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Regular Q&A articles have become part of the basketball coverage, and with the season just a few weeks away it’s time to answer your burning questions before the season tips. These questions have come from our Full Court Press basketball message board, and if you’re a subscriber who has a question to ask you can head there now. If you want to become a member, it’s a great time to join.
This is part two of the series, so if you haven’t yet read part one you can go back and do that now or after you read this article.
Let’s get into it.
Hembear: How deep will the rotation go? Will Lloyd and Brown get as much time as the five plus Klavzar? Any surprises from practices that have stood out and may gain/earn some minutes?
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I am going to give the same answer I give every year related to depth. Most teams go into most seasons thinking they have incredible depth, and they wonder how they are going to give minutes to everyone who is deserving. Every year I also get questions about Florida and their depth, and how they’re going to get everyone minutes.
Then, by late January, most teams are playing 8 guys.
That’s just the reality.
Most teams want to play only about 8 players, and depth pieces almost always aren’t as good as coaches think early. So, as much as the Gators certainly have a very good roster from a depth standpoint, I think it’s likely the rotation is only going to go about 8 deep. This isn’t a shot at the depth pieces, really it’s more of a positive remark on the top 8. The fact of the matter is the deepest teams in college basketball, particularly at the high-major level, are usually the worst. If you need to play the 9th through 12th guys on the roster regularly, then your starters probably aren’t very good.
Of the names you mentioned, I think Isaiah Brown ends up playing a good amount and I think Alex Lloyd ends up getting squeezed. Brown provides what the Gators want around the stars in terms of shooting and defense, and Lloyd just finds himself in the difficult position of being a point guard on a team that has a couple older, more accomplished ones.
The player getting buzz in practice is CJ Ingram, though I have to note that he also got a ton of buzz last summer. In fact, some of you may remember that last year I wrote that I didn’t think Ingram would play much as a freshman. Then, a staff member told me I was wrong, and that Ingram “might actually start.” Well, we saw what happened. I definitely take the offseason practice buzz with a grain of salt, and I have plenty of stories that I should probably wait until the statute of limitations are up before I share. Just know I have been told many times that guys would be stars…only for them to be “DNP” most nights.
CandymanFromGC: Besides Duke, which out of conference game excites you as a fan and who besides Duke is the biggest perceived problem matchup wise for UF?
Awesome question.
It feels a little cheap to say, but the Players Era tournament is going to have all eyes from college basketball on it, and I do think that is going to be pretty exciting. It’s a true bracket so it’s hard to say exactly who the Gators will play, but it’s likely there will be a Florida-Houston matchup in round 2 that may be the toughest matchup issue for the Gators with their ball pressure on the perimeter and ability to match the Gators in terms of physicality and rebounding (theoretically).
Then, there is a chance at a Florida-Kansas final if both teams win out, and that hypothetical game might be the one I would be most looking forward to. Two big brands at an event everyone will be watching.
GatorNTuscaloosa: Does this team have ‘enough’ to offset it ‘if’ we do not have a consistent three-point threat this year at crunch time?
I think this is the million dollar question. With the Gators having so much retention they have so much of the upside of last year, in the sense that it seems like they are going to just walk to another 1-seed. However, with so much retention you also can’t necessarily look at obvious upgrades that help the deficiencies that were there. Yes, Denzel Aberdeen helps the shooting (especially when he’s traded in for a player who had a below-average shooting year) but is that really enough to get the Gators to average?
When it comes to crunch time I do question a bit of the skill sets of the players involved, but I also do think it’s a coaching thing where the Gators’ staff needs to scheme some better late game offense and scoring opportunities that don’t solely rely on throwing the ball off the backboard and getting the rebound.
One underrated element of retention is that you know exactly what your deficiencies are from day one and can address those early. This offseason did not need to be the Gators learning who they were or what they were good at–that’s what most other teams needed to do. I hope that the Gators attacked the offseason with clear goals and at the top of the list being improving their halfcourt offense and execution in crunch time.
Belloit: When I look at the talent on this team, it seems to me that the biggest difficulty for the team is finding a rotation that can use all of that talent. It looks like we have 13 players that could realistically play on any normal roster. With a roster this apparently deep, how do you find enough minutes for players like Lay, Lloyd, and Butajevas to develop? Can they get enough time in practice to help them develop?
I already mentioned the rotation piece earlier and don’t want to double up, but I like that you touched on the development piece. This is one of the major issues that winning programs face at all levels of the sport and not just in college. When you are positioned to win a championship, you aren’t really in position to give a ton of minutes to developing young players and their ability to get better can be made a casualty. Florida has nothing but staffing resources and hopefully they are doing everything possible out of games to get the young players better, because they just won’t be able to get a lot of reps on the court.
I don’t know if Florida is looking at this, but I am aware of other high-major coaches who are looking at partnerships with mid-major programs to essentially send their guys there for a development year, like an NBA team sending players down to the G League. This is something I think about with the future of college basketball.
PolkGator: How’s the freshman big man doing?
Jones Lay was definitely brought in as more of a development piece, and he is looking like that in practice. Florida has a loaded frontcourt with a number of different skillsets, so it’s hard to imagine Lay getting on the floor this year unless some kind of disaster occurs. Think of him as a more long-term piece. The Gators just got the commitment for Kamsi Awaka in 2027, and he will even be ahead of Lay on the depth chart for 2027-28 unless something drastic changes.
That’s all for now, but you can still get your questions in on the Full Court Press message board.