Todd Golden previews Florida's first-round matchup vs. Colorado

INDIANAPOLIS — Two years ago, Todd Golden won 24 games and led San Franciso to its first NCAA Tournament in 24 years, landing him the Florida job. Two years in, he has reached 24 wins again with the Gators after their first SEC title game in a decade. Now they will play in the Big Dance for the first time since 2021.

The No. 7 seed Gators (24-11) will face 10-seed Colorado (25-11) at 9:30 p.m. on TBS. Here’s everything Golden said about the matchup with the Buffaloes, March Madness, Florida’s 2023-24 season, the loss of Micah Handlogten and more.

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Todd Golden Q&A

Opening comments

Golden: “Obviously excited to be here. Got in yesterday. Feel like the guys are ready to go. Had a good little run at the SEC tournament last week. Dealing with some adversity obviously without Micah, but he’s back with us, which was a big lift for our guys yesterday, to be able to see him and see his positive spirit. I felt like that gave us a little juice, and had a good practice yesterday before we left. Excited to get on the floor here today and get ready to compete against Colorado tomorrow. We’re just excited to be here.”

On the scout for Colorado and his thoughts on them:

Golden: “Yeah, really good team. They’re a team that had been dealing with a lot of injuries over the course of the whole year, and so felt like that held them back a little bit.

Now getting into tournament play, they don’t play a ton of guys, but they’re really talented. Obviously I think Coach Boyle is one of the better coaches in America. Just always been very, very successful, and they’re really tough. They’re big. KJ Simpson, their point guard, is one of the best point guards in America, and next to him they’re 6’6″ and bigger across the board. So we’re going to have to deal with some size that we haven’t seen on a regular basis. They do a good job defending without fouling. They’re one of the more efficient teams in America offensively.

I think a big key for us tomorrow is making sure we control the tempo and pace of the game. Even though they are very efficient in transition, they can operate pretty well in the half court. We want to get this game up and down a little bit and see if they can run with us. When we’re at our best we’re playing that way. Contrasting styles a little bit, but we’re excited for the matchup for sure.”

On how much could their size be a problem with Micah out:

Golden: “Obviously it’s a variable that we have to deal with, but the great thing is our depth in the front court has been a big positive for us all year, and we’ll start Alex Condon tomorrow next to Tyrese, and Tommy will get minutes, and we’ll probably show small-ball lineups tomorrow, as well, just to make sure we have enough depth to survive out there all game. Next-man-up mentality, and I think Aleks [Szymczyk] will be ready to go for sure.”

On how Will Richard’s ability to play the 4 will that help:

Golden: “He’s super willing to do whatever we need to win. He’ll be ready to do that. I think both him and Riley provide some good athleticism on the wings that can provide tricky matchups for them. So, getting those guys out there — Denzel has obviously been playing a lot better lately so his minutes will be pretty solid again, as well, and obviously ZP and Walt have been good for us all year. We’ll stay pretty standard early on in the game, but I think we’ll have moments throughout the course of the 40 minutes where we try to spread them out a little bit and see if they can guard our penetration with those guys out there.”

On Alex Condon making his first start, Thomas Haugh playing more:

Golden: “Yeah, all four of those front-court guys give us different things, right, and their ability to have success. But in the big scheme of things, for lack of a better term, they’re almost interchangeable. We’ve played both of them an average of 20 minutes all year. Different games, different guys have stepped up and given us huge lifts. We’re very confident in all of them.

So whether it was Condo or Tommy, we felt like we could do the job. But trying to stay consistent and keep our size out there early on, we wanted to get Condo next to Tyrese, especially for that matchup and their size. But Tommy could have handled it and all three of those guys will play a lot of minutes tomorrow for sure.”

On his comment about March Madness being the best college sporting event:

Golden: “Yeah, I mean, it’s just a 68-team single-elimination tournament, man, where you win six — I guess you could win seven if you were in the play-in games, but you win six in a row and you get crowned national champion. It’s awesome all the different matchups and the all the different teams that you see. It’s trying to do everything you can to be peaking and playing your best at the right time of year. But this event can go super quick for you, or if you play well you can stick around for a couple weeks.

I do think last week was a good experience for our guys leading up to this, especially with how many new guys we have in our program this year, to go in a tournament setting and win three games in three days and obviously competing against Auburn in the championship. This team understands we’re capable to beat Bama, beat A&M, beat Georgia on back-to-back-to-back days. It was the type of preparation you need to come into an event like this. Obviously, Colorado is going to be a really tough opponent. They should have some confidence after their win last night. But we’ll be ready for them, and again, I think this team has the capacity to make a run, if things go our way tomorrow.”

On how his tourney run with San Francisco will help him this postseason:

Golden: “Yeah, just experience. Honestly, it’s been kind of an identical experience. We played here, our team is in the same exact locker room that we were in two years ago. Hotel right down the road. But it’s just second time, and just being more comfortable. I think our program and our staff has a really good understanding of what we need to do to prepare our guys for tomorrow in such a quick turnaround. Only have 40 minutes on the floor today, 20 tomorrow. But our schedule and plan of attack is built out really cleanly, and we just feel more prepared. Last time we kind of were flying by the seat of our pants trying to figure it all out. This time I feel like we’re much more prepared for the moment.”

