BATON ROUGE, La. – Tuesday night’s matchup ended decisively, with the home team securing an 85-63 win. Yet within the 130 total possessions, two stood out—offering a glimpse into Todd Golden’s real-time analytical approach to coaching.
Late in the first half, Florida senior guard Will Richard sank the second of two free throws, pushing the Gators ahead by 20 points with 29.3 seconds remaining. Florida immediately called a timeout. In the huddle, head coach Todd Golden assessed the scenario: Oklahoma had possession, the shot clock was off, they were in the bonus, and only one play remained before halftime.
Golden aimed to squeeze in one more possession.
As play resumed, Oklahoma advanced the ball, and Florida guard Walter Clayton applied tight pressure on Jeremiah Fears, committing a foul 45 feet from the basket with 10.6 seconds left. To many viewers, it appeared to be a questionable decision. Fears, a standout freshman in the Southeastern Conference and an 84.6% free-throw shooter, was expected to convert at the line.
Instead, Fears missed the front end of the one-and-one. UF sophomore Urban Klavzar grabbed the rebound, raced upcourt, and finished with a contested layup just before the buzzer—stretching Florida’s lead from 20 to 22.
Postgame, Golden was asked whether the foul was deliberate. His explanation reflected the kind of forward-thinking strategy that Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin and his hiring team recognized three years ago, when Golden was a rising coach at the University of San Francisco. Now, his second-ranked Gators (23-3, 10-3) are preparing for their sixth consecutive win as they face LSU (14-12, 3-10) Saturday night at Maravich Assembly Center.
[Read senior writer Chris Harrys "Pregame Stuff" setup here]
Golden’s analytical mindset traces back to childhood, when he amused himself by memorizing neighborhood license plates in Phoenix.
"Generally, at the end of the half, that last possession, is probably worth like .85 [or] .90, something like that," Golden explained, referencing the standard points-per-100-possessions metric used in basketball analytics. "So it's .9 for them and zero for us, because we weren't getting a shot, right? So, we want to be aggressive."
Gators guard Urban Klavzar (7) made the coast-to-coast play at the end of the half against Oklahoma, sinking a driving, banking layup with just over one second to go.
Todd Golden acknowledged that fouling Jeremiah Fears—an elite free-throw shooter—wasn’t the most conventional move. The decision gave Oklahoma a projected 1.5 points for that possession. Still, Florida had a strategic edge: if they grabbed the rebound off a miss, they’d have about 10 seconds left to run a play.
"So that's .85 or .90 our way, so we saved a couple tenths of a point and it broke our way," Golden explained. "He missed the one-and-one, we come down, score and end up winning [the exchange] 2-0."
Clear as mud?
No worries—Jonathan Safir, Florida’s director of basketball strategy and analytics, who joined Golden from USF, later expanded on the logic behind the play.
Jonathan Safir, Florida’s director of basketball strategy and analytics, broke down the logic behind the late-half foul with a numbers-first approach.
"The math of it is this: If we let them hold for the last shot, that's a possession they're guaranteed to get, and we're guaranteed not to get one," Safir said. "The end-of-half possession, when the shot clock is off, is worth a little less than a normal possession because the defense knows about when the shot is coming. So, instead of being worth a normal 1.0 or 1.05 points per possession, it's worth .85."
He emphasized that this figure isn’t just a guess—it’s backed by research and statistical modeling.
Jonathan Safir elaborated on the numbers behind the decision:
"So Oklahoma is getting .85 on that possession and we're getting zero. But if we foul an 80-percent free-throw shooter, 80 percent in the one-and-one means there's an 80-percent chance he makes the first and 80-percent chance he gets a second [attempt]. So the value of the first shot is .8. So, .8 multiplied by .8 is .64. That's the value of the second shot. Add them together makes it 1.44, but we're getting .85 because we're getting a possession with 10 seconds on the clock. So, we're basically increasing the variance and reducing how much we're supposed to lose that sequence by. Instead of losing it by .85, we lose by .65. We're losing by less, but increasing the variance."
In short, the strategy was about minimizing the expected loss.
What actually happened worked even better: Jeremiah Fears missed the first free throw, Oklahoma came away empty-handed, and Florida grabbed the rebound. The Gators converted at the other end, turning the sequence into a 2-0 advantage.
"Even if they made both free throws, if we scored, we'd be happy," Safir explained.
Todd Golden, who was recently named to the "watch list" for the 2025 Naismith National Coach of the Year Award, reinforced the philosophy behind the move:
"If we foul and if he makes the two [free throws), it's still the right decision," Golden said. "It's process over result."
It was this type of forward-thinking strategy that impressed Florida’s search committee and ultimately distinguished Todd Golden from other candidates for the head coaching role.
"Have you seen anybody else do that?" UF assistant coach Kevin Hovde, the team’s offensive coordinator, said while recalling the end-of-half sequence. "Nobody thinks that way. No one does that. Everybody would sit back and guard and tell their team not to foul."
Of course, not every coach follows the same script. When Golden was asked Friday how many coaches nationwide apply in-game analytics at that level, his response was simple: not many.
His rough estimate? Around 5 percent. Or, as he joked, perhaps closer to 5.28 percent—“with an increased variance.”
For further details, you can reach senior writer Chris Harry at charry@gators.ufl.edu.
