Florida is hiring Todd Golden bringing another modern offense to SEC

There will be many changes for SEC basketball this offseason. Florida just made a big splash by hiring San Francisco head coach Todd Golden.

Florida is hiring USF coach Todd Golden, sources confirmed to @Stadium.

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) March 18, 2022

Golden, 36, is a west coast native that spent two seasons at Auburn working under Bruce Pearl before heading back to California to work at San Francisco for the last five seasons. After two years as an assistant under Kyle Smith, Golden spent three seasons as the head coach of the Dons after Smith left for Washington State. Golden produced three top-100 finishes for a mid-major program in the West Coast Conference that does not have a lot of tradition.

The new hire by Florida will be bringing a modern offense with him to the SEC.

At San Francisco, the Dons finished inside the top-50 every season in three-point attempt percentage. In 2021, Golden’s team saw 50.3 percent of their shot attempts come from behind the arc. Golden wants his team to spread the floor, drive the basketball, and look for open shots behind the three-point line.

The Dons also played with some pace rankings inside the top-100 in KenPom’s adjusted tempo in 2022. San Francisco was finally able to breakthrough in year three under Golden receiving an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament before losing to 7-seed Murray State in the opening round. Both guard Jamaree Bouyea and forward Yauhen Massalski were first-team all-conference selections as San Francisco finished the season 24-10 and ranked inside the top-25 at KenPom.

Todd Golden is a huge believer in analytics and uses them heavily with his program. Expect a modern approach as the Gators replace newly named Georgia head coach Mike White with a hire that has SEC experience with a space-and-pace approach. However, the defense has also delivered as the Dons just put together a top-25 unit this past season.

Similar to Pearl (Auburn) and Nate Oats (Alabama), Florida with Todd Golden will turn into an opponent that relies heavily on threes, free throws, and shots at the rim. There will be questions to answer regarding Golden’s recruiting philosophy, but this style of play has seen recent success in the SEC with both Alabama (2021) and Auburn (2022) owning each of the last two regular-season titles.

There is a trend developing in college basketball as more programs are leaning into a spaced-out offense. Meanwhile, John Calipari seems committed to a traditional two-big lineup that does not value three-point shooting at a high rate.

Will Kentucky continue to zig while the rest of the league is starting to zag?