Gators coach Todd Golden, surrounded by his 2024-25 team, on a morning outing to the bay.
A Golden Gator Homecoming
Wednesday, March 26, 2025 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
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By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
SAN FRANCISCO – The passengers on the trolley bus that pulled up on Post Street were curious Tuesday afternoon about the line of police motorcycles parked outside the Westin St. Francis Hotel. When one of the gazers got a glimpse of Walter Clayton Jr., he immediately shouted the All-America point guard's name, stuck his head out the window and an impromptu Florida Gators' pep rally broke out inside the vehicle.
HERE WE GO, GATORS, HERE WE GO! HERE WE GO, GATORS, HERE WE GO!
Moments later, the team's charter was motoring through downtown, zipping through red lights, with the help of a police escort. UF coach Todd Golden, from his customary front-row seat, was taking it all in. Reveling in the familiarity, actually.
"It actually looks way better now," Golden noted of the infamous, crime-fraught Union Square area, as the Royal bus rumbled for the Golden Gate Park area. "When we were here, we wouldn't even come down this way."
Bird's-eye view of the University of San Francisco campus atop Lone Mountain.
Nope, his crowd preferred to frequent North Beach and the Marina District, the latter home to Original Joe's, Golden's favorite Italian restaurant. Last weekend, the UF coach talked of plans to take his team there for dinner, only to be disappointed to find the place was fully booked Tuesday night. When the owner of "OJ's" read a wire story about Golden and the Gators getting shut out, a reservation for 30 suddenly became available.
As UF strength/conditioning coordinator Victor Lopez put it, "Todd was mayor of this place."
Not the whole "City by the Bay," of course, but Golden certainly held some sway with the University of San Francisco community that was all too glad to welcome their former coach and college basketball rising star back this week for the NCAA West Region, which will commence Thursday night when the No. 1-seed Gators (32-4) face No. 4-seed Maryland (27-8) in a "Sweet 16" showdown at Chase Center.
[Read senior writer Chris Harry's "Pregame Stuff" setup here]
Golden was a 34-year-old upstart when he was promoted from associate head coach to take over the San Francisco program in 2020 when Kyle Smith left for Washington State. Golden inherited a USF squad in pretty good shape, but had to navigate through Covid – and some of the toughest pandemic restrictions in the nation – and eventually guided the Dons to a 24-10 record in 2021-22 and the program's first NCAA Tournament berth in 25 years.
What he did at the small West Coast Conference school of just under 10,000 got the attention of UF athletic director Scott Stricklin, who outmaneuvered a handful of other power-five conference schools to land Golden in 2022, following Mike White's departure for Georgia. Three years and 72 victories later – the most wins by a Florida coach in his first three seasons in school history – Golden is enjoying a gratifying homecoming at a place he loved and loved him back.
USF's Sobrato Center hosted Florida's first on-site practice Tuesday. The arena is not big (capacity 3,005), but its setting on Lone Mountain is gorgeous, two blocks beneath the nearly 100-year-old Spanish Gothic residence hall, the university's centerpiece. Across the street from Sobrato is a two-story town home that overlooks the basketball arena.
Golden lived there.
"It's been amazing," Golden said Thursday of his return. "We're trying to soak it all up the best we can while maintaining our focus, but it's been a great trip so far."
Added Clayton: "It's been good to see Coach Golden back in his stomping grounds."
UF coach Todd Golden during practice Tuesday at USF.
The Gators walked into Sobrato through the building's new museum hall – complete with memorabilia from the Bill Russell back-to-back national championships of 1955-56 – and entered the gym where a handful of familiar faces greeted Golden, along with UF staffers Kevin Hovde, John Andrzejek, Jonathan Safir and Lopez. Together, the five combined for 18 seasons with the Dons.
Two of them, Hovde (UF's offensive coordinator) and Andrzejek (defensive coordinator), were hired last week as head coaches at Columbia and Campbell, respectively, giving Golden a couple new branches on his coaching tree.
"I was that first branch," said Chris Gerlufsen, who succeeded Golden at USF. "I pinch myself watching these guys." Chris Gerlufsen
Gerlufsen, two days after the Dons' 25-7 season ended with a loss to Loyola-Chicago in the NIT, was at practice Tuesday and smiled as Golden put his team through a rigorous 90-minute workout that bounced back-and-forth from the court to the tape-viewing area on the baseline, part of Golden's unique, hands-on, floor-to-film routine.
USF still does the same thing, Gerlufsen said.
Gerlufsen recalled fondly his one season working with Golden. He came to USF from Hawaii and in one year got a crash course in Golden's new-age thinking and approach to the game at a place steeped in great basketball history, but with little success in recent years. Golden resurrected the brand.
"Obviously, we have great tradition here to begin with, but Todd invigorated the fan base," Gerlufsen said below the retired jerseys worn and championship banners won by the likes of Russell, K.C. Jones and Bill Cartwright. "He put a different spin on everything, with his analytic approach, and was a little bit younger, so probably related a little different to the fan base. For me, to just have a chance to come in and learn from him for a year, we did some great things together. I wish I had worked for him longer, to be honest with you. To have the chance to just continue what he did here was just special for me. To see him walk back in here is pretty cool."
On Tuesday night, Golden took the Gators to OJ's, which got rave reviews from the players.
"I had the chicken parm," guard Alijah Martin said. "Elite."
After breakfast Wednesday, the team bused to Chrissy Field, a park on the northern shore of the bay overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island. The mini-field trip lasted about 30 minutes and was the idea of Lopez, who wanted the players to get some fresh air and remove their shoes for some "grounding" (look it up) in the lush bayside grass.
— Florida Gators Men's Basketball (@GatorsMBK) March 26, 2025
Then, it was back to the hotel for lunch and off to practice at Chase in preparation for a Terrapins team that has won six of the last seven (10 of the previous 12) and boasts one of the best starting units left in the tournament, led by freshman center Derik Queen, a projected top-10 pick in the 2025 NBA draft. All five Terrapins starters average 12 points or better. No one else in the country has that. But few teams, if any, left in the Sweet 16 have Florida's overall depth in the front and back court.
"They run consistently. They're fresh," Maryland coach Kevin Willard said Thursday. "They're as good a basketball team as I've seen on film all year."
As UF went through its closed afternoon practice, a face very familiar to the Gators' coaches watched from the sideline, arms folded, taking in the scene like a proud papa.
"That's the Godfather, right there," UF assistant Carlin Hartman said, nodding in Kyle Smith's direction.
From left: John Andrzejek, Carlin Hartman, Stanford coach Kyle Smith, Todd Golden, Kevin Hovdeand Jonathan Safir, all of whom were once together on Smith's staff at Columbia. Five of them were on Smith's staff at University of San Francisco, which sent Golden to the Gators in 2022.
Smith is now the head coach at Stanford, but two-plus decades ago he was an assistant to Randy Bennett at Saint Mary's when together they recruited Golden out of high school in Phoenix. Smith eventually gave Golden his first coaching job at Columbia on a staff that, in time, included Hartman, Hovde, Safir and Andrzejek. Eventually, all but Hartman joined Smith at USF.
"They're all really smart, and smart wins," Smith, the mentor, said when asked a common denominator that runs through his proteges. "After that, they go in a lot of different directions."
Maybe so, but alongside Golden they all ended up back in San Francisco this week, with two victories separating the group from their profession's greatest spectacle.
Who says you can't go home?
Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu
