For Todd Golden, the 2023-24 Gator basketball team could be the one that’s remembered as the team that laid the foundation down for future success. (Photo via Gator basketball team)
Throughout sports history, there are teams that are remembered not for championships or records, but for being the foundation of things to come later.
It’s not always necessarily a coach’s first year. Growth isn’t always linear. Not every story begins with a true chapter one. But at some point, as great programs rise up the ranks and pass other programs along the way, there comes a season that proves what a coach is capable of with his program.
The 2023-24 Gator basketball team was that team for Todd Golden. No matter how successful– or unsuccessful- Golden ultimately is at Florida, this 2023-24 Gator basketball team at the very least provided a glimpse of what Golden is capable of.
So let’s quickly set the stage here. The fact of the matter was that the first season of the Todd Golden era at Florida was a colossal flop.
It started in the offseason before he ever coached a game at Florida, when he was forced to hit the transfer portal to find supplementary big guys to play beside Colin Castleton. Golden missed on every quality big man he attempted to recruit– most notably Johni Broome, who went to Auburn, and Norchad Omier, who went to Miami– and as a result, his 2022-23 team was dead in the water before it ever played a game. The Gators never did provide any help for Castleton down low, and when Castleton got hurt, things went from bad to worse to just plain ugly. As a result, the Gators finished the season with a losing record– a dubious distinction that not even Mike White held.
But Todd Golden clearly learned from his failures on the recruiting trail. And in his second recruiting cycle, he succeeded where he’d previously failed.
Under Golden, Florida landed Micah Handlogten and Tyrese Samuel for the frontcourt. He also landed a pair of little-known high school recruits, Alex Condon from Australia and Thomas Haugh from Pennsylvania. While nobody would argue that Condon and Haugh were the stars of the team, there’s also little debate that Florida wins as many games as they did without their efforts on the glass– particularly, their knacks for appearing out of nowhere to reject a shot or grab a board.
Florida also upgraded its backcourt, bringing Walter Clayton (from Polk County) back home from Iona and adding Zyon Pullin from UC Riverside. Those two became known for their abilities to take over a game with clutch shots from just about anywhere on the floor. And while they weren’t exactly defensive All-Americans– something Todd Golden definitely should be preaching next year– they did prove capable of playing tight defense in some clutch moments this year.
The resulting team then took Florida fans on a wild ride. There were some lows– notably a horrifying loss to Vanderbilt and near-disasters against ECU, Missouri, and Michigan teams that finished the season several games under .500– but those lows were few and far between, easily overshadowed by some of the highest of highs.
Among the Gators’ achievements in 2023-24: another beatdown of archrival FSU, a three-game sweep of the other archrival Georgia and former coach Mike White, the twelfth ever win at Kentucky’s Rupp Arena, beating a solid Alabama team two out of three times, crushing Bruce Pearl’s Auburn Tigers, and a run to the SEC Tournament final for the first time since 2014. To be sure, that’s a string of accomplishments that could set the table for growth in the years to follow.
It’s true that Florida also showed signs that it’s not quite there yet. The loss to Vanderbilt cost Florida what would have been its first 25-win season since 2016-17, and its second since 2013-14. It also cost Florida a 12-win SEC season, which also has not been achieved since that 2016-17 season. (In the name of intellectual honesty: yes, Mike White coached that team, but those were mostly Billy Donovan’s signees.) Even if you throw out the craziness of March, and the Round of 64 game against Colorado: winning just that one game against a pitiful Vanderbilt team would have given the Gators a pair of reached benchmarks that tell the world to watch out for them for years to come.
I often say that NCAA Tournament results are not a great way to judge a coach, because there’s so much luck, randomness, and fluky activity that decides who wins NCAA Tournament games– even without terrible officiating like Florida suffered at the hands of Eric Curry. It’s more than just a team’s NCAA Tournament seed, too: did the team’s season end in the NCAA Tournament round that the sum of the regular season data suggests it should have ended? For example, a team ranked #10 in the AP Poll, #14 in KenPom and #11 in Torvik’s rankings should expect its season to end in the Sweet 16; they are a top sixteen team, but not a top eight team.
If the answer is yes, then the NCAA Tournament confirmed what we already knew about that team. If the answer is no, a team either benefitted from the craziness of March Madness or was victimized by it. But either way, the NCAA Tournament is not an adequate measuring stick for how good or bad of a job a coach did with his team (unless the coach went out of his way to deploy terrible strategies and made decisions that directly cost his team a win).
Florida in this case was victimized by the craziness of March Madness. And, you know, by a referee named Eric Curry. But a first round loss due to a combination of a hot-shooting opponent and either incompetent or outright crooked officiating doesn’t diminish the job Todd Golden did with his team in 2023-24.
This team is going to be remembered for its rebounding prowess and just overall strong paint presence, a direct reflection of Golden’s success in the transfer portal. This team is going to be remembered for its fantastic guard play, with either Walter Clayton or Zyon Pullin able to completely take over a game, another direct reflection of Golden’s success in the transfer portal. This team is going to be remembered for little-known recruits like Alex Condon, Thomas Haugh, and Denzel Aberdeen stepping up and making a positive difference when they were needed, a direct reflection of Golden’s excellent evaluation skills– and of what he calls a meritocracy.
Now the task falls on Todd Golden to build on the foundation in year three and beyond. At worst, if Golden fails at Florida, he will at least have provided us with a glimpse of what Florida saw in him in the first place. At best? This 2023-24 team will forever be remembered as the team that got the ball rolling for the Gators’ next elite basketball coach.
And really, what more could you ask for in year two?
