Throughout the year we have been doing Q&A articles for our subscribers here at Gator Country, and since Florida has finished up the roster for the 2023-24 season and we’ve entered the dog days of the summer, it’s time for another one!
All questions have been submitted by our subscribers at Gator Country, so if you’d like to ask a question and have it answered you can join today!
Let’s get into it.
Jayhovah: “In your opinion, how do you envision the current roster fitting together at the beginning of, and as we work through this upcoming season?”
Given the high level of turnover in modern college basketball, how pieces fit together is always going to be a concern–no matter the level of talent.
Something that should give Florida fans hope is the higher level of versatility that the 2023-24 roster sports than the previous season. Last year the Gators really only had one ball handler they were comfortable with, at least until Riley Kugel fully took over, and they only had one center that could be trusted. That really limited how pieces could fit together, and it contributed to what was a disappointing season.
Fast forward to this season and you have players that can play in different spots. Riley Kugel, Zyon Pullin, and Walter Clayton can play as primary ball handlers, or provide shooting off the ball. Will Richard can play shooting guard, small forward, or power forward. EJ Jarvis and Tyrese Samuel could provide minutes at the power forward or center spot, and the young guns Alex Condon (power forward and center) and Thomas Haugh (either forward spot) are players that can move around a bit as well.
Now, let’s be clear–positional versatility isn’t everything when it comes to pieces fitting together, but it should give some wiggle room when it comes to everyone falling into place. A big part of fitting pieces together will be the coaching staff who will need to drastically improve on an offensive scheme last year that didn’t fit the skill sets of the roster. If there isn’t an offensive system that fits the different abilities of the players, the pieces aren’t going to fit–no matter how positionally versatile the players are.
Positional battles will make the first few weeks of the season interesting as there are seven players who probably think they have a chance to start. It’s a good problem to have as it shows the level of talent on the roster, and just how they fit will define how the Gators’ season will go.
Ragator: “Who do you believe will be the player taken to fill the spot opened by the exit of John Bol?”
Though the Gators lost the commitment of a 7’2” center, I’m not sure they’ll fill the spot by going after another skinny 7’0”+ shot blocker. There aren’t a lot of those kinds of players out there, and I think there were some members of the staff that questioned the viability of that player archetype in the SEC to begin with.
The Gators are after a lot of frontcourt players who are a bit more versatile–guys who are 6’8” or 6’9” and around 225 pounds who could certainly play minutes at the five, though you might look at them and think they are more prototypically power forwards.
I know everyone would love a bruising 7-footer, though I think it’s worth looking around the league in recent years and seeing how many teams have had major success with centers in that 6’9”ish range–many of which gave the Gators major issues.
Ryan Jones is a player the Gators are thought to be in great shape with, largely due to the fact he’s a Gainesville native. He’s a high motor, physical player that fits the SEC mold perfectly and while he’s a very different player than Bol he could certainly take one of the scholarship spots the Gators had earmarked for a freshman in the frontcourt.
Florida would also love to land Asa Newell, a 6’9” forward from Montverde who brings some offensive flash to the position.
Jones or Newell wouldn’t fill the shot blocking role Bol was projected to fill, but they’d bring a lot more offensive upside and would be a lot more comfortable in switching situations.
CandymanfromGC: “How deep do you think CTG will go in the rotation?”
Look, at this point of the offseason you are always going to hear reports that this young player and that incoming player are looking great and surprising everyone in workouts and that they’ll push for minutes–and that’s all well and good, but the fact of the matter is that good teams in college basketball play 8-9 guys, or maaaybe 10 in some instances. It’s important for the coaching staff to encourage everyone on the roster and give them hope that they’ll play a role, but there just aren’t minutes to go 10-13 deep and if the Gators are going to compete at the top of the sport it’s unlikely that they’d be able to reliably play the end of the bench. It’s great to hear that Thomas Haugh, Alex Condon, and Denzel Aberdeen are looking great in offseason workouts, but I’m not sure those guys will be able to get a lot of run behind the core nucleus in front of them. I’d bet one of those guys works into a regular spot in the rotation, one ends up seeing one or two shifts a game, and one sees a number of “DNP-Coach’s Decision” on the box scores. That isn’t to say anything negative about their games–it’s just the fact of the matter that rotations are tighter now than ever in college basketball.
GatorRev: “Will we make the NCAA tourney, and if so what will be our seeding?”
Regular readers at Gator Country will know that I like to cite an analytics tool built by Bart Torvik when it comes to preseason predictions.
Torvik currently has the Gators as the 16th best roster entering the season. This likely won’t come as a surprise as Walter Clayton and Zyon Pullin were considered some of the top players in the portal at the times they were available, and some predictive models are big fans of Micah Handlogten (Torvik’s is not high on Handlogten as an SEC player, for the record). Tyrese Samuel was undervalued by a lot of transfer portal tools, though some accurately point out that he has proven his ability as a starter in a league that was better than the SEC.
Personally, 16th in the country is a little rich for my blood, but I see the Gators as a top 25 team, and if I had to say today as I right this for the sake of honoring the Q&A article–I’ll say I think the Gators are the 23rd best team in the country, and that would make them a 6-seed.
We can discuss exactly where the Gators should be ranked nationally to enter the season, but I think it’s pretty much consensus that the Gators are an NCAA Tournament team and if not–this year is going to be a major disappointment coming off a transition year that went poorly.
That’s all for today but I’ll be back to answer more questions from Gator Country subscribers soon, so if you’re a member and want to have a question answered you can post it on the message boards.