Everything Todd Golden said ahead of Senior Night

Todd Golden and the Florida Gators will close out the regular season at home on Saturday afternoon against the LSU Tigers.

In the first meeting, the Gators were able to to beat the Tigers by double digits in Baton Rouge. The Florida win snapped LSU’s 13-game home winning streak.

LSU head coach Matt McMahon and Golden have matched up twice in the past year. The first matchup was in the first round of the 2022 NCAA Tournament, where McMahon’s Murray State took down Golden’s San Francisco in a nail biter.

Here’s everything Todd Golden had to say about Florida’s final regular season game, Senior Night, defending the Tigers and more.

Golden on the three seniors being honored:

“I’m grateful for them, each and every one. Certainly Kyle jumping into this program with a lot of unknowns — first-year coach, first-year in the program — and he’s been incredibly consistent. He’s had a great year for us. Obviously, had some health issues early on that set him back a little bit, but I think you’ve seen through conference play what he’s capable of. He’s been a great leader, really steady through all our ups and downs, through Colin’s injury, with keeping everyone together. Jason I think is a great story of resilience with all the injuries and eye trouble he dealt with last year. We knew coming into the program that it was going to be tough to get him through a full season; he really hadn’t done it before and it really hadn’t been close. Now we’re getting to our 31st game and he’s been healthy for everyone. Just proud of him. And, of course, Colin. He’s someone I’m just really, really grateful for. He decided to come and be part of this as we built a foundation and really not knowing what the season is going to look like — and played like one of the best players in the nation. Disappointed with the way the season ended for him, having to deal with the injury and not being able to finish but appreciative of how he’s gone about leading, traveling with us, and I’m glad the crowd will get one more opportunity to recognize him tomorrow.” 

Golden on Myreon Jones’ impact:

“He’s been great also. He’s given us some really steady play in league play. Obviously he had some inconsistencies in the non-conference, but once we kind of settled on that backcourt with him and Kyle starting there we felt like we played really, really well up until Colin’s injury. A guy who has really impacted the program in winning ways. Had 12 rebounds the other night in our win at Georgia. Stepped up and hit some big shots. Does a really good job moving the ball and getting other guys look, making other guys better. And a quiet really good defender. A guy we’re going to miss next year.”

Golden on the older players buying in:

“It was huge. And those guys did a great job of steadying us through the tough patch we dealt with after Colin’s injury. Those moments can break a team one way or the other. You can either rally around it and try to get mentally tough and realize you have to pick each other up to get to where you want to go and finish the season up the right way. Or you can break and splinter and point fingers and blame others for the lack of success and trouble. I think having those veterans guys in the program, they’ve been through it before. They’ve had ups and downs and not allowed it break them mentally. They’ve done a great job of holding the accountability high. You look at the way we played Tuesday night, that was a sign of a team that stuck together and stayed the course even when things were not going their way. I’m anxious to see what we do tomorrow as well.” 

Golden on whether finishing .500 in league play is important or just a number:

“Both. I think it matters in the sense that it’s a first-year program. To go .500 in this league — I think it’s the second-best league in America — would be a great accomplishment, especially with the way Colin’s injury took place. So if we’re able to get back on the horse [last] Tuesday and be able to win [Saturday] that would be a great end to the regular season considering all the variables we’ve dealt. So that’s a goal of ours, being able to go into the conference tournament .500. It would be a great accomplishment if we can go in there and win tomorrow.” 

Golden on Will Richard’s recent performances:

“Will’s an awesome player and he’s a great teammate. One thing that’s awesome about Will is he doesn’t take bad shots. He rushed one the other night when he was kind of feeling himself and in great rhythm but in the majority of his time on the floor, he’s picking his spots and being really thoughtful about what he does and you can see that in his shooting percentages. He’s over 60 percent from 2 and 42 or 43 from 3 on the year. For a transfer that’s a sophomore, that’s pretty impressive what he’s been able to do. There have been games where he hasn’t had as many attempts as we would like and we’ll continue to work on that as he continues to build his career here but that game on Tuesday I think showed what he’s capable of — being able to find those open spots and hunting down shots, working what we call our penetration rules, being in the right place at the right time and obviously shot well from the perimeter but also made some tough midrange shots and made that tough jumper in the paint. I think he was just really in his flow, really in his rhythm and obviously he knows he can build off that but it’s a really good moment for our program as well as he’ll be a big piece of our team moving forward.”

Golden on guarding KJ Williams:

“We guarded them differently than we guard most teams. We were switching one through five in that game and I think that was something that helped us. I think we’re going to have to be mindful of how we can take away his 3-point attempts. He’s a really good player from everywhere, can operate on the block, mid-post and 3 but the 3 is where he really separates. You look at that Vanderbilt game when they won about a week-and-a-half ago, he had like 35 points in that game and he was really kind of getting whatever he wanted, especially from the perimeter. We’ll have to be mindful of that, taking away their 3s, tomorrow. Executing different coverages will be important but we’ll run different guys and different looks at them.”

