GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida coach Todd Golden still wasn’t sure how good the Gators could be a week prior to Thanksgiving when college basketball operates in the shadows.

But his confidence was growing after their fourth 20-point win in six games, this time a 93-68 thumping of Southern Illinois on Nov. 22.

Few in Gator Nation might have noticed on the eve of Florida football’s upset of Ole Miss in the Swamp, but the pieces were quickly falling into place over at the O’Dome.

“We feel pretty good about the way we construct rosters and a team,” Golden said at the time.

Six weeks later, the red-hot Gators (13-0) are off to their fastest start since the program’s historic peak and seizing center stage in Gainesville as college basketball’s biggest surprise.

“For the first time since we’ve been here, we feel like we are in position to make a really good run,” Golden told the Orlando Sentinel as a recent practice concluded at the O’Connell Center.

No. 6 Florida opens conference play Saturday at No. 10 Kentucky (10-2) unbeaten for the first time since the 2005-06 squad started 17-0 en route to the first of two consecutive national championships under Billy Donovan.

A once-in-a-generation recruiting class, the so-called ‘04s, led the way.

Four starters — three NBA lottery picks (Al Horford, Joakim Noah and Corey Brewer) plus the son (Taurean Green) of a 10-year NBA veteran — were roommates who set aside personal goals and remain lifelong friends.

The dynamic was virtually unprecedented at the time. The winning formula would be impossible to duplicate now.

Building a roster these days is an ever-changing puzzle, where a tried-and-true blueprint no longer applies. The transfer portal permits players to leave for another school and play immediately; NIL opportunities allow them to sign with the highest bidder.

To keep up, and ultimately push ahead, the 39-year-old Golden has changed with the times during six seasons as a head coach.

“It’s changed a ton — a ton,” he said. “I think that’s why you see some of these older coaches either getting out or not having a lot of success — or as much success as they were used to — because it’s a completely different process.

“Stubborn gets you beat now.”

Beating Golden’s Gators poses its own challenges.

Golden and his staff have assembled a collection of transfers, high school signees and international players with the talent and attitude to overwhelm opponents.

UF has been on a roll despite off-the-court turmoil surrounding Golden. The school’s Title IX office has yet to release findings of an investigation into allegations he stalked and sexually harassed multiple women, including students.

Golden acknowledged the inquiry and said he’s considering “defamation claims” as he consults with attorney Ken Turkel of Tampa.

Despite their coach’s personal travails, the Gators win by an average of 23.9 points, tied with Tennessee for second nationally behind Maryland (26.1), and attacks from all angles.

Four Gators have scored at least 25 points in a game: Walter Clayton Jr., Alijah Martin, Will Richard and Alex Condon; four players have grabbed at least 10 rebounds (Martin, Condon, Ruben Chinyelu and Sam Alexis); and four players have tallied at least 5 assists (Clayton, Martin, Richard and Condon).

“It’s scary; we have such a deep team,” Richard said Thursday. “Any night could be somebody’s night. It’s fun to play on a team like that.”

Golden built his team in his own image and based on personal experiences.

A 6-foot-3 former walk-on at Saint Mary’s College, Golden carved out a starting role for an NCAA Tournament team as a dangerous 3-point shooter and reliable ballhandler with a team-first mentality under coach Randy Bennett.

“He was focused on winning players as opposed to rankings and things of that nature,” Golden recalled. “I didn’t feel like it mattered that I was a walk-on as long as I helped the team. He had an ability to find those guys — guys that appreciated that, as opposed to running from it — guys that like that competitive environment.”

Gators 6-foot-9 sophomore Thomas Haugh fits the Golden profile, only with considerably more size and upside.

A 3-star recruit out of the Perkiomen School in Pennsburg, Pa., rated the nation’s No. 42 power forward by 247Sports, Haugh was recruited to the University of Richmond by Kevin Hovde before he joined Golden’s staff at UF.

