Proof of concept: Florida is showing that what Mark Pope is doing does work
Call them brainiacs. Or quants. Or nerds. Or statheads. More to the point, call them what they are, college basketball junkies who have taken a numbers-based, analytical approach to a complex game.
Mark Pope is a member. The Kentucky coach and former Rhodes Scholar candidate speaks fluent points per possession. So does Alabama coach Nate Oats, the former high school math teacher who used spreadsheets to take the Crimson Tide to the 2024 Final Four before losing to eventual champion UConn.
Todd Golden is the current leader of the “Moneyball” pack, however. He assumed the mantle Saturday night when the Florida coach guided the Gators past overall No. 1 seed Auburn 79-73 in a Final Four semifinal inside the Alamodome for a berth in Monday’s national championship game, which Florida won 65-63 over Houston.
The 39-year-old Golden faced the 69-year-old Kelvin Sampson, whose Houston Cougars completed one of the greatest comebacks in Final Four history on Saturday, rallying from six points down in the final 35 seconds to shock Duke 70-67.
With Monday’s win, Golden became the youngest coach to win the title since 37-year-old Jim Valvano and North Carolina State upset Houston in 1983. Had Sampson won, he would have been the oldest coach to win the title, eclipsing Jim Calhoun, age 68 for Connecticut’s 2011 title.
New school vs. old school?
“Coach Sampson and the Houston program, it’s definitely one of if not the toughest programs in America,” Golden said before Monday’s game. “In my estimation, a little underrated, as hard as that might be to believe. They’re just an elite, elite program. They’re so consistent, they’re so tough, 19-1 in the Big 12 this year, 18-game winning streak right now that they’re on. It’s a huge challenge for us.”
Meanwhile, Golden is proof the approach Oats uses at Alabama and Pope is establishing at Kentucky can reach the highest level of the sport.
“We’re very analytical in everything we do,” Golden said Thursday as the Gators prepared to play Auburn. “The way I like to explain it, a macro outlook on our decision-making and how we build out. We try to gather as much data as we possibly can when it comes to any sort of decision, then make what decision that data tells us to make. Then we get to live with the consequences.”
Sound like another person we’ve grown to know over his first season at Kentucky?
“It’s a different perspective of basketball, honestly,” Florida’s star guard Walter Clayton Jr. said Sunday. “What’s a good shot, what’s a bad shot, what percentage of shots are we getting back? It kind of gave me a different viewpoint coming here.”
“It’s just a credit to how smart he is and how good he does his job,” fellow guard Alijah Martin said.
A former walk-on at St. Mary’s who served as an assistant under Kyle Smith at Columbia and San Francisco, as well as Bruce Pearl at Columbia, Golden is part of a new breed of young coaches putting their stamp on the sport.
“The game is in good hands with the young coaches,” Sampson said Thursday. “I know I learned from ‘em. There’s a lot to be learned from these young guys, how they do things, their ideas, their energy.”
Golden’s tenure has not been without controversy. Athletic director Scott Stricklin stood behind his head coach when the Florida student newspaper, The Alligator, published allegations of sexual harassment involving Golden. An investigation was closed after no evidence was found that the coach violated Title IX.
Faith has been rewarded. In his third season, Golden took the Gators to their first Final Four since 2014, their first national title since Billy Donovan won back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007.
“To say that Todd is kind of ahead of the curve is an understatement,” Stricklin told SEC Now.
There are plenty who believe coaches like Golden, Oats and Pope are ahead of the curve in other areas, as well. Monday night, Todd Golden was on top of the world.
This story was originally published April 7, 2025 at 4:55 AM.
