The Florida Gators are treating every game the same regardless of who they’re taking on
head coach Todd Golden has continuously talked about how his team had taken up an “underdog” mentality. They approached every game this way, and the backgrounds for each of his players played into it as well.
However, as time has passed, being labeled as an “underdog” is no more for the Gators. Instead, they are now the hunted, which brings a new challenge for his team, Golden said. “After three great games in three days , it’s flipped, and now we have a different challenge ahead of us, and that’s handling success,” Golden answered, asked about maintaining the “underdog” mentality. Although it doesn’t sound like the head man for the Gators is too worried about his team being impacted by this shift in narrative. “I believe our guys are mature enough to handle that,” Golden said. “We’re going to do everything we can to continue to play the way we have up to this point.” By now, everyone’s brackets are in and the results have shown that the Gators are one of the top choices to be the one cutting down the nets at the end of the tournament. Just on ESPN’s Tournament Challenge alone, they are the second most picked champion at 21.3% behind Duke, who sits at 25%. That doesn’t mean they’ll win it, though, or that they’ll even get out of the first round. For example, Virginia became the first one-seed to lose to a 16-seed in the tournament back in 2018. Then, in 2023, Purdue became the second team to do so. As far as words go, though, one of Florida’s stars is saying the right things leading up to their first game on Friday. “Like Alijah said, just staying humble and hungry knowing that you can’t get content but just knowing we have to have elite focus going on every game and attacking every game like it’s our last,” Will Richard said. For Golden, his staff and the players, it’s imperative that their actions speak louder than their words and they actually handle being the hunted instead of the hunters. That’s because there’s no more fallback games to rebound with. Florida's first game of the tournament will be tomorrow at 6:50 p.m. EDT with Norfolk State being their opponent.
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