Andy Brandi, a 72-year-old former tennis coach at Florida who guided the Gators to three national titles, passes away.

Florida’s GAINESVILLE (AP) – Andy Brandi, a former women’s tennis coach at Florida, passed away. During the course of 17 seasons, his teams had a.914 winning % and three national titles. He was seventy-two.

After an illness, Brandi passed away in Boca Raton on Thursday, according to the Gators.

Florida earned 14 Southeastern Conference regular-season titles, 10 conference tournament crowns, and three national titles (1992, ’96, and ’98) under Brandi’s leadership.

“To put it plainly, Andy Brandi was a winner in every meaning of the word,” Jeremy Foley, the former athletic director of Florida, stated. “He was one of my all-time favorite coaches here.”

Brandi finished her career with a 460-43 win-loss record in 2001. In 2006, he was admitted into the university’s Athletics Hall of Fame.

In 2017, he returned out of retirement to co-head coach the LSU men’s team alongside his son, a position he maintained for five seasons.

1952 saw Brandi’s birth in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He played men’s tennis at Trinity College in San Antonio, Texas, where he later became a coach after earning a business degree.

At thirty-three, Florida hired him as executive director of the IMG Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton.

His son Chris and wife Nancy survive him.

Everything said by Todd Golden after Florida defeated No. 12 Auburn 81-65

Without their surprising victory over the Tigers on Saturday in Gainesville, the Gators advanced to 16-7 overall and 6-4 in the SEC.

Here is what Florida head coach Todd Golden had to say after his team defeated No. 12 Auburn 81-65 on Saturday afternoon in Gainesville. With the win, Florida moved up to 16-7 overall and 6-4 in SEC play.

Regarding the competition:

Yes, I believe we played really well. From beginning to end, this is undoubtedly our best effort of the year. Auburn is a favorite going into this game, especially with the way they’ve been playing, especially after that home victory over Alabama where they dominated the game for forty minutes. This is evident for more reasons than just my relationship with Bruce and Steven, and guys like Chad Prewett, with whom I worked for a few years. I mean, come on, is Auburn included in the mix?

I’d say “hell yeah” to teams that have the potential to win a national championship. They’re having fun.

as good as anybody—we have a top-3 defense, a top-10 offense, a lot of continuity in the lineup, and a ton of really, really excellent players—and we play our best game of the season against them. And it’s in the same category as the Kentucky victory, which is undoubtedly a fantastic victory that lifts the program. However, I’m particularly proud of our team and program because, as you are all aware, we’ve been playing incredibly well. Coming into this game, we had won four of the previous five games, but we struggled to hold onto leads in the second half. At the half, the message was straightforward to the players, but we were having problems keeping our foot on the pedal.

Guys, I say, “Hey, it’s time for us to mature a little bit. We have a 16-point advantage against a fantastic team, but we can’t just try to win this game.” We need to step up and “Be aggressive” is how we really set the tone, and I believe we scored 20 points in the first six or seven minutes of the second half. There are certainly a lot of positives to our performance today, and I think our boys are beginning to develop some pretty strong confidence at this point.
About establishing the mood in the opening three minutes of every half:

Yes, we are evidently doing well in that regard; once more, I think the best way to characterize it is as a mindset. Our starting group performed admirably in that regard. Our men did a fantastic job, in my opinion, coming out and acting aggressively immediately away. It was also an amazing audience. Simply amazing group of people. Our guys really enjoy playing in this atmosphere, and it seemed like the arena would explode every time we scored a basket. That gives you a significant advantage. And a game like today is definitely what college basketball is all about.

Regarding Florida’s defensive performance and if the planning or a week off helped it more:

“I believe everything mentioned above. You know, we were in the negative last week, but we were in the positive this week. They got a bye when we entered A&M, so they are waiting for us. We were waiting on Auburn because, well, we had a bye this week. They played a very emotional game on Wednesday. Our situation—winning at Kentucky and then heading out on the road—was remarkably comparable to that. They defeated their opponent in a match that they regarded as somewhat of a must-win in terms of merely

Continuing to develop their profile gave us an advantage, which we exploited, which is how the schedule fell through for us. You must act when the circumstances are favorable to you. We performed well today, you know, we had more time to prepare for them, I thought we had a solid game plan, and we were very physically fit.