Todd Golden dismisses lack of award buzz: ‘It doesn’t really mean sh-t’
By Andrew Olson
Published:
There’s plenty of buzz around the Florida basketball team as the No. 12 Gators have won 6 in a row to open up a 2-game lead in the SEC entering Saturday’s slate. Todd Golden‘s team figures to be in the mix again during next month’s NCAA Tournament, but the head coach himself isn’t seeing a lot of love.
Asked about being left off the Coach of the Year watchlists, Golden bluntly said, “it doesn’t really mean shit.” As one might expect, Golden and the Gators aren’t concerned with postseason honors right now.
“We were preseason top-5, most everybody had us there,” Golden said. “And I think because we didn’t win all of our games early and we kind of slid back, people just didn’t think we were having a successful season. And probably haven’t watched us very closely over the last month or two, where we have been playing like a top five team.
“So it’s talking about Tommy (Haugh) being on the midseason award, like it doesn’t really mean shit. Me not being on a midseason coaching award, it doesn’t really mean shit. We just wanna be in the best position possible, we wanna try to win the league, we wanna be the highest seed possible and go as deep in March as we can.
“And that’s how we, that’s how I’ll judge the job I do independently and how our staff has done and our players have done. And the guys that allow those awards to affect how they feel about themselves or the job they’re doing, I think they’re probably worried about the wrong stuff.”
For the second year in a row, UF’s Todd Golden is not getting recognized for coaching awards.
— Zach Abolverdi (@ZachAbolverdi) February 20, 2026
And once again, Golden couldn’t care less.
“It doesn’t really mean shit,” he said. “We want to try to win the league and go as deep in March as we can.”
pic.twitter.com/NuSnbb2JLR
As far as winning the league, Golden has the Gators in the driver’s seat. Florida is 11-2 in SEC play with 5 games to go against Ole Miss, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi State and Kentucky. Florida has a 2-game lead over Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee, all 9-4 in conference competition. Florida is clearly the favorite to win the league title, as reflected on prediction market Kalshi.
But how far will Florida make it in March? The Gators aren’t as popular right now when it comes to which team will win the NCAA Tournament. Michigan, Duke, Arizona and Houston are all currently at higher probabilities than Florida.
While the Gators have big goals for March, there’s still February basketball to be played. Florida plays at Ole Miss on Saturday at noon ET. The game will air on ESPN.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
