special group, and I don't take that for granted in any way. We have a special staff. And just as amazing as it is, we know it can be over in one day if we don't play well and if we don't take advantage of our opportunities. So we're going to continue to kind of lose ourselves in the moment and focus on getting better before Friday and just letting our preparation do the work for us and see what happens."
The goal, of course, is more Gator-chomping.
Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu
