Disappointing Florida can’t beat good teams yet, but Todd Golden hopes a change is coming in SEC play

NEW YORK — In the past 35 years, only two defending national champions have started a season by losing four of their first nine games.

This year’s Florida Gators are one of two.

The other was 2014-15 UConn, which finished 20-15 and missed the NCAA Tournament under then-coach Kevin Ollie.

However, this will not be the fate of number 18 from Florida. A team that began the season ranked third, with eight first-place votes from AP voters, is disappointing in terms of record but still promising in terms of predictive metrics. At this point, the Gators are still searching for themselves and answers, knowing that good results are within their reach. For a push Tuesday night, it looked like Todd Golden’s team would finally gain some clarity, only to see its last high-profile game close in exciting but disappointing style at the Jimmy V Classic, a 77-73 loss to No. 5 UConn.

Florida very well could have taken the game to overtime if Boogie Fland had managed to put the ball in with 9.3 seconds remaining, with Florida down three. Instead, Fland turned the ball over on a five-second call — a quick whistle, too. Golden said this during his post-game speech.

“I thought they called it early, man, to be honest,” he said. “I challenge everyone to time it and see what they find. We timed it in the locker room, and we got 4.6 and 4.7. In a moment like that – I’ve been in the game a long time, to get a call like that that doesn’t even reach five seconds – usually they give you an extra second, to be honest. Just a really, really tough pill to swallow.”

However, Golden wasn’t using that call as an excuse for the loss. In fact, Golden told CBS Sports that the streak highlights the biggest difference between this season’s team and the one that won the NCAA championship in April.

“It’s very simple: Our margin for error is not what it was last year,” Golden said.

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A season ago, Florida was 12-2 against ranked competition. This season, it’s 0-3, but with losses to Arizona (at Las Vegas to start the season), Duke (on the road) and UConn (at MSG/Storrs South). That makes three of the six best teams in the sport. Those losses amounted to 11 points in total, with each game coming down to the final two possessions.

That’s why all traditional predictive metrics rank UF 16th or better as of Wednesday morning. You can lose games and still be considered a really good team, as long as the teams you lose to are really good. And that’s where Golden’s team finds itself a quarter of the way through the season.

The biggest problem facing Golden is one that any coach would accept: winning a national championship with the best three-guard starting lineup in school history, only to struggle to replace that group a few months later.

Walter Clayton Jr., Will Richard and Alijah Martin are eternal legends in Gainesville. Arkansas transfer Boogie Fland and former Princeton point guard Xaivian Lee are still finding their way and undeniably feeling the pressure to live up to high standards.

“I think we’re all feeling a little bit of pressure to play this very tough schedule, with real expectations, whereas last year I don’t think anyone really believed in our team until the new year,” Golden told me. “We lost a really good backcourt. It’s going to take this team a little while to continue to feel comfortable. Unlike last year, we didn’t have a schedule that allowed us to beat teams and gain confidence that way. So we have to build that a little differently.”

By the way, Florida’s non-conference schedule ranks third in the country. The fourth loss came against TCU in Fort Myers, Fla., a blown lead that ended 84-80. He’s the only one that bothers Golden.

“It’s all about being a mentally strong man and being able to be mature and professional in how we evaluate ourselves,” Golden said. “Clearly we haven’t played our best yet. We didn’t have a night where everyone was really in good shape. And that being said, we were right in each of these games.”

With a 9-1 record, UConn could prove to be as good as any team in the country this season. The Huskies have yet to play a game where every member of the team was truly complete. Tuesday night, Florida was down 10 in the second half and battled back to take the lead. At one point he went on a 17-7 run. The last two national champions gave us a match worthy of the hype.

“It’s not a problem of lack of talent or something that leaves me feeling hopeless,” Golden said. “A lot of it is taking advantage of second chance opportunities. We can’t have 16 offensive rebounds and only turn that into six or seven points.”

Lee (and Fland, to a lesser extent) have been the main targets of criticism over the past five weeks, but without Lee on Tuesday night, Florida is losing by double digits. He had a team-high 19 points to go along with six rebounds, five assists and two steals. The problematic pattern didn’t stop, though: Lee’s 3-point shooting was an issue here, as it has been in every game. He’s only 20.3 percent from deep this season and was 1 of 7 from beyond the arc against UConn. If Lee had hit one or two more baskets, maybe the game would turn for Florida.

Golden told me that the lack of reliable perimeter shooting limited Florida’s ability to be a top team this season. This is confirmed by the fact that Thomas Haugh (18 points) was once again fantastic. His compatriot Alex Condon (14 points) had a good evening, as did Rueben Chinyelu, who had 11 rebounds. The bigs come together and transform into one of the best frontcourts the sport has to offer.

“We’re close, but we’re not there yet against the top four or five teams in America,” Golden said. “It’s not like we’re getting kicked out of the gym in these games. We’re there.”

An interesting game is next in Sunrise, Florida this Saturday against 8-2 George Washington, but Florida should see an influx of wins over the next three weeks. With the SEC down significantly from last season’s record-breaking campaign, the toughest part of this team’s schedule appears to be over. The Gators were overrated in October, but they should still be one of the best teams in the SEC by the end of January.