Florida Gators basketball head coach [autotag]Todd Golden[/autotag] is entering his second year leading the Orange and Blue on the hardwood.
The Gators finished with a subpar 16-17 record last season and an early exit in the National Invitational Tournament at the hands of the UCF Knights, 67-49.
Golden is drinking with a glass-half-full perspective for this season and wants to build off last year.
“Yeah, obviously Year 1, a great experience,” Golden said. “We didn’t finish the way we wanted to, but we had some really good moments. I thought toward the middle of conference play we kind of figured ourselves out.”
The Gators were 6-2 in conference play until leading scorer Colin Castleton broke his right hand during a contest against the Ole Miss Rebels.
“We just didn’t have enough behind (Castleton) to weather that storm,” Golden said.
Golden will look to weather the storm and ride the lightning this year by bringing in fresh faces, utilizing the transfer portal. The second-year coach is welcoming five transfers to the 2023 squad, including graduate power forward Tyrese Samuel.
“We knew we needed to replace a lot of production as (Castleton) left our program and I feel like we did a really good job of getting a balance in the frontcourt and the backcourt,” Golden said. “Starting with Tyrese Samuel, who averaged double figures and did a really good job at Seton Hall last year.”
Golden is looking forward to the performances of incoming center Micah Handlogten from Marshall and point guard Zyon Pullin from UC Riverside.
“Those guys can all really help us in different ways,” Golden said. “And to get guys who have performed and been efficient and done well at their previous stops should help us this coming year.”
The former San Francisco coach thinks retaining players each season is vital to a program’s long-term success, and the Gators faced the challenge of rebuilding after losing a number of pieces.
“I think the key to that also is you have to get your program to a spot where you want to retain everybody and make sure those guys are on board with what you’re doing,” Golden said. “But I look at our program going from last year to this year, we did not have a lot of retention but we did highlight and find a handful of guys we thought were great fits for our program to take the next step.”
Golden added the team is welcoming back nine players from last year, and he wants to use them as the pillars for the future of Florida Gators basketball program. The chemistry between players will be vital to separating the team from the others.
The process will be tested when the Florida Gators open the season at the O’Connell Center on Nov. 6 against the Loyola Greyhounds. The game will tip off at 8 p.m. EST and air on SEC Network+.
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