Here at Gator Country we love the relationships we have with our members and the regular dialogue we can have on the message boards. At different points throughout the year, I will request questions from our Full Court Press basketball board and answer them–in however many parts it takes to get through all the questions.
If you haven’t yet read part one, please go back and read that as well when you have an opportunity.
Let’s get into part two of this Summer Q&A!
Polkgator: “How do you see the distribution of minutes?”
To begin, I want to look back at last year’s National Championship team and tie this into depth and how the distribution of minutes goes with good teams in college basketball. As a Florida fan reading this, you will know that Florida had some really good players come in off the bench and contribute, which led to there being a narrative around the Gators being a team with tremendous depth–a notion I completely agree with.
Now, knowing that Florida had outstanding depth–where do you think the Gators ranked nationally in terms of bench minutes? Given that Florida’s bench was so good, and so deep, you might think the Gators gave their bench a lot of run.
Nope. The Gators ranked 251st nationally in bench minutes.
This is something I have written about for nearly a decade and something that I always mention before the season when fans start talking about how a team could go 9 or 10 or 11 or 12 deep–really, good teams play their starters a lot and ride their best players. I am not saying depth isn’t important, and when players come on the floor you always want them to be productive, and really it’s often even sweeter if they can come on for shorter stretches and give their all during that time.
I give all this preface to say that I expect Florida’s starters to play a lot of minutes once again, and when it comes to crunch time I think it will be an 8-man rotation, maybe 9 because I do expect a real emergence of one of Isaiah Brown or freshman Alex Lloyd. This isn’t to say that I’m down on Florida’s bench players as I really do think there is a lot of talent there–the fact of the matter is that any high-major team that’s giving their bench a ton of minutes and going into the tenth or eleventh man in the rotation is generally not that good, and if you look at Florida’s habits last year the smart money is on the Gators playing a smaller rotation.
UFMBA14: “Who will we beat in the Natty this year?”
I will choose to interpret the question as “who do I think the best team in the country is?” for the possibility of who the Gators could face in the 2026 National Championship game should the Gators get there. For whatever it’s worth, Houston did really well in retaining Milos Uzan, Emanuel Sharp, and Joseph Tugler in addition to bringing in an uncharacteristically flashy high school class–meaning that there is a non-zero chance of a Florida-Houston National Championship rematch. Of course it would take a lot of things to go right, from both teams truly being great to the bracket shaking out the right way, but I wanted to make note of it.
While many people will have Houston as the preseason favorite, I’ll go with Purdue. Braden Smith is likely the best point guard in college basketball and he’s joined by arguably the most underrated player in the sport Trey Kaufman-Wren who averaged 20.1 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game on a great Purdue team in an excellent Big Ten and still doesn’t get talked about all that much. Though never a team to do all that much in the portal, they did grab Oscar Cluff from South Dakota State who was one of the most coveted bigs available.
99Gator: “Do you anticipate the style of play for the team changing next season? Or put differently, analytically, will our formula for success be any different with this group?”
I love this question. Oftentimes when a team wins a National Championship it is assumed that every single decision and every single input for that program was the “right” move that pushed the team up the mountaintop–and that just simply isn’t true. There are always things that can be changed and improved upon, and I do see some things changing for the Gators.
For starters, I think it’s going to be a more aggressive defensive team that tries to generate more turnovers. Throughout Golden’s tenure at Florida he has been a very conservative defensive coach–something that didn’t work two seasons ago when the Gators were simply too easy to play against, but something that worked with the group last season to win a championship. Last year the Gators were 211th in the country in defensive turnover rate, largely due to the fact Florida’s scheme wasn’t disruptive and they weren’t looking for deflections or steals, and I see that changing this year. Boogie Fland has excellent hands and quickness and is always hunting for steals, and putting him on opposing point guards is going to make for a lot more ball pressure and aggressiveness than Florida had with Clayton who was more content to play away from guys in order to try to keep his feet in front of drives. Xaivian Lee has his defensive limitations, but the one thing he does have is length, and I think the Gators would be much better served making him aggressive in trying to force turnovers and using that to cover up some of his limitations as opposed to making him play a reserved style where I think his issues would be exaggerated.
Offensively I think the Gators will also have to be a bit more structured since they plan on playing with so many bigs which will decrease their ball handling and decision making on the floor. Open play becomes a bit more challenging with so many frontcourt players on the floor, even with a few that can handle pretty well in Thomas Haugh and Alex Condon, so if the Gators don’t get an initial transition bucket I see them calling a few more sets and getting guys into spots to maximize every offensive possession.
Johnagator: “Who are the high school recruits the Gators are looking at for next year?”
Some names to be aware of:
Alex Constanza, a big, dynamic wing in the NBA model of shot creator. Florida has been on him for a while, and he could end up being a top ten player in the class of 2026.
Jaxon Richardson, a 6’6” wing at Columbus High School in Miami, Florida.
Tim Winkler, a 6’10” center from Oak Ridge in Orlando who has recently seen his recruitment really heat up, and he could be another more under the radar target the Gators try to identify early. His offers have generally been mid-major until Florida and Auburn came in somewhat recently.
Of course, look for the Gators to also look at international targets, and that is a wide net of players that could come over and be able to contribute.
That is all for part two, but if you have more questions you can send them in on the Full Court Press message board.