Todd Golden on facing Bruce Pearl in Final Four: 'We don't necessarily like playing each other'

After surviving an onslaught of upset attempts throughout the NCAA Tournament, Todd Golden and the Florida Gators will meet Bruce Pearl and the Auburn Tigers in the Final Four. It should be an awesome game, but there’s a bevy of storylines beneath the surface ready to bubble up.

One of them pertains towards the game being a meeting between coach and mentor. Golden used to be an assistant coach on Pearl’s staff at Auburn. They’ve faced each other before, but the stakes of competing against one another in the Final Four will only magnify the importance. The Florida coach spoke on the matter on Tuesday.

“We don’t necessarily like playing each other. It’s not something that excites us but at the same time, when you’re doing it in the Final Four, it’s a little different,” Golden stated, diving into his connection with Pearl via Isaac Edelman of FL Teams. “One of us will have an opportunity to play for a National Championship.”

Regardless, there’s a ton of love between the two coaches. Golden began his coaching career under Pearl at Auburn in 2014, joining the staff as a director of basketball operations. Two years later, he was promoted to an assistant before he jumping at the opportunity to go to San Francisco as an associate head coach. In 2019, he took over as the full time head coach at San Francisco when Kyle Smith left for Washington State.

Fast forward three years and Florida came knocking. Golden quickly turned things around, and has the Gators looking like their championship-caliber teams of old, using lessons learned from his time on The Plains.

As for Pearl, playing against Golden will offer a unique challenge, but there’s also another interesting element to this year’s task in the Final Four. Auburn has some experience getting this far under their current coach, doing so in 2019. Unlike then, the field this time looks very different this time around.

“The other thing about going in 2019, when we went in 2019 there wasn’t a one seed alive,” Pearl said, via The Paul Finebaum Show. “It was a wide open Final Four with Virginia. Maybe Virginia might have been a No. 1 — I don’t know. I think they were. But Michigan State, Texas Tech on the other side weren’t.

“Right now, I believe you have the four best teams in college basketball. Yeah, they were all No. 1s. But I don’t think there’s a single team outside of these four that you would want to make an argument saying, ‘No, no, they’re one of the top four teams.’ I don’t think there’s a fifth team out there that you can make that argument for. These are the best four teams left.”

It’ll all come to a head between Todd Golden and Bruce Pearl on Saturday at 6:09 p.m. ET in the first of two Final Four games. Time will tell whether Florida or Auburn advance to the national title game, but one of these coaches will have the chance to etch their name into history this season.