On how this team has matured and grown to put themselves on this stage:

Golden: “I mean, we’ve just gotten better. I think that’s kind of something that has gotten lost over these last couple years in college basketball. We felt like we had a really good group early on, but we had missed some guys whether it was due to ZP playing in Portsmouth or Micah turning his ankle in the beginning of the year, and we hadn’t gotten our full group together, so they’ve been a little inconsistent.

But they’ve done a good job working hard and practicing hard every day and continuing to get better and better and even when we started out 1-3 in conference play just our maturity to continue to work and push through and not point fingers or try to go our own way has led us to this moment now where we’ve obviously played some really, really good basketball over the last month and a half, two months where I could argue we’re playing about as well as anybody at times.

Just their willingness to be coached, their ability to stick with it and be consistent in our work I would say is kind of the main thing, and our older guys, specifically ZP and Tyrese, have done a really good stepping up and being consistent in their leadership, and we’ve had our other guys like Walt, Will and others really step up and play some really good ball.

But this team, their confidence has continued to grow as the year has gone on. I’d say that’s a big reason why we’ve been so successful lately.”

On UF playing in Indianapolis, where it won a National Championship in 2006:

Golden: “I mean, it’s an awesome place to play games. It’s a really cool town, good downtown, obviously good restaurants. We had a great meal last night. It is obviously a very basketball-driven area. My hope is we have a great crowd tomorrow. I think the guys — being honest, I don’t think the guys would really care whether they’re here or Spokane, Washington. They’d be really excited to play in this NCAA Tournament. But it’s cool and unique that we do get to play our first — maybe first two games here in Indianapolis.”

On the dynamic with Colorado freshman standout Cody Williams:

Golden: “Yeah, he’s obviously a very talented young man. I think he’s projected to be a lottery pick here in a couple months. Been dealing with a lot of injuries and now he’s coming off the bench and he hasn’t played his best the last couple weeks, but he definitely has the capacity to play really well and we definitely have a lot of respect for him as well as his teammates.

We’ll prepare as if he’s playing really, really well and make sure we’re ready for him when he comes into the ballgame. But it just gives Tad and his staff another element, another piece to one out there, and when you have a guy that’s supposed to be a lottery pick that’s not playing like a top 5 or 6 guy on your roster, obviously you’re a really talented team. We’ll be prepared for him and we definitely have a lot of respect for him and what he’s capable of doing out there on the floor tomorrow.”

On the challenges of facing Colorado’s Tristan da Silva:

Golden: “He’s really good. The funny story about him is he was a COVID recruit, and when we were at San Francisco we recruited him quite a bit. His brother was a really good player at Stanford. So, we’ve known about Tristan for a long time. He’s achieved about what we thought he would in terms of becoming a really, really good player in the Pac-12.

He’s one of those guys that he doesn’t need a lot of plays ran for him, but he’s also really, really effective and picks his spots really well, shot the ball really well, really efficient scorer, and we’re going to have to throw some different looks at him to keep him off balance and keep him uncomfortable. But he’s playing some really good ball, and he was a huge reason as to why they won last night.”

On whether there any additional motivation at just receiving a 7-seed:

Golden: “I think we were — ‘disappointed’ would be too strong of a word. I would say a little surprised. But at the same time, it is what it is. We thought our run in Nashville would probably bump us up to a 6. But hey, listen, like I said, you’re going to have tough matchups, whether it was a 10 or 11 seed, it’s still going to be really hard to win and advance.

Are we a little — trying to use it as a chip on our shoulder? Yeah, probably a little bit. But at the end of the day, we’ve still got to go out there and compete at a high level to give ourselves a good chance against Colorado. Trying to maintain focus and not allow any of those kinds of outside conversations to take away our focus, but our guys are excited to get out there tomorrow for sure.”

On the importance of rebounding and playing physical without fouling:

Golden: “Yeah, they’re one of the best defensive rebounding teams percentage-wise in America. I think that’s going to be a big part of this game. Are we going to be able to go in there and get second and third opportunities? That’s been a big part of why I’ve been successful offensively. It’s a huge reason why they’re good defensively. Whoever wins that matchup, I think that’ll be a big part of this game tomorrow.

We’ve got to figure out ways to prevent ourselves from getting in foul trouble tomorrow. Early on — sorry, I shouldn’t say early on, but before Micah’s injury we could play through some foul trouble and know we have depth at both the 4 and the 5 to be able to steal minutes if we need to, whereas we don’t have that luxury tomorrow as much. We’ll try to find some ways to keep — specifically Tyrese and Condo out of foul trouble. Tommy does a pretty good job of that. But we’ve got to be mindful of that over the course of the game for sure.”

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