Went to game had a lot of fun with a foreign babe and her first college basketball game. Sat around some Kentucky fans was fun to banter back and forth with them telling them how we no longer are trying to win championships in football or bball rather focus on stadium renovations and luxury boxes for bullgators from old money and need that feeling of being special.

Frustrating loss cause it reminded me of various mike white blowing leads we had all game however closer look shows the two are a bit different. White inherited a Ferrari and a foster built by Billy for all the buster of “he always made tourny and won a game” Disney gators he took loaded rosters to 10 seeds and was slowly starting to wein off that. Golden inherited a program far removed from being a powerhouse. That said at this point the fan base has had a decade of hiring random up and coming coaches in sports and then all flaming out horribly. I think because of this golden is being given a little shorter of a leash.

He wins all the games he should win even when they don’t show up like vs east Carolina. He doesn’t lose to Texas southern or take a bowl bound team fresh off a big road win seemingly turning a corner and go lose a football game at Vanderbilt . To thecaw that’s a major red flag. Golden offenses are competent actually move the ball around they score points. He addressed the lack of side issues underneath to eliminate our being outrebounded every damn game… he is playing close games with the country’s elite coaches such as Tony Bennett Scott drew calipari ect ect however he’s falling short.

When Donovan and urban took over the sec was nothing like this at all. Nowadays even bottom dwellers like ole miss can hire established quality coaches even if they come with perosnal baggage. Outside of Kentucky which begrudgingly admittedly special like bama football the best coaches in this league are musselman, Rick Barnes Nate oaks Bruce pearl I mean good coaches with long track records of coaching under their belts. None of these guys even pearl will likely ever even win an ncaa title yet they still are each top 25 coaches in the game.

When u think about that it puts into perspective how tough this league now is for young geeenhorn coaches. Outside the 2000 team even Donovan struggled early on winning close games against gold teams. Ppl forget all the games that went exactly like yesterday and the first round ncaa exits but same issues … he had really good offenses but bad defense wouldn’t use timeouts correctly didn’t work the reds hard enough ect. I think golden is smart and will be a good coach one day but when that’ll be is anyone’s guess.

First glaring issue and this was my biggest issue with mike white as well is the lack of relentless full court press defense, Billy’s teams tormented opponents they made good teams have to run all over they stole inbounds passes and got cheap layups forced the best guards to have to exert a lot of energy. Kentucky was super fast but they are freshman and don’t have a deep bench

Simply letting them gently stroll up to mid court to then organize and pentetrate the paint with 2 future nba guards simply was not working. Needed to harass them the entire way up the court. Those Billy presses required a lot of meticulous technique and lots off off season conditioning it’s demanding which is why these young coaches aren’t interested in it but at a program like Florida it was paramount to all those elite 8 runs with lots of 4 stars opposed to nba future nba stars. Same with the free throw shooting issues … that’s just time and practice like hitting range balls every day in golf it’s something u have to do all summer long they clearly didn’t put in much time in much like our continuous strength and conditioning issues in football …..

However with everyone jumping on goldens arse thecaw will defend him in that he’s clearly a smart guy who wants to win. He gets offense and is able to fix lingering isssues such as lack of size in front court. If he had been hired before mike white and we hadn’t had 13 years of suffering from footballs up and comer coaching hires I think we’d all be much higher on golden. He will be a pretty good coach one day I think that’s pretty certain however when he figures out all the intricate ebs and flows of games all the little finer pints that add up is TBD and he’s having to learn in a league where even the bottom feeders have good established coaches.

When u get a first half shooting 3s like that it’s a obvious a coach like cal was going to make halftime adjustments and stop all those open deep 3 shots. The smart thing to do would be come out right away and hammer it inside tru to get cats in foul trouble . Now they eventually did do that around the 14 minute mark but by then the 11 point lead was down to 1. Golden he did finally make that adjustment where as mike white would do what he did in the usc jr elite 8 game by taking a s unilateral 8 point halftime lead and continuing to just shoot 3 after 3 after 3 till they somehow lost by like 15 after losing the lead in matter of minutes ….

Point is golden is going to continue this trend for some time. Flashes of promise but frustration blended in. Unlike Napier white msuchamp he appears to actually be competent it’s just a matter of when he figures out he’s got to go all in on ruthless relentless full court defense in addition to all his analytical tinkering with the much more funer offense. If it were up to me I’d had hired Rick pitino and lane kiffin and told the uaa and bullgators who have issues with their personal lives to go frick themselves but it’s not up to me. I tend to value winning and attention to detail over the stuff they value…. That said golden is not only much better than mike white but miles ahead of Napier. That said we ain’t goin to the final 4 anytime soon

This post was edited on 1/7/24 at 11:09 am