During Todd Golden’s time at Florida he has been known for finding high school targets outside of the top-50 that he really likes and thinks will develop into elite SEC players, such as the Thomas Haugh and Alex Condon stories.
It appears the Gators have their next target in this mold with 2027 forward Ian Condon.
First, to answer your question–no, no relation to Alex Condon. But, the Gators will hope Ian ends up on the same growth trajectory.
Ian Condon is a 6’7”, 220 pound forward from Washington, DC that plays at Sidwell Friends School. He is currently a 3-star ranked 101st in the class of 2027, and is being recruited by the likes of Boston College, NC State, Georgia Tech, and California. You might look at that list and be a bit underwhelmed, but this further points to the range of high school players the Gators have looked at bringing in–guys who are not the 5-stars that command big NIL dollars and the big role that comes with it right away, but are guys that have potential, character, and a great attitude that will lead them to long-term success.
Florida trusts their evaluation with this one, and turning on the film it’s easy to see what the Gators see.
Condon looks like a throwback 2000’s college basketball player, the kind of do-it-all forward that doesn’t jump off the page with athleticism but gets it done with great IQ and effort. He’s got the wide bodied, below the rim craft of that era, and he plays like he should be wearing XXXL shorts and a sweat band. Like the great players of that era, he has a game based on versatility and not the specialization that we see so much with modern players. Trying to define Condon’s game in a sentence is difficult–he posts up, he runs extremely hard in transition and finishes with savvy, he is a very strong catch and shoot three-point player, and he loves to cut. The more you watch Condon, the more you can see why Florida’s staff sees him as someone who could provide work in a role position pretty quickly in college while he develops more of the game that could make him an all-league player.
At 6’7” and 220 pounds Condon has a bit of the 3-4 tweener build, and some teams see him more as a frontcourt piece and therefore find the size limiting, but the Gators are likely content to have him play the “3” where his size would be an asset. With his shooting ability and desire to cut, spacing wouldn’t be any issue so long as he could hang on the defensive side.
Hearing me gush about Condon’s crafty throwback game and his ability to shoot the three, you might be wondering about why he isn’t ranked higher or being recruited by a higher caliber of school. Condon is not a conventional athlete, and is not particularly quick or twitchy. He’s more than capable of throwing down a dunk off a rebound or in transition, but he certainly isn’t scraping the rafters. Statistically, his work with Sidwell Friends School or Team Melo where plays in the Summers doesn’t explode off the page–but right now I think the Gators love it as it makes him profile as the exact type of guy they want to bring in.
These days in recruiting it is harder than ever to know where a player’s recruitment sits, and players aren’t incentivized to be open about what they are thinking about schools. However, things are different with Condon. Everyone seems to think a commitment to the Gators is coming, so this is someone to watch out for.