The rise in importance of the transfer portal has also made for a rise in tools that aim to evaluate available players, as well as the finished classes that teams put together. While it is an inexact science, these algorithmic evaluations of players and classes are still interesting to look at as we start to see how the sport will look in 2025-26.
Today we’re taking a look at how the most prominent of these tools view Florida’s class nationally, and see what that could say about the outlook of the team this upcoming season.
Let’s begin!
EvanMiya
Class Ranking: 4th
EvanMiya has become one of the biggest college basketball analytic tools, and it has been lauded particularly for its work when evaluating transfers. In addition to having Florida 4th overall, it’s worth noting that this tool has Boogie Fland as the second best transfer in the country, with Xaivian Lee coming in at 31st. AJ Brown slotted in at 364th.
247Sports
Class Ranking: 6th
This is where we start to see how different rankings value different things when it comes to ranking an entire class, and those of you who look at 247 for either basketball or football will know that they often value quantity over quality. The 247 rankings are similar in the way they see Florida’s top players with Boogie Fland ranking as the 6th best player in the portal with Xaivian Lee coming in at 29th. However, what really jumps out is how they have AJ Brown as the 66th best player in the class. Looking at these rankings you’d think the Gators might be higher than 6th overall, but that is not the case.
ESPN
Class Ranking: 5th
ESPN doesn’t do individual player rankings as their recruiting coverage has taken a back seat, but they did do class rankings which had the Gators at 5th, giving us another data point.
On3
Class Ranking: 4th
On3 ranks Boogie Fland as the 11th best player, and Xaivian Lee as the 54th best player, though they’re decently high on AJ Brown with him coming in at 112th. Despite being a bit lower on Fland and Lee, On3 still has an extremely high view of Florida’s class. Also, On3 has an interesting “Transfer Portal Index” tool that also weighs the impact of outgoing transfers alongside incoming transfers to gauge total transfer portal activity. The loss of Denzel Aberdeen did hurt the Gators here, with Florida coming in at 38th in Transfer Portal Index.
Overall, when you look at these four different tools that all have different inputs that value different things, it’s notable that there is still a pretty similar view of how Florida’s class ranks. It’s also notable how every tool suggests that Boogie Fland was a much more valuable pickup than Xaivian Lee