Bruce Pearl and Todd Golden, the head men for two teams in the 2025 Final Four, once coached together but now find themselves competing for a national championship against each other.
Final Four Foes Bruce Pearl and Todd Golden Have Crossed Paths for Multiple Years
As the Auburn Tigers and Florida Gators each won their regions in the NCAA Tournament, South and West, respectively, they find themselves set to matchup in the Final Four in San Antonio, TX. Each was named the No. 1 seed and was on a crash course to meet each other at this point as SEC powers alike.
In addition to residing in the same conference, they share a peculiar history when looking back at the pasts of both head coaches—Auburn’s Pearl and Florida’s Golden.
Pearl has been the Tigers’ coach since 2014, building the program up to one of the strongest year-to-year teams in the SEC. During that time, as CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein pointed out, Pearl hired Golden to be a part of the Auburn program as his first Director of Basketball Operations.
Golden stayed in that position for one season before being elevated to a role as an assistant coach on Pearl’s staff for the 2015-16 season. Soon after, Golden left to join the San Francisco Dons coaching staff where he was named the programs’ head coach in 2019 after multiple seasons as an assistant coach.
After three seasons at the helm for the Dons—and leading them to an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2022, the first since 1998—Golden was hired to be the Gators’ head coach. At only 39 years old, he’s since established himself as one of the top coaches in the country.
Now, in 2025, after leading Florida to a 34-4 overall record and a berth in the Final Four, Golden will find himself on the opposite side of his former boss in Pearl.
Add in that prior to Golden’s employment with Auburn, he was with Columbia University, and Pearl may well be known as the first big-time college basketball individual to truly believe in the 28-year-old’s abilities in the sport.
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The Tigers and Gators have already matched up this season, with Florida coming away with a 90-81 victory on the road on February 8. The stakes were high then, as the Gators were ranked sixth in the country while Auburn was ranked No. 1, but now, everything is on the line.
As if being conference foes isn’t enough, the familiarity goes beyond the simple yearly competitions for both Pearl and Golden.
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