The Gators aren't letting the deafening praise alter the team's mentality ahead of Friday's contest with No. 16 seed Norfolk State
The Gators embraced one another and celebrated in Nashville as yellow and blue confetti fell from above. Florida soaked it in, having secured the SEC Tournament Championship with a 86-77 victory over Tennessee, and UF rightfully enjoyed the moment Sunday night, too.
Minutes into Florida's celebration, however, the Gators vocalized their mindset for March: "Six more."
Validating as the conference championship was, Florida has greater goals, its championship-minded perspective set on coming out on top in the upcoming NCAA Tournament rather than solely capturing the league's tournament title in the deepest SEC in the conference's storied history.
Florida head coach Todd Golden wanted his contingent of coaches and players he'd assembled in Gainesville to remain humble and focus on the task at hand, which begins Friday at 6:50 p.m. ET when the No. 1-seeded Gators take on No. 16 seed Norfolk State in Raleigh, North Carolina, at the Lenovo Center.
It will begin a stretch which will ultimately define how successful the season will be viewed – the Gators are of the mind they can go all the way, and anything less will be a disappointing conclusion to a season marked by frequent dominance and consistency, with UF avoiding a losing streak throughout the entirety of the 2024-25 campaign.
The deafening praise for the Gators won't impact the team's approach – Golden is confident of that much in what will presumably be an unpredictable NCAA Tournament, as it always is.
The chip-on-the-shoulder mentality is here to stay, the No. 1 seed be damned.
"I understand that if we feel good about ourselves and let our intensity, our focus, slip, that it could be done tomorrow. Our guys are very similar that way. I think they enjoy playing the role of the underdog. They enjoy playing with the chip on their shoulder. They don't want to be getting all the love. They want to be able to find a way to kind of keep that edge," Golden said. "Again, we talked about it yesterday. For the first time all year, we're starting to get a lot of credit and a lot of respect. All four guys on ESPN's group picks us to win the national championship. It's like, 'Really? OK'. We appreciate it, but we're not going to let it slow us down. We're not going to let it affect us, and we're going to make sure that we handle success the right way."
The difficulty throughout the SEC this season has aided the team's approach. Rather than look ahead to daunting opposition, the Gators have treated each team with respect, aware defeat could come on any given night. It's fostered a stay-focused mentality, too, which is necessary in the The Big Dance – there's no guarantee Florida makes it to San Francisco for the second weekend, let alone San Antonio.
It has to earn its way there, starting Friday and, if all goes according to plan, continuing Sunday in the Round of 32.
"We're going to try to chop this tournament up a little bit and focus on the first weekend and do everything we can to get out of Raleigh. And if we're fortunate enough to, then we'll head to San Francisco and have another little four-team MTE (multi-team event) out there that would give us opportunity to go to San Antonio," Golden continued. "But we're trying to enjoy it, man. We have a special group, and I don't take that for granted any day. We have a special staff. And just as amazing as it is, we know it can be over one day if we don't play well and if we don't take advantage of our opportunities. So we're going to continue to kind of lose ourselves in the moment and focus on getting better before Friday and just letting our preparation do the work for us and see what happens."
Said preparation commenced with a necessary window of rest after three games in as many days.
The Gators took Monday off and held a light practice Tuesday before turning the page to Norfolk State Wednesday. Assistant coach Carlin Hartman has spent the recent days building a scouting report of Florida's first-round opponent, which UF will utilize before traveling Thursday to Raleigh.
"We kind of took, like, two days. Yesterday, we had off, came in and watched a little bit of film, and today, we just had, like, a lift and a workout just to get our legs underneath us and get a little sweat going," sophomore forward Thomas Haugh said. "Our body's (are) kind of sore from the SEC tournament, so we're gonna get, like, a couple days to recover, and we'll get at it (Wednesday) though."
It's a necessary window of recovery for a team with sights set on larger feats, though Haugh admits Florida's success thus far sometimes is hard to believe.
A second-year forward from New Oxford, Pennsylvania, Haugh grew up a Florida fan against the odds, which aided the Gators' pursuit of the 6-foot-9 forward as he looked to make a decision out of Perkiomen School.
If it wasn't before, it's safe to say Haugh was under-recruited, with a handful of scholarship offers and only one from an SEC school in Florida.
There are moments where his journey thus far – back-to-back trips to the NCAA Tournament and to the SEC Tournament Championship game – still is hard to believe.
"It feels really surreal. After we won the SEC Tournament I called my mom yesterday and I was like 'Dude I don't even know, it's wild'. Sometimes I have to pinch myself and like, they all keep me humble, and I just can't wait to go back to PA and see some of my friends and family and stuff, super excited to do that," Haugh said. "It's been an awesome ride and we're gonna keep it going though."
Even when reflecting, Haugh makes sure to emphasize the sublime moments shouldn't have concluded. Not with this team, and not with the mindset the Gators enter Raleigh with – when he returns to Pennsylvania, the hope is Haugh will have stories to share of an underdog-minded Florida team making a run to the NCAA Tournament Championship.
It's still one game at a time, though.
"This was great to win this SEC tournament, you know, we haven't won it since 2014 I think. And it's awesome to bring that back to the University, I know they deserve it, and we deserved it to win it this year," Haugh said. "But we still got a lot more business to go."
This article originates on Swamp247.