{"id":87157,"date":"2025-04-06T16:10:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-06T21:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=87157"},"modified":"2025-04-06T16:10:19","modified_gmt":"2025-04-06T21:10:19","slug":"1-jewish-coach-still-in-ncaa-title-contention-as-todd-goldens-florida-faces-houston-in-mens-basketball-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/1-jewish-coach-still-in-ncaa-title-contention-as-todd-goldens-florida-faces-houston-in-mens-basketball-final\/","title":{"rendered":"1 Jewish coach still in NCAA title contention as Todd Golden\u2019s Florida faces Houston in men\u2019s basketball final"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By BEN SALES<\/p>\n<p>(JTA) \u2014 Three Jewish coaches entered the NCAA men\u2019s basketball Final Four on Saturday. Now, just one remains.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_87158\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Todd-Golden.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-87158\" class=\"wp-image-87158 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Todd-Golden-300x167.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"167\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Todd-Golden-300x167.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Todd-Golden-1024x569.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Todd-Golden-768x427.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Todd-Golden-1536x853.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Todd-Golden-2048x1138.jpg 2048w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/167;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-87158\" class=\"wp-image-87158 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Todd-Golden-300x167.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"167\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Todd-Golden-300x167.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Todd-Golden-1024x569.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Todd-Golden-768x427.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Todd-Golden-1536x853.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Todd-Golden-2048x1138.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-87158\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Head coach Todd Golden of the Florida Gators looks on during the first half of a game against the Auburn Tigers, Feb. 10, 2024, in Gainesville, Florida. (James Gilbert\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Florida, coached by Todd Golden, beat Auburn, coached by Bruce Pearl, 79-73 in a close game Saturday evening. It isn\u2019t the first time the two Jewish coaches have shared the court: A decade ago, Golden was at Auburn as an assistant to Pearl, who coached him as a player at the Maccabiah Games in 2009. Golden also played professionally in Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Later that night, Duke, led by Jewish coach Jon Scheyer, lost to Houston in a shocking collapse. Scheyer\u2019s team was up by six with 40 seconds on the clock but crumbled as Houston roared back to win the game, capping a 15-3 run to win 70-67.<\/p>\n<p>In the women\u2019s tournament, USC, coached by Lindsay Gottlieb, who is Jewish, lost in the Elite Eight.<\/p>\n<p>Duke\u2019s loss ended hopes of a men\u2019s final Monday night with two Jewish coaches against each other. But Golden will face an opponent whose career began in Israel. Emanuel Sharp, a guard, was born in Tel Aviv, where his father Derrick Sharp coached Maccabi Tel Aviv for more than a decade, and played for Israel\u2019s under-16 national basketball team.<\/p>\n<p>As Golden gets a shot at March Madness glory, he\u2019s also seen controversy: Earlier this year, multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct, prompting a Title IX investigation. The charges were dismissed as Golden had not committed misconduct \u201cwithin a university program or activity,\u201d the investigators said.<\/p>\n<p>The Houston vs. Florida final tips off Monday at 8:50 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"1%20Jewish%20coach%20still%20in%20NCAA%20title%20contention%20as%20Todd%20Golden%E2%80%99s%20Florida%20faces%20Houston%20in%20men%E2%80%99s%20basketball%20final\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":87158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1491],"tags":[14567,8790,8795,8788],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87157"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87157"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87159,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87157\/revisions\/87159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}