Less than a year after hoisting a national championship, Florida basketball coach Todd Golden is reeling from an upset loss during the Round of 32.
Although Golden pulled all the right strings en route to a title a year ago, in a tight game vs. ninth-seeded Iowa on Sunday, a strategy he attempted to deploy late never came to fruition. And it allowed the Hawkeyes to eliminate the defending national champions before the Sweet Sixteen.
“Golden said after the game he wanted to foul one of Iowa's role players and see if he could make two FTs under pressure. That would have given the Gators one more possession or at least gotten to OT,” Seth Davis posted on X, formerly Twitter. “We all know about the foul-up-three but have you ever heard of foul up two?”
The strategy is one that Golden has used before, but, as he admitted, it was executed poorly on Sunday.
With less than 10 seconds to go, Florida's Isaiah Brown made two free throws to give the Gators a 72-70 lead. However, Florida was much too slow and out of position on the ensuing defensive possession. After taking the ball out under their own basket, the Hawkeyes easily raced down the floor, past almost all of the Florida defenders. Bennett Stirtz then executed a simple bounce pass to Alvaro Folgueiras, who nailed an open, game-winning 3-pointer from the corner.
“I thought, obviously, on the last play we wanted to take a foul to prevent them from getting off a three, and they got away from us, we weren't able to take it, and they knocked it down,” Golden said in his post-game press conference.
Florida, which had won 12 straight entering the SEC tournament, finished the season with a 27-8 record.
