Todd Golden sets early expectations for 2026-27 Florida basketball
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Todd Golden is brash and bold, and he doesn’t like falling short.
He guided Florida to a national championship last season, and it looked like the Gators might get back to the promise land this season, too, after a stellar regular season. Florida rolled to the SEC regular-season title and although it got beat in the SEC Tournament and didn’t raise that trophy, Golden had the Gators primed to raise the biggest trophy on Monday night in Indianapolis.
Those plans were thwarted in stunning fashion by Iowa in a second-round loss that still has Florida fans shaking their heads, but it’s time for a fresh start and Golden spoke about that on Saturday night during a roundtable discussion. He talked next season and the expectations that he has for the 2026-27 Gators.
Golden projected Florida to be ranked among the top 15 teams in the country when next season begins, but he wasn’t giving up on the Gators being a top-10 team either, if “some things swing our way.”
“To our credit, we’ve done a good job retaining a lot of the younger guys in our program that we think are going to become really good players. We feel good about that,” Golden said.
Another issue are the current guys on the UF roster who could jump to the NBA, and that will be ironed out soon.
“We’ll have a lot more direction over the next couple weeks here,” said Golden about the potential to lose guys to the NBA.
Golden couldn’t get his Gators back to the national championship game this season, but UConn and Michigan are there and will clash on Monday night. Here is what the Kalshi market is currently saying about the odds for who will cut down the nets in Indianapolis:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
