Clearly, whatever Florida men's basketball head coach Todd Golden is doing in Gainesville is working out.
The Gators are coming off their first national title in nearly two decades, and all of a sudden, the Florida program is back atop the world.
However, one uncommon practice of Golden's has been under fire recently, despite leading his team to the pinnacle of the sport just a handful of months ago.
Golden doesn't recruit throughout the NCAA Tournament, which is something that almost every other coach in the nation does. Recently, reporters questioned the success of this unusual recruiting method, and the Florida head coach made sure to back his practices with his results.
"We made the conscious decision, as soon as we advanced through Raleigh to get to the Sweet 16, that we were not going to recruit during the tournament," Golden said. "We don't want any of our players waking up, on their way to breakfast, checking Twitter, and thinking, 'Oh, Florida offered this guy?'"
Golden's only focus last postseason was making sure his team got as far through the tournament as humanly possible, and after it obviously worked out, he has absolutely zero regrets for how he ran his recruiting last cycle.
“It was definitely a trade-off that we would make again,” Golden said.
Florida men's basketball recruiting rankings
In the 2025 cycle, Golden brought in a top-50 class, including two four-star prospects in CJ Ingram and Alex Lloyd. While that isn't the best stat in Florida's record books this year, the Gators' head coach also recruited the No. 6 transfer portal class in the country.
Golden landed five-star combo guard Boogie Fland from the Arkansas Razorbacks, four-star shooting guard AJ Brown from the Ohio Bobcats, and four-star point guard Xaivian Lee from the Princeton Tigers.
The onsalguht of blue-chip prospects will only improve the Gators' program, which is already coming off a National Championship season. Overall, combining the recruiting class and the transfer portal class, Florida walked away from the offseason with the No. 12 class in the nation.
The No. 3 Florida Gators start their title defense against the No. 13 Arizona Wildcats on Monday, Nov. 3, at 7 p.m. ET. The top-25 matchup will be aired on TNT.