Defending champ Florida bounced from NCAA tourney in second round by Iowa
Surprise arrives in whatever form it chooses. Nearly every time, it’s subtle, seeping into frame just as it feels too distant to be realistic. But in a few less-frequent moments, it lies in the foundation, blissfully ignored until its weight becomes too much and it escapes violently.
In those moments — when it’s one’s own mind that sponsored the sneaky thing — it cuts the deepest, twisting until words don’t really find their way out.
When No. 1-seeded Florida strutted into Benchmark International Arena on Sunday afternoon, No. 9-seeded Iowa awaiting in a Round-of-32 battle, none of those headphone-clad Gators thought any of what came — Iowa 73, Florida 72 — was feasible. On Saturday, some discussed workout plans for the week, considering they would be traveling Tuesday for a Sweet 16 game Thursday in Houston. No private jets will be taking off anymore, though. Not after Florida became the 12th No. 1 seed to lose in the first two rounds since 2010, squashing its repeat bid. Not after surprise lifted its cruel hands onto the court Sunday night.
“This,” Florida star forward Thomas Haugh started, trailing into suffocation, “I don’t want to do this.”
The scene in Tampa might be best digested through snapshots. The first comes after it all happened. Haugh, Florida’s iron-man star, who mustered 19 points no matter the jabs, hits and elbows he endured, sat down in the Gators’ already mute locker room after resting atop a podium minutes earlier, trying to explain everything he ha’d just seen. In the locker room, the microphones yet again swarmed, and with one question, the tears did, too. Teammate and roommate Alex Condon grabbed him, and the pair swayed in silence.
“You couldn’t have done anything,” he whispered. “You didn’t know.”
What had been asked was what he was thinking when the ball arrived in his hands — or, maybe, didn’t — with a second left against the Hawkeyes. The answer, had he provided it, was probably that he was surprised. The previous moments were rapid. Around the seven-minute mark, the Gators took their first lead of the second half, clawing back from down 12. And with less than 30 seconds left, Florida wing Isaiah Brown walked to the free-throw line leading by one point, and everything seemed to have found its place. Then he missed the first shot — “I can’t even think about it,” he said — and his hitting the second didn’t ease a nerve across the 118 miles between Tampa and Gainesville.
Now the frames Haugh couldn’t recount: Iowa’s All-American guard, Bennett Stirtz, who the Gators face-guarded into 13 points, sprinted in an out-of-bounds play with eight seconds left. Following the game plan, Florida guard Boogie Fland lunged at him, trying to foul while up two\ — a thought process that, for whatever it’s worth, draws from a Final Four meeting between Golden and Ken Pomeroy, the godfather of college basketball analytics. But the ball left Stirtz’s hands early. Then it left Iowa’s Alvaro Folgueiras’ paws in the corner — the same player who may or may not have punched Condon in the first half while in a tie-up. Then Florida coach Todd Golden clamped a marker, drawing up a four-second play, down 1. The goal was to “get to the rim,” he recounted. In reality? “Just hope,” Florida associate head coach Carlin Hartman said.
Florida guard Xaivian Lee covered the length of the court so quickly that he was under the basket in three seconds, at which point he did exactly what neither Golden nor Haugh expected. He tossed to Haugh, and with an Iowa swat, the forward fumbled around onto the ground. The hardwood beneath him took a red tint.
“I thought [Xaivian] had a good advantage on the guy that was defending him. His defender was not in legal guarding position, so I feel like if he would have kind of jumped back into the body and shot a layup, we would have either scored it or got fouled,” Golden said. “But [it’s] a split-second decision. He’s out on the floor.”
The Gators only found themselves there because, for 39 minutes, they wallowed in the mud, just as they had become accustomed to this year. The shots weren’t falling to the tune of a 31.6% three-point clip, but Florida wielded a frontcourt that had become one of the best ever on the boards. In that facet, the Gators shriveled against an Iowa squad that was 69th in the country on the offensive glass and even worse defensively. Each team finished with 27 rebounds, with the Gators only scoring six second-chance points — their fewest this season. Florida center Reuben Chinyelu, an All-SEC selection a week ago, attempted a single shot. “They did a great job putting pressure on us down there,” said Hartman, who coaches the Gators’ bigs. “We weren’t at our best, but credit to their effort.”
