Todd Golden recalls memories, lessons learned from time with Auburn

Todd Golden has made multiple stops at different levels of college basketball over his coaching career. Back in 2014, the Golden joined Auburn as an assistant, giving the freshly-hired leader of Florida his first taste of the SEC.

Now, the 36-year old coach has returned to the conference — with more responsibility this time around. In his introductory press conference, Golden explained what he learned from his time with Auburn.

“It was a great learning experience,” started Golden. “I came to Auburn from Columbia, and so we were working with — it was a low-major program with incredibly intelligent student athletes, not a lot of resources, trying to navigate through different situations in the best way possible. Then, moved down with Bruce [Pearl] to Auburn, it was a completely different ball game. You know, it was going from a low-major situation to a high-major — what I consider nearly professional athletics in regards to the way that it’s supported, the resources. Took me a little bit to figure it out, and to get comfortable. But by my second year down there with him, I felt great about going out on the road, and pitching the SEC, pitching Auburn at that time. What we had going on, and what we were going to grow to.

“Really, those two years made me very comfortable in the process with Scott, Linda, Chip and Duke with what we could do here, and different things that we could take from the first couple years, building that program up and what we could transition here and build in a similar way. But it was a great experience that made me a more complete coach.”

As you can see, Todd Golden values his experience with Auburn — but he’ll be trying to use it to defeat the Tigers as with the Gators.

Todd Golden on analytics: ‘It would be silly if I didn’t take advantage of that as a coach.’

Moreover, Todd Golden has big plans to utilize analytics at Florida. After being chosen to lead the Gators into a new era, the former San Francisco head coach spoke about his unique vision regarding a way to get a competitive advantage.

“It started when I was a young kid, you know, my father was passionate about sports,” started Golden. “I always had the sports page at the kitchen table, eating breakfast everyday. So, I would go through and look at box scores. Kind of fell in love with looking at numbers, and kind of followed that throughout high school. But it really was at Saint Mary’s, and (Saint Mary’s head coach) Randy [Bennett] — back in 2003, 2004 — were kind of on the cutting edge of analytics all the way back then. In regards to collecting data in a different way to evaluate guys.

“One of the things that they did was create a system called hustle stats. We statted every possession of five on five in practice. There was about 40 stats that they would keep. You know, tracking winning plays and losing plays, and using it as a teaching tool for our team. Pairing it with film. To be honest, if it weren’t for that foundation and that system at Saint Mary’s, I wouldn’t be here today. I wouldn’t have played as much as I did. It gave me an opportunity to break in the rotation as a walk-on.

“You know, I saw what it did for me. The opportunities that it provided me. Thought it would be silly if I didn’t take advantage of that as a coach.”

As you can see, Todd Golden will utilize analytics in a unique way for Florida. The coach is already bringing new systems and flavors to the Gators basketball program.