Franz Beard’s Basketball Confidential

While the Florida Gators were growing up on the floor of the Stephen C. O’Connell Center with a nice SEC win over Auburn Saturday, one 2008 signee and one potential recruit were taking in the game. Find out about all the Gator basketball recruiting news in this edition of our Basketball Confidential.

NOT A LOT OF HELP FOR KADJI: Kenny Kadji (6-10, 235, Bradenton, FL IMG Academy) doesn’t get a lot of help when he’s playing with the high school team at IMG Academy. The guards are slow, undersized and have a shoot-first mentality so it’s rare that they make a pass into the post. Against Buchholz Friday night, Kadji got exactly two entry passes down in the low blocks. His final totals of 14 points, 13 rebounds, three blocks and a steal were impressive but his teammates don’t give him a chance to be a dominating presence on the inside. Kadji also plays for IMG’s post grad team which plays a lot of community colleges and other prep schools. He has a tendency to play down to the competition. I like it that he’s lost about 25 pounds of fat and has replaced it with 15 pounds of muscle. He told me Friday night that his goal is to come to Florida looking a lot like Al Horford.

SEEN AT THE GAME: Besides Kadji, who was at the game with his IMG Academy teammates, there was another big man of note at the Auburn game.

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Franz Beard
Back in January of 1969, the late, great Jack Hairston, then the sports editor of the Jacksonville Journal, called me on the phone one night and asked me if I wanted to work for him. I said yes. The entire interview took 30 seconds. It's my experience that whenever the interview lasts 30 seconds or less, I get the job. In the 48 years that I've been writing and getting paid for it, I've covered Super Bowls, World Series, NCAA basketball championships, BCS championship games, heavyweight title fights and what seems like thousands of college football, baseball and basketball games. I'm a columnist and special assignments editor for Gator Country once again, writing about the only team that ever mattered to me, the Florida Gators.