{"id":97094,"date":"2025-07-27T16:05:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T16:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/97094\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T16:05:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T16:05:09","slug":"florida-hoops-has-the-talent-for-another-title-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/97094\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida hoops ‘has the talent’ for another title run"},"content":{"rendered":"

Assessing the 10 top storylines<\/a> of the college basketball offseason,\u00a0ESPN basketball recruiting insider Jeff Borzello shared his belief that Florida<\/a><\/b> “has the talent” necessary to contend for another national championship during the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n

While Florida lost three star players to the 2025 NBA Draft this offseason\u00a0\u2014 guards Walter Clayton Jr.<\/a><\/b> (Utah Jazz<\/a><\/b>, first round), Alijah Martin<\/a><\/b> (Toronto Raptors<\/a><\/b>, second round) and Will Richard<\/a><\/b> (Golden State Warriors<\/a><\/b>, second round)\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Gators head coach Todd Golden<\/a><\/b> was quick to reload the roster through the NCAA transfer portal between April and May.<\/p>\n

UF landed former Arkansas<\/a><\/b> guard Boogie Fland<\/a><\/b>, Princeton<\/a><\/b> guard Xaivian Lee<\/a><\/b> and Ohio<\/a><\/b> guard AJ Brown<\/a><\/b>\u00a0in that timeframe. It later added former Sacramento State<\/a><\/b> guard Alex Kovatchev. These acquisitions pair with Florida’s two class of 2025 high school signings, with CJ Ingram<\/a><\/b> and Alex Lloyd<\/a><\/b> having joined the program this summer.<\/p>\n

And of course, Florida held on to its frontcourt trio: Thomas Haugh<\/a><\/b>, Alex Condon<\/a><\/b> and Rueben Chinyelu<\/a><\/b>, with the latter two players ultimately withdrawing from the 2025 NBA Draft pool. After largely operating as the program’s sixth-man last year, Haugh is expected to start at the three in 2025-26.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Florida has the talent to make another title run,” Borzello wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Before UConn<\/a><\/b> won the national championships in 2023 and 2024, men’s college basketball hadn’t seen a repeat title winner since Florida in 2006 and 2007 — but Todd Golden’s Gators have the players to make it a trend. Alex Condon withdrew from the NBA draft to return to Florida; Rueben Chinyelu and Thomas Haugh are also back; and top transfers Boogie Fland and Xaivian Lee were added in the portal.”<\/p>\n

Fland, who originally entered the draft pool before transferring to Florida, and Lee headline UF’s transfer class and are projected to assume starting roles in the Gators’ backcourt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fland averaged 13.5 points per game while shooting 37.9 percent from the field and 34 percent from three-point range during the 2024-25 campaign; Lee averaged 16.9 points with 43.9 percent field goal and 36.6 percent three-point clips.<\/p>\n

Fland’s 5.1 assists per game\u00a0last season ranked tied for the second-most in the Southeastern Conference. Lee posted 5.5 assists per game for Princeton last year, good for the second-most in the Ivy League. Each player owned a 2.5-to-1 or better assist-to-turnover ratio.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Lee recorded 6.1 rebounds and 1.2 steals per contest, while Fland averaged 3.2 and 1.5, respectively.<\/p>\n

Brown, the older brother of Florida rising sophomore guard Isaiah Brown<\/a><\/b>, averaged 13.2 points, 3.2 rebounds, 1.3 steals and 1.1 assists per game over 29 contests in 2024-25, his third season in a multi-game starting role for the Bobcats.<\/p>\n

Brown’s three-point percentage jumped 10 points from the year prior, in which he played nine games before suffering a season-ending injury and redshirted, to 38.8 percent from 28.6 percent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a freshman during the 2023-24 season, Kovatchev appeared in 33 games at Sacramento State, averaging 5.0 points, 3.7 rebounds and 1.2 assists per contest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kovatchev\u00a0appeared in just four games as a sophomore during the 2024-25 campaign, all starts, where he averaged 8.5 points and 5.0 rebounds before a leg injury ended his season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Assessing the 10 top storylines of the college basketball offseason,\u00a0ESPN basketball recruiting insider Jeff Borzello shared his belief…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":97095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-97094","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114926054518507037","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}