Gainesville will be buzzing this weekend for the opening of the football season and the Billy Napier era and basketball head coach Todd Golden will be taking advantage of the hype bringing in an elite lineup of recruits for unofficial visits. In total there are five players heading into town that we currently know of, and more in-state kids could make a last minute decision to come given the lineup that has already committed.
Golden has made it known that if he is going to take a high school recruit he probably wants them to be one, elite, and two, from the state of Florida, and this lineup of players largely fits the bill.
First of all, there is Asa Newell, a 6’9” forward playing at powerhouse Montverde. He is currently the 34th ranked player in the class of 2024.
Newell has the perfect frame and style for a modern frontcourt player, a rangy 6’9” that has excellent shooting ability from deep. When he first entered the scene as one of the top players in 2024 he was known as a wing but continued to shoot up in height to the point where you’d probably consider him a frontcourt player, but he still has some of the slashing ability that he showed earlier in his basketball career.
This won’t be Newell’s first unofficial visit to Gainesville as was there last season in March for the Kentucky game.
Newell currently has interest and offers from Duke, Alabama, Florida State, LSU, and plenty of other heavy hitters.
Next on the list is Isaiah Brown, a 6’3” guard currently at Orlando Christian Prep. Brown’s recruitment hasn’t yet blown up, so put this in the category of Florida’s staff potentially getting in on quality talent before the rest of the big boys. That isn’t to say that he hasn’t been heavily recruited–as some very good mid-major programs such as VCU, Buffalo, Tulsa, and Hofstra have already offered. Brown is an excellent defender with a good frame for a 2024, and it’s clear the Gators are keeping him on the radar to see if his offensive game continues to grow and if his frame that’s already really good becomes excellent.
Another guard that will be unofficially visiting is Kameren Wright. Wright is another 2024 player whose recruitment has really heated up recently after a huge summer that saw his offers go from schools like Florida A&M, Kennesaw State, and Jacksonville State to now schools like UCF, Missouri, Dayton, and VCU. Part of the reason is that Wright, who entered the summer listed at 6’4”, now looks a whole lot more like 6’6” and still has the movement skills he did before the growth spurt. He’s got a nice flow to his game that makes his movements look effortless and the jumpshot is extremely pure. At this point it seems his career could go three-and-D or perhaps even long guard in the Kowacie Reeves model, and Florida can keep a close eye on him as he’s at The Rock School in Gainesville.
That trio was the first to commit to coming to campus for unofficials this weekend and it helped bring in another huge name–Wrights’ teammate, RJ Jones.
Jones is a 5-star forward currently ranked 23rd in 2024. At 6’9” with perimeter skills, he looks like a future NBA talent and considering he’s playing in Gainesville the Gators are going to push hard for this one.
While he’s far from being slept on as the 23rd ranked player in the class, he might have ended up ranked even higher if not for a knee injury that ended his season in December. Jones physically looks ready to step onto a high major floor tomorrow, and yes, that’s even after an injury that took him out for over half a year. He is said to have attacked his rehabilitation like a professional athlete, and seeing recent footage of him going through workouts you can see the determination of a future star who attacked his rehabbing like it was a Final Four game.
A powerful athlete with a great frame and established skills at 6’9”, the Gators will be making him a priority.
Lastly, a third player from The Rock School in Gainesville will be in attendance, Sammy Yeanay. Yeanay is a player the previous staff had some interest in so he has been to campus before, and he’s a bit of a different player than the other forwards Golden has looked at. Many of the forwards the Gators have looked at are in the tall, slender mold, but Yeanay is a big shorter and stockier at 6’7” and 230 pounds. For a player in 2024, that amount of bulk stands out, particularly with the way he plays. Yeanay is a very high motor player, hustling on defense from rotation to rotation and then sprinting the floor in transition before battling on the offensive glass to keep plays alive. Houston, a team known for their incredible dedication to rebounding, energy, and toughness was one of the first elite programs to offer him and that says a lot about his game. Alabama has also offered him, so some high level programs are taking note of how his game could translate to being the ultimate glue guy.
This will be a huge weekend for Florida basketball recruiting and with five local players taking part they are definitely names to know in the 2024 class.