When Hovde invited him to Gainesville, Haugh pounced on a scholarship offer after his visit. Turns out he is a lifelong Tim Tebow fan with a sister at UF.

“This kid loves Florida,” Golden said.

At Saint Mary’s, Golden also recognized the necessity to go anywhere for talent.

Daniel Kickert, a 6-foot-10 center from Australia, was the leading scorer and rebounder when Golden was a freshman. Patty Mills was a freshman star point guard during Golden’s senior season.

“Patty was relatively unknown outside of Australia,” Golden said of the 16-year NBA veteran. “But we all were committed to the program and playing hard. It’s something that you can evaluate during the recruiting process.”

Consider UF’s big men.

The 6-foot-11, 230-pound Condon was a 3-star prospect but the son of an Australian Rules footballer with elite athletic ability, a diverse skill set and a competitive edge. The 6-foot-10, 255-pound Chinyelu took up basketball as a 14-year-old in Nigeria but has the size, skill set and work ethic to become a force.

“We take the approach that we are going to scour the globe to find the best players,” Golden said.

Meanwhile, the Gators’ stellar three-man starting backcourt features players who followed circuitous paths to UF.

Richard is a Georgia native who came from Belmont University, a private Christian school in Nashville, Tenn., to join Golden’s first UF team; Clayton hails from central Florida and transferred in 2023 after two seasons at Iona University, a Catholic school outside New York City; and Martin was a former two-sport high school star in Mississippi who transferred last spring from South Florida a season after he helped FAU reach the 2023 Final Four.

Each is an elite scorer with an alpha-dog mentality yet focused on the greater good.

“We’ve all been on the same page,” Richard said. “There was no ‘This is my show,’ or anything like that. We’ve all wanted to sacrifice for each other, we’re good at playing unselfish and we all want to see each other win and do good out there.

“It’s been fun playing basketball.”

For Golden’s program to reach this point has required trial and error and the ability to weather ups and downs.

Golden’s first transfer class featured more misses (Trey Bonham, Alex Fudge and Kyle Lofton) than hits (Richard).

“We didn’t have the luxury of being able to really pick and choose,” Golden said. “We were just trying to accumulate.”

After going 16-17 in Year 1, coaches had a full offseason to overhaul the roster and landed four winners out of the portal — Clayton, Zyon Pullin, Micah Handlogten and Tyrese Samuel — along with true freshmen Condon and Haugh.

This past offseason, Golden and Co. set out to improve Florida’s toughness and physicality with Martin, Chinyelu and power forward Sam Alexis, a 6–foot-8 Apopka native who played his first two seasons at Tennessee-Chattanooga.

“This year was easier because we had more of a nucleus to build around,” Golden said.

Combo guard Denzel Aberdeen rounds out the Gators’ rock-solid eight-man rotation. The former standout and state champion at Dr. Phillips is Golden’s only player here all three seasons who arrived from high school.

Composing and coaching a lineup representing four U.S. states and two foreign countries requires a person to have a global view.

Raised in Phoenix by a father from New York and mother from New Jersey, Golden — who is Jewish — attended a Catholic college in the San Francisco Bay area and played two seasons professionally in Israel before beginning his coaching career at Columbia University, an Ivy league school in Harlem.

After two seasons in SEC country at Auburn and six at the University San Francisco, the final three (2019-22) as head coach, Golden landed in Gainesville.

“I have a lot of life experiences,” he said. “I haven’t just been sitting in California for 40 years. My appreciation for a complete picture — from an evaluation standpoint — has definitely been helped by the different places I’ve been.”

Golden now aims to take Florida to where it hasn’t been since 2014 — the Final Four. Three years in the making, he might have put together the group to get there.

With seven teams ranked in the top 15, including the nation’s final three unbeatens (UF, Tennessee and Oklahoma), the SEC will give the Gators a chance to prove themselves.

“I would love to go 31-0 in the regular season,” Golden joked Thursday. “But they’re just raising the stakes.”

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