BACK with BIGGER BITE

Barely 48 hours after celebrating a national title, the Gators were back at work, navigating NIL deals, NBA draft decisions and transfer portal targets. Hungry for more, Florida is already chasing another run at glory

- BY Kevin Sweeney

Walk into the Florida basketball complex and the first thing you'll see is a trophy case. Inside it is a shrine to the Gators' history, most prominently the program's back-to-back national titles in 2006 and '07. Both the official NCAA trophies and the more visually appealing clear-glass basketball presented by the NABC reside there, as well as nets from those tournament runs.

That beautifully manicured collection of championship memorabilia lives in stark contrast to the coaching staff's offices, where many of the program's 2025 title relics currently reside, a small reminder of reaching the apex of the college hoops world.

But finding the wooden NCAA championship trophy that head coach Todd Golden hoisted jubilantly in San Antonio now sitting unassumingly on the corner of executive assistant Tracy Pfaff's desk? That feels out of place.

That temporary home for college basketball's biggest prize serves as a good reminder of just how fleeting winning a national title is in today's landscape. The final buzzer sounded at 10:09 p.m. CT on April 7. The team partied well into the night, then got on a plane back to Gainesville, Fla., the next day... and that was that.

By Wednesday, fewer than 40 hours since confetti fell, Golden and his staff held meetings with potential returning players trying to lock in contracts for 2025–26. The team was honored at the football team’s spring game that Saturday and hosted a key transfer portal recruit early the next week. Then, the entire starting five left Gainesville for offseason workouts with NBA draft decisions looming.

“You wake up on Tuesday morning and you’ve won the national championship and you just get back on the bus. You come home and watch TV that night and you’re like, ‘All right, well, gotta try to do that s--- again, you know?” Golden says.