Florida’s coaching search didn’t take long as early on Saturday it was announced that the Gators would be hiring Todd Golden, most recently from San Francisco.
Golden has been a rising star in the business and is currently only 36 years old. This season he led San Francisco to a 10-seed in the NCAA Tournament where he took Murray State to overtime in their opening game, despite the fact he was without star big man Yauhen Massalski due to injury.
Golden has been a head coach for only three seasons. Previously he was an assistant at San Francisco under Kyle Smith before Smith headed to Washington State. Before that, Golden was at Auburn under Bruce Pearl where he gained SEC experience and learned from one of the top coaches in the country. Before that he started his coaching career at Columbia following his playing career at Saint Mary’s.
What has made Golden a popular name is his modern approach to basketball. He is incredibly savvy with advanced statistics and analytics and his work at San Francisco under Kyle Smith was jokingly but lovingly referred to as “nerd ball.” His decisions on the court are driven by data and evidence based research and he will do things on the floor such as using two-for-ones, fouling up three, and keeping players on the floor in the first half with two fouls that Florida’s previous coaching staff never took part in.
This hire shows Scott Stricklin’s desire to get to a modern approach to basketball. Whether it was scheme, data usage, or analytical concepts, Florida’s previous staff was well behind the curve. Now, the Gators will be on the cutting edge, and that’s something that Florida fans should be ecstatic about.
Golden will certainly be recruiting a different level of athletes at Florida than what he did at San Francisco but he was able to get much better players there than what they have got in the past, and he has experience recruiting SEC level players at Auburn.
When it comes to the transfer portal, Golden is going to use data and advanced statistics to find who fits his system perfectly and who will help him compete right away in the SEC.
From a style of play standpoint, San Francisco has been a roll and replace screen and roll team that has put their talented ball handlers in the best positions to succeed while spacing the floor with tremendous shooting. They take a lot of threes offensively and try to get to the rim as much as possible taking away low value midrange attempts. Defensively, they are a man-to-man defensive team that protects the rim and runs opponents off the three-point line, only giving up the very low value shots that they don’t look to get offensively. According to KenPom, San Francisco was the 41st ranked offensive team and 20th ranked defensive team in the country this season (Florida was 36th offensively and 82nd defensively).
Welcome to Gainesville, Coach Golden!