Iowa led for the majority of both halves, with Florida pulling itself back from double-digit deficits near the end of each. Those runs were the ones that made Florida who it was this season, repeatedly resurrecting under the shadow of disaster. Against Prairie View A&M in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, it assembled three “kill shot” bursts (runs of 10 or more points), a stat tracked by EvanMiya CBB Analytics. Against the Hawkeyes, its greatest run was six points. When asked whether it was difficult to assemble a comeback without those patented streaks against Iowa, the third-slowest team in the country, Golden kept things simple.
“Yes.”
He spent a few moments crediting the Hawkeyes’ game plan, especially the work they did against Florida’s frontcourt, before redirecting to the ways Florida could have bettered itself. His players are a mimic of their coach: “It was more us than them,” said Condon, who led the Gators with 21 points, despite starting the evening 1 for 6 with five missed layups. “We could’ve been more efficient in a lot of places.”
Yet they weren’t, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Eight days ago, the same happened in the SEC semifinals against Vanderbilt, when Florida lost 91-74. Golden remained confident after the game, saying Florida would “fix” the “issues” that came up, while defending his team’s worthiness of a No. 1 seed. Three days later, he outlined how any of Florida’s possible Round-of-32 opponents could pose a challenge, though he remained sanguine. The glorified layup line in the first round Friday ballooned the Gators’ confidence even further, and by the time they spoke Saturday, conversation drifted more to the Michigan State game on a TV in their locker room than Iowa.
“We were focused,” Condon deflected. “It just didn’t land our way. Got to take it on the chin.”
The Gators clawed their way from 5-4 to 28-7 this year, a turnaround that followed Golden’s preaching like gospel. “We’re getting there,” he said at one point in December. “It just has to click.” And it did, at times. Florida finished the SEC regular season with a better record than a year ago. It earned its second consecutive No. 1 seed for the first time in program history. Its chance at a repeat was firmly alive. But after a loss to Auburn in January, Haugh said Florida had an issue with listening to, and digesting, its own hype. It did so when it began the season No. 3 in the country, only to spiral out of the AP poll by January. As the intrigue bubbled once more, the habit persisted.
“We were in our heads a bit,” Brown said. “The focus was just off. … We’ve been a little out of sync.”
Despite tremors like the Auburn loss, the team seemed to continue believing some of what it was hearing, multiple sources close to the program suggested. A facade of confidence developed in the noise, even though certain problems went unfixed. Yes, the rebounding and defensive slips — Florida ranked fifth in adjusted defensive efficiency this year, per KenPom — were off-brand. Iowa was prepared for the Gators after a Big Ten slate against similarly designed teams (picture Michigan, Illinois and Michigan State’s giants). But the shooting issues were unsurprising. And, more aptly, the fact that Florida couldn’t fully bend with Iowa’s swing was as well.
Florida’s championship run a season ago was marked with late-game heroics, each the product of designed pivots in attack. This year, Florida didn’t win a single game in which it trailed by 10. The Gators either exploded onto the court or they stood in shock when they didn’t.
“[They] had us on our heels a little bit,” Golden said. “They were physically tougher than us in the first half.”
As is the case with the curtain’s drawing on any season, things won’t ever be the same. What lies ahead for Florida, however, is a true changing of the guard. Hartman, an integral keg in Florida’s past couple of seasons, is a figure in this year’s coaching cycle. Haugh, Condon and Chinyelu, the elder statesmen from Florida’s championship days, are all NBA prospects who may have just played their last game. And Golden just proved that no matter the transfers you bring in — Fland and Lee — fomenting the past is impossible.
Back in Florida’s locker room, Condon and Haugh continued to sway, memories whittling out with each movement. Across the room, Chinyelu took their place as the commentator. In seconds, Hartman had to grab the big man’s shoulders and encourage him to “keep his head up” as tears rolled onto the Uncrustables and Skittles wrappers at his feet. After he persisted, Florida’s assistant communications officer patted him on the back with a quick “thanks.” Through the hands covering his eyes, his response:
“I never imagined this.”
This story was originally published March 22, 2026 at 10:23 PM.
