‘Todd Golden to Kansas’ is the new ‘Billy Donovan to Kentucky,’ and that’s great for the Florida Gators

Basketball

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Image Credit: Maddie Washburn, UAA

Winning a national championship in his third season and securing 100 career victories with the Florida Gators faster than any head coach in program history, Todd Golden has already cemented his legacy in Gainesville, Florida. With the Gators on the verge of another top seed in the 2026 NCAA Tournament with national title aspirations for the second straight year, he has accomplished more in a shorter period of time than anyone would have expected, especially after leaving San Francisco with a .613 record across the first three seasons of his head coaching career.

As Florida continues to improve on the court, seeking its second straight crown, the coaching carousel has already begun spinning throughout college basketball. And while the Kansas job is not open — the Jayhawks are ranked No. 14 in the AP Top 25, third in the Big 12 and poised to receive a quality seed in the NCAA Tournament — unsubstantiated rumors are swirling that this may be Bill Self’s final season in Lawrence, Kansas.

Self, 63, will complete his 23rd season with KU. He’s a two-time NCAA champion and four-time Final Four qualifier who has won 24 total Big 12 titles and received a slew of coaching awards throughout his tenure. Should he actually depart Kansas — in any manner, which again, is hardly certain — one of the most accomplished coaches in the nation will be vacating one of the best jobs in the country.

Golden, the most successful young coach in the nation, would almost certainly be the No. 1 candidate on the Jayhawks’ list should the program not promote Jacque Vaughn, as has been long expected whenever Self ultimately leaves the team. And really, Golden would almost certainly be the No. 1 candidate for any program that could have him.

The entire situation ironically mirrors how Billy Donovan was spoken about while leading Florida to the winningest stretch in program history with two national championships, four Final Four appearances, 10 SEC titles and his own bevy of awards as one of the best coaches in the nation.

Time and again, year after year, Donovan was supposedly the top target for multiple top college jobs, none mentioned more frequently and ridiculously than Kentucky. As if Donovan, who had built the Gators program into a national powerhouse, had any motivation to leave them for a team in the same conference (and at the time, same division) that he had regularly defeated and even dominated during his run to prominence. (At least there was a connection with Donovan, who spent four seasons as an assistant at UK under Rick Pitino.)

Golden being discussed similarly only goes to show how his success at Florida is viewed nationally. He’s not seen as a flash in the pan but rather as a staying power in a new age of college basketball, one where the focus is no longer on recruiting high school talent but rather building programs through player evaluation and roster construction. Given his youth, exuberance, passion and basketball mind, it’s arguable that there is no coach in the country better positioned for this era than Golden.

The problem for the rest of the country is that he’s wearing orange and blue and winning at a rate that, through four seasons, has even surpassed the early run of Donovan, the greatest coach in program history and a Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee.

To suggest that Golden is not a legitimate candidate for other jobs is an unknowable stance; only he and his agent are privy to Golden’s long-term goals. Does he want to build a singular program into a powerhouse? Does he have a dream college job? Does he want to lead an NBA franchise?

What is knowable is that Golden has thrived since joining the Gators. He has significant institutional support, and Florida has already shown its willingness to pay him accordingly, making Golden one of the five highest-paid college basketball coaches in the nation while committing enough money to the program so that funds are available to acquire top players, too. That support will only increase over time, particularly coming out of a second straight dominant season.

The Gators are often thrown aside by those who discuss college basketball’s “bluebloods.” The reality is that UF has been far more successful than most of those teams since the turn of the century. In that period, Florida has won as many national championships (three) and Kansas (two) and Kentucky (one) combined. UF’s has more Final Four appearances (five) than UK (four) and one fewer than KU (six).

Among the other bluebloods and newbloods — UCLA, North Carolina, UConn, Duke, Indiana and Villanova — only the Huskies (five NCAA titles) have been more frequent champions since 2000.

As was the case with Donovan and the Wildcats, any suggestion that Golden would have a better chance of winning or thriving with the Jayhawks — or needs to move to a similar job to fulfill his potential — is not only silly but extremely outdated, perhaps now more than ever given the ever-changing landscape of college basketball.

Just because Florida, like UConn, didn’t win at this level in the 1950s or 1990s (though it did advance to the 1994 Final Four) does not mean it is a stepping-stone gig. The Gators and their coaches have proven that contention is far from reality.

The only argument against the Florida job has been that basketball will never be the No. 1 sport on campus, given the prestige of the football program. That also means the pressure at UF and the microscope its basketball coach is under — still immensely high — is not as ratcheted up as some of those other institutions.

As Steve Spurrier, Urban Meyer and Donovan have acknowledged previously, there are massive benefits to being part of an athletic program that is successful in multiple areas. Besides, as Donovan proved, basketball can easily be a 1B to football’s 1A. When the Gator Boys are hot, there’s nothing bigger in Gainesville, Florida.

So while the Golden-to-Kansas conversation may be irksome for the fan base, it’s simply nature taking its course when one combines a coach’s immense early success with lazy media takes and athletic administrators at bluebloods who are under pressure to make splashy hires that energize the fan base and keep boosters happy.