GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Adversity right out of the box can be a good thing, right? 
 
That’s pretty much how the question was put to Todd Golden during the Florida basketball coach’s media scrum Wednesday, two days after the Gators were beaten by 13^th-ranked Arizona 93-87 in their ballyhooed 2025-26 season opener at Las Vegas. 
 
Golden was a bit taken aback.
 
“Adversity … like losing one game early in the year? I guess,” Golden responded. “Talk about expectations.” 
 
OK, let’s talk about ’em, because apparently every other college basketball-following creature had thoughts on the reigning national-champion Gators – ranked third in the country and armed with four leading men back from its hardware-raising squad – losing their opener. A lot of those thoughts seemingly questioned the team’s hype as a threat to go back to back. 
 
Forget the Wildcats, a Sweet 16 team a year ago, are a mere tier below blue-blood status and were basically playing a home game in a bordering state. Or that Tommy Lloyd is an outstanding coach who brought in a top-five freshman class, led by McDonald’s All American and projected lottery one-and-done power forward Koa Peat, who had a sensational 30-point debut at the Gators’ expense. As for being a proud program like Arizona that was motivated to knock off the champions? Toss that, also. 
 
Meanwhile, inside the Florida circle, any external negativity and doom-scrolling social media trolls were being tuned out, as the Gators (0-1) prepared to get back on the floor in Thursday night’s home opener against North Florida (0-0) at Exactech Arena/O’Connell Center. 
 
[Read senior writer Chris Harry‘s “Pregame Stuff” setup here]
 
“You have to turn it into a positive,” Golden said before his team’s upbeat practice at the O’Dome. “We had a lot of things that we could do better and [still] had a chance to win the game. So, whether it happens now or January 3^rd, yeah, I’m happy it’s happening now. We get an opportunity to correct things early.” 
 
A lot will happen between now and Jan. 3, but the Florida focus, in the here and now (as in, first off, getting right against the Ospreys, their next opponent), is internal. As for the reference to Jan. 3 – as in the Southeastern Conference opener against Missouri – let’s flush that out some. 
 
Rewind to last Jan. 4 of this year, when UF was one of three unbeaten teams in the country and started SEC play at Kentucky. The Gators played those Wildcats tough, but ultimately lost 106-100 and knew then – after a relatively soft non-conference schedule – they needed to address some defensive issues. Clearly, they did so, but needed the UK test as an alert.
 
That’s called context.

Want some more? 

 

How ’bout two seasons ago when the Gators, after a ho-hum home defeat of Loyola-Maryland went to Charlotte, N.C., for a neutral-in-name-only game against Virginia? UF lost 73-70, thanks to a pair of turnovers, both by a mid-major transfer point guard playing against one of the nation’s best defenses, in the final 15 seconds. Yeah, Walter Clayton Jr. got better after that. 

And speaking of Florida point guards, sophomore transfer and former McDonald’s All American Boogie Fland didn’t have a great performance in his UF debut. Nine points on 3-for-9 shooting, a couple missed 3s and just three assists, while being victimized for 27 points by Arizona counterpart Jaden Bradley. Maybe cut Fland, just 19 years old, some slack, however. He was playing in just his fourth game this calendar year, a timeframe that has included a pair of surgeries. It was just the 22^nd game of his collegiate career, while Bradley, a 22-year-old and also a former McDonald’s All American, was playing in his 111^th game. Fland, by the way, played 32 minutes without a turnover and was pretty good getting the Gators into their offense. They just didn’t shoot the ball very well (43% overall, only 7-for-27 from 3).  
 
“We learned a lot about ourselves,” Fland said. 
 
As for the struggles of Florida’s starting “bigs” – specifically, Alex Condon’s six turnovers and Rueben Chinyelu’s one rebound – those are legitimate points relative to the Arizona outcome, but one game (one loss against a really good team) doesn’t undo what everyone knows both players are capable of. Remember those 36 victories last season? A couple big ones in March and April under some pretty bright lights? That wasn’t that long ago.  
 
For what it’s worth, the loss didn’t sit particularly well with anyone in Florida gear, given the sunken-shoulder body language they wore on way home from Nevada early Tuesday morning. As forward Thomas Haugh predicted after his career-high 27-point outing, “This isn’t the team you’re going to see in a couple weeks.”
 
Or Thursday night, presumably. Look for the Gators to come out with a ton of enery and emotion against the Ospreys, who will be the nameless, faceless opponent that just happens to be in the way. 
 
“It’s about us. We got to focus on what’s important to us,” Golden said. “We got to make sure we play with great purpose, play with a little better organization and execution on the offensive end, do a better job guarding straight-line drives, defending without fouling defensively, and we got to dominate the boards.”

That would be a proper response to “adversity” in the first week of November.

 

Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu. Find his story archives here.