Despite being a 10.5-point favorite, Florida wasn’t able to recreate the magic from last season as the Gators fell 73-72 to Iowa to end their season in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. On paper, Florida’s size was supposed to take over, and it just never did as Iowa looked like the far more physical team all night long.
There are a ton of reasons why Florida lost, but these are the moments and factors that stand out most as Todd Golden is left to wonder what if now that the season is over.
Florida opted to press up two points late
We’ll touch on the entire closing sequence, but the one decision that instantly had everyone scratching their heads was Golden’s insistence on pressing Iowa on their last possession. The end result was Boogie Fland losing his man, which led to a wide-open corner three for the win.
Golden afterwards hinted that he actually wanted Florida to foul in that situation, which opens a whole different can of worms, but it feels like a spot where Golden tried to get too cute. If Florida had just played a soft 1-2-2, they could have at least slowed Iowa down, and the Hawkeyes would have had about six seconds in the halfcourt to get something off. And worst case scenario, Florida could have still been in position to defend the three and could have sent the game to overtime.
The bulk of the basketball world feels it was a super reckless move and Golden got burned.
Superman doesn’t walk through the door in 2026
We all remember last year when Florida was in a near-identical nail-biting scrap with UConn and had a three-point lead with the ball with 1:10 to go. Last year, Walter Clayton Jr. sealed the deal with a three-pointer to put Florida up by six.
This year, Boogie Fland was stripped of the ball while driving to the rim. Last year Alijah Martin got an offensive rebound to put Florida up by eight. This year Isaiah Brown missed a free throw that left the door open in the first place.
The reality is that Sunday’s loss was a microcosm of Florida’s season, where more often than not, down the stretch, they just didn’t have anyone to hit that clutch shot that defined the national title run. The loss on Sunday mirrored the losses to Arizona, TCU, Duke, UConn, and Missouri, where Florida had a shot at the end of the game and just didn’t have that one player to step up.
Rueben Chinyelu finds his kryptonite
The most disappointing component of Florida’s loss was the disappearing act of Rueben Chinyelu. In many ways, he was supposed to be the x-factor that was going to wear down Iowa, given their lack of size heading into the contest.
Foul trouble didn’t help Chinyelu, but he finished with zero points and one rebound against an Iowa squad that wasn’t known for its rebounding and wasn’t known as a good rim-defending team. Likewise, even though Iowa was a solid team finishing at the rim, no one expected them to shoot 70% from two-point shots against Florida’s bigs.
It is crazy to think that even though he still had a foul to give, Golden yanked Chinyelu down the stretch and opted for a guard-based rotation.
Florida can’t finish in the first half
We had said before the game that we predicted Florida would win 83-71. We were pretty much dead on with Iowa’s score; we just missed badly on Florida’s output.
Florida was more effective in the second half once they went guard-heavy and started driving down the lane, but it’s not like they didn’t have chances in the first half. The problem was that they simply couldn’t finish in the first half.
Florida was 4-12 on shots from inside the paint in the first half, and half of those misses came from inside the restricted area under the basket. Finish at their normal rate of 58% on two-point shots, and Florida wins this game by the original prediction of 83-71.