Even by the lofty standards of a program with two national championships this century, the 2024-25 season has been among the best in Florida basketball history.
From their first game in early November, the Gators have been a juggernaut. They’ve racked up a 34-4 record, putting them two victories shy of tying a single-season program record. Behind a well-balanced, carefully-constructed and analytically-minded roster headlined by All-American guard Walter Clayton Jr., they won the SEC Tournament and earned a No. 1 seed to the NCAA Tournament, where they’ll be appearing in the Final Four for the first time in 11 years.
Behind that rise has been Todd Golden, Florida’s 39-year-old wunderkind coach who has improved the program’s fortunes in his three seasons at the helm. On Saturday at the Alamodome in San Antonio, he’ll become just the 13th man since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985 to coach a Division I men’s basketball team in the Final Four before his 40th birthday.
A season that has brought so many achievements and breakthroughs, though, began mired in uncertainty and controversy.
Last November, two games into the Gators’ season, it was revealed that the university had received a formal Title IX complaint about Golden in September that accused him of sexually harassing and stalking an unidentified number of women, including multiple Florida students.
Nearly three months later, Florida closed the investigation and cited a lack of evidence. But as the Gators have run through the NCAA Tournament and established themselves as one of the best teams in the sport, the case has been commonly cited whenever mentioning Golden or detailing his time in Gainesville.
On Nov. 8, several outlets — including the Gainesville Sun — reported that a complaint had been filed with Florida’s Title IX office on Sept. 27 accusing Golden of sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, stalking and cyberstalking. Golden’s alleged behavior was directed at multiple Florida students over the preceding 12 months, according to the complaint, which sometimes occurred while he was on the job and put the Gators’ coach in potential violation of the university’s Gender Equity Policy.
