Florida’s Todd Golden quickly reaches coaching milestone
By David Wasson
Published:
Florida Gators coach Todd Golden already has a Final Four berth and a national championship on his resume, and his latest accomplishment puts him in even more rarefied air.
With Florida’s 108-74 destruction of Mississippi State on Tuesday night at the O’Connell Center, Golden became the fastest Gators coach in history to 100 wins with the program – surpassing Hall of Famer Billy Donovan in the process.
Golden earned 100 wins at Florida in just 139 games, getting to the plateau faster than Donovan’s 154 games. Donovan coached the Gators from 1996-2001 and won back-to-back national titles for the program in 2006 and 2007 before heading to the NBA.
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The destruction of the Bulldogs also clinched Florida’s outright SEC championship – an eighth regular-season crown and first since 2014. It was also the 10th straight win for the fifth-ranked Gators and second straight 100-point performance. The last time Florida did that was 1975, and both those games 51 seasons ago were decided in overtime.
“They were messing with my hair a little too much” said Golden after the game and a rowdy on-court celebration. “We have really good relationships with our players. What’s unique is we get after them pretty good, coach them hard, but our guys know we care about them. It means a lot they were so excited for that milestone for me, but it’s really more of a program milestone than anything else.”
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
