The secret key to Florida’s title run is a man most people don’t know. Introducing Jonathan Safir, their Director of Basketball Strategy and Analytics. Safir came with Todd Golden to Florida in 2022, after they worked together at the University of San Francisco. At Florida, they continued their analytics-driven philosophy.
They built their championship roster not by offering players massive NIL paychecks, but from an analytical “Moneyball” approach.
In fact, they’ve never gotten a single player by outbidding other schools (via FOS).
They used different metrics when evaluating players, and focused on the transfer portal.
Safir even told Front Office Sports they don’t look at typical counting stats. They instead study a player’s advanced metrics.
As a result, they got Will Richard (under-recruited out of HS) to transfer. Then they got Walter Clayton Jr and Alijah Martin (both zero-star recruits out of HS) to transfer.
And analytics drove everything they did in-game too.
For example, whenever a Florida player had 2 fouls in the 1st half, Golden kept them in, which defies conventional wisdom. However, Golden and Safir believed points in the 1st half matter the same as points in the 2nd half.
In fact, Florida is the only major conference team to be top 40 the past 3 seasons in percentage of 1st half minutes a starter has played with 2 fouls (via WSJ).
Now, finally, all of the numbers have paid off. Golden and Safir’s analytics work. And it’s won them a championship.