Todd Golden Believes Florida Thrives Off Playing on Road After FSU Win

When Florida takes on a team during this college basketball season, whether it's an out-of-conference game, SEC play, March Madness, or anything in between, it's typically not going to be an easy game on the road. 

While Florida is going to win a whole lot of road games because it's arguably the best team in America, it's also fair to remember that teams are going to do whatever it takes to ensure that the Gators are uncomfortable away from their home court. 

Florida has played just one road game this season, beating Florida State 81-72. I wouldn't say that beating Florida State by nine points was necessarily some incredibly impressive win from Florida, but it was a nice step. 

Florida State is still a respectable program in the ACC, and Florida ultimately did what it had to do on both sides of the basketball to win that game.

But what made me even more interested in everything that Florida was able to do was what head coach Todd Golden had to say after the game. 

Golden said that he knew the atmosphere was going to be a fierce one, but not only does he have his guys prepare to play in atmospheres like that, but he believes his team thrives off that energy.

"I think it was within our expectation of what that environment might be like. Obviously, Florida State has some momentum right now. Luke is doing a great job. That was a big game for their program and their fans showed up. Pretty good crowd. Students were loud and they were getting after our guys pretty good, getting after our staff, and for the most part I thought we handled it pretty well. But it was a great reminder of what we're going to see every time we go on the raod this year.

“The great thing about our group is I think they enjoy that. I don't think they're scared of that. And we performed pretty well. Not at all perfect, but we did a lot of good things against a really good team that was definitely ready for that moment. So I was deeply please, if not more, of our win at Florida State as I was at Miami,” Golden said, per 247.

This is obviously much easier to say after winning the game, which is what Florida was able to do against a tough team, so I'm going to be interested to see how he feels about that if the Gators do end up losing a road game throughout SEC play or sometime in its tough out-of-conference slate.

Regardless, we also have a couple of years of history now suggesting that Florida can go on the road and beat any team in the country. Whether it be on the road or at a neutral site in March Madness, the Gators are always ready to play.