Florida is back on the basketball map, and one elusive ingredient will keep it there

A week has passed since Colorado’s KJ Simpson pushed away Zyon Pullin so he could take a game-winning jumper. It’s probably time to stop waiting for the referee to blow his whistle.

The call never came, and Florida’s basketball season abruptly ended in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Enough bellyaching about that.

But before we ponder the future, a quick synopsis of the immediate past.

“We put Florida back on the map,” Tyrese Samuel said, “and this is the foundation that’s set.”

Todd Golden’s rebuild is definitely on track. That’s why he got a nice raise and contract extension two weeks ago.

The Gators didn’t go as far as predicted. That’s never a guarantee in March Madness, just ask John Calipari. But Golden got UF in position to make a postseason run.

Now comes the hard part — doing it again.

Players used to be like flower seeds. They stayed in the same planter and blossomed over three or four years. Fans watched them grow and looked back fondly on the era.

Now an era lasts approximately one season. After exit interviews a year ago, Florida had four usable players on its roster. Now it has six:

Alex Condon, Thomas Haugh, Will Richard, Denzell Aberdeen, Micah Handlogten and Walter Clayton Jr. I don’t think UF fans have to worry about any of the first five names leaving, though you never know in the NIL/transfer world.

Clayton probably wouldn’t transfer, but he may well try his NBA luck. That would really put the pressure on Golden to come up with ready-made replacements.

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He did a bang-up job of it last season. Pullin and Samuel were grad-student transfers who powered the Gators to 24 wins.

It was a nice era, all four months of it.

Florida’s staff has a dossier of possible replacements it will start trying to woo. I have little doubt Golden will pull viable rabbits out of the transfer hat, though replacing players is just the start.

The question is whether Florida can replace the chemistry of the era just passed.

That’s the trickiest part of the new talent-acquisition model in college sports. You can measure players by their height, weight and statistics.

It’s a lot harder to gauge how all the new personalities will get along. Are transfers just hired guns, looking to make a killing? Or are eager to blend in?

It’s like making a souffle. You can have all the finest ingredients, but they have to mix or the whole thing will go pfft.

Florida struck gold with this year’s ingredients.

“They don’t have to force it. They don’t have to manufacture it,” Golden said. “These guys really enjoy being around each other, and it’s part of why we’ve been so successful.”

That’s the thing about true harmony. Coaches can encourage it and set up the right environment, but it must occur naturally. It can’t be forced or manufactured.

You saw it with Riley Kugel. He was a preseason All-SEC pick, then everything went sideways.

He’d excelled as a freelancing freshman on a weak team. That role changed with the infusion of talent and Kugel couldn’t adjust.

The all-conference season turned into a soap opera, but it didn’t turn into a larger distraction. The team adjusted to Kugel’s issues, and he didn’t become a locker room lawyer. He's entered the portal, but it's been an amicable divorce.

“I'd definitely say it's probably the closest team I've been on,” Pullin said. “From the stuff on the court to off the court, guys just wanting to be around each other, (that’s) something that stands out.”

Replicating that won’t be easy, but Golden seems to have a pretty good command of the mind games behind the game.

“My hope is that it'll continue to be that way,” he said, “as this group grows and as our program grows.”

If it does, chances are good that Florida will be positioned to make another NCAA tournament run.

And maybe next year the ref won’t swallow his whistle.

David Whitley is The Gainesville Sun's sports columnist. Contact him at dwhitley@gannett.com. Follow him on X @DavidEWhitley

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Florida hopes its next basketball instant rebuild matches the last one