Golden on Alex Fudge:

“I thought Alex looked more back to where he was pre-injury on Tuesday night. He had some misses from the perimeter but just the focus he had on the court, the way he was playing with his teammates, I thought he did a great job late. We played him at the five some and he did a great job closing the game. Appreciate his willingness to give up his body coming off an injury. He took a charge and I think he took another one that was called a block that I thought was a really good take and he just had a really good will to win the other night. My hope as we get into the game tomorrow is that he’ll do the same. He allows us to be really flexible defensively because of his ability to keep guards in front, his length and I think he’ll have a really good game tomorrow.”

More on guarding Williams:

“We’re going to run a lot of different guys at him. I’ll talk to you about coverages off the record but KJ is a guy you can’t guard him one way the whole game, he’s good, he’ll figure it out and pick his spots so we’ve got to be really thoughtful with what we do. Like I said, we’ll do what we can to take away the 3. I think that’s his bread and butter a little bit but we don’t want him to get easy post catches either.”

Golden on running a zone defense:

“We’re going to roll with whatever’s effective down the stretch. We’re obviously a little bit different so we can’t rely upon running teams off the 3 and funneling to our bigs because, without Colin, we don’t have that same rim protection so it’s a little different. Against Georgia, we felt like if we kind of forced them into taking 3s with guys that didn’t really want to take them, it would be a good game plan for us and knock on wood, I think they went 1-for-3 in the second half for 3s so definitely something that we wanted to stay with. We’ll probably show it a little bit tomorrow. Not sure if we’ll go with it for a long period of time but it’ll be something that we have in the back of our mind if we need it.”

Golden on what makes Will Richard so difficult to defend?

“Again, I think he does a really good job of picking spots, you know. He’s not a guy that’s thirsty, hunting bad shots and, you know, letting it fly from all angles. He’s really thoughtful in terms of picking the right ones to take. He’s a good rim-finisher, so you run at him, he’s gonna get by you, and he’s not an incredible vertical athlete, but he’s long, he’s smart and he can stretch out or go up and under and finish. And you know, just when you’re able to score from the different levels, you got to pick your spots. It’s not like we run him off the three point line and understand that you’re going to be in good shape, because when he gets to the room, he finishes about 65%. So, I just think that efficiency from different levels is something that teams have to be really mindful of when they guard him.”

Golden on how confident he is with the guys who have an opportunity to come back:

“Ya know, I think we have a really good nucleus here, you know, I do, and I think we have really good young guys in our program that are our kind of guys, that are Gators, guys we want to build around and with, and so, you know, we have some solid pieces in the program that we’re really excited about. And the great thing for us is they’ll have one year of experience with us as well. You know, we had some guys return to the program, but they’re, you know, 13 scholarship, 15 total players that were all kind of like freshmen in terms of what we want to do. So it was a learning curve for everybody, whereas next year, the guys that returned will have that foundation and that base I think will be really important as we bring in other guys to try to acclimate them to what we want to do.”

Golden on Trey Bonham’s role off the bench:

“Yeah, I think he’s a good piece for us and the guy that you know, chose to join us when he got here, understood kind of what his opportunity would be – he would have to go grab it – and he’s had some really good moments for us this year. I thought he played solid on Tuesday night, did a good job knocking his free throws down, was good with the ball. And again, it’s a competitive program, it’s a competitive league and he’s going to need to continue getting better, but a guy that I believe in.”

Golden on keeping Riley Kugel in Gainesville:

“Nah listen, Riley is really, he’s a really good young man. And I think he’s grateful for the opportunity that we presented to him, you know, last spring when we got here, and he’s loyal, and he’s a really good guy, good family, and, you know, I think he likes to be here. He wants to be a Gator so, you know, I’m sure it’s, it’s the day and age of college basketball where, you know, we got to fight things off and do certain things like that, but Riley’s a loyal guy. He’s not necessarily one I worry about that way in terms of changing his allegiances. I think, again, I’ll say I think he’s grateful for the opportunity we presented him, and we’re grateful for the way he grabbed it, and I think it’s a really good relationship that way.”

Golden on how having Kugel perform this way now helps for the future:

“Yeah, it definitely doesn’t hurt. But he’s earned that, too. You know, it wasn’t given to him. And I think that’s the most important thing. You know, he didn’t play in our first conference game, and so the strides that he’s made, you know, since the beginning of conference season speak to A, him and his maturity and his willingness to put in the time and effort, And also, I think it’s great with our program, that a young guy that, you know, had some ups and downs early in the year, could break through that freshman wall and turn out to, you know, have a really, really good conference season, which he’s put together here for us. So yeah, really good piece for us moving forward, for sure.”

Golden on how the seniors have helped Kugel throughout his freshman season:

“I think they’ve been really good resources for him, and really good mentors, people that he can look up to. You know, when he was going through a tough time, they were there for him, and now they’re playing alongside each other really, really well. And so the vets I’m sure appreciate the way he’s playing also. So, again, our team is really good that way and I’ve appreciated the way they’ve lifted each other up down the stretch.”

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