The Florida Gators arrived in San Antonio on Thursday ahead of their 2025 NCAA Tournament Final Four matchup against the Auburn Tigers. This Southeastern Conference showdown is the March Madness event the college basketball world has been waiting for, with the winner advancing to play for the national championship.
One of the sidebars to this epic battle is the connection between Florida's head coach Todd Golden and Auburn's Bruce and Steven Pearl, which runs deep. Additionally, this game features two of the top players in the nation facing off in Walter Clayton Jr. and Johni Broome.
After arriving in the Alamo City, Golden addressed the sports media, sharing his thoughts on his team, the opponent and the atmosphere surrounding his first ever Final Four appearance. Take a look below at what he had to offer.
Todd Golden's opening statement
"Obviously thrilled to be here. Really proud of our program, our staff, our players for the way we performed all season. Made it through a heck of an SEC (schedule), won the SEC, which we're really proud of. Have done what we needed to do to get to the Final Four.
"Being our third year here, being this program, myself and my staff are really pleased with the progress we've made, excited to see what we're able to do this weekend."
On regrouping after Kentucky loss, improvements since
"I honestly was as excited as you can be after that game, after a loss. A lot of people have questioned the strength of schedule we played in non-conference. Going on the road, playing in Rupp against a team that we knew was really good, we didn't guard necessarily well enough, but we played well in that game.
"It was a great game. In a way it gave us confidence moving forward. Three or four days later we beat Tennessee at home, No. 1 in the country, by 30. I think that week with those two contests explained to us and built a lot of belief within our program that we belonged at the top of the SEC."
On how close Florida's roster is, how well they fit together
"This team, the process of kind of building this roster started three years ago when we got down to Gainesville. I point to Will Richard as kind of being the starting point for us. He was the first young man that committed to our program when we got the job. I can't say enough about what Will has done for us as a program since he's been here.
"After the first year, we were very active in the transfer portal. We were fortunate enough to get Walter Clayton, Zyon Pullin, Tyrese Samuel, Micah Handlogten, specifically, and kind of had some unknown freshmen at the time that we got that I don't think a lot of people outside of our building appreciated. I point to Tommy and Condo specifically with those guys, and Denzel kind of growing up.
"Obviously, last year we had a good year, making it to the SEC tournament championship game, but fall short in the NCAA tournament. We felt like we needed additional layers of toughness, physicality, experience to kind of bridge that gap for this nucleus we had returning. Did a great job keeping our nucleus. And then the addition of Alijah, Rueben, Sam, that group, just really finished this team.
"We have great guys that are unselfish, enjoy playing together. Our staff has done a good job of defining roles so everybody understands their job to help us win. It goes back to the players. They have been incredibly unselfish, allowed us to coach them. They're very consistent, compete every day. ...
