Florida guard Denzel Aberdeen has been granted a temporary injunction that will allow him to participate in the 2026-27 season.
Head coach Todd Golden attended Wednesday’s hearing in Alachua County along with several other coaches and players.
“We’re pleased with today’s ruling, and we’re especially happy for Denzel,” Golden said in a statement provided to Gator Country.
Golden has felt confident Aberdeen would eventually be ruled eligible. Here is a statement he made back in April.
“It’s just a common sense situation, in my opinion,” Golden said. “He played I think somewhere between 35 and 41 game minutes that whole season. Nine came in our NIT game against Central Florida, which was hard to call it a game, to be honest. We were in the middle of flipping to the next year and he was out there just because he was excited to play and a good competitor. So, he did not play very many minutes. I think that’s a big part of that.”
“This is a 22-year-old within his fifth-year clock coming back to get his degree,” Golden added. “And I think it would be a really weird stance to try to fight him from playing. Now if he had played 30 games and played 15 minutes a night, we wouldn’t be going down this path. But to me there’s a common sense approach on Denzel that I think should be solved pretty quickly.”
It wasn’t resolved that quickly, however. Florida didn’t expect the case to go to court, previously calling it a “last resort.”
“Last resort, yeah,” Golden said. “I don’t anticipate us having to get there, but again, from a common sense perspective, a lot of people will be on his side.”
Florida circuit court judge Georgia Wright granted the temporary injunction. The NCAA is expected to appeal, according to Chris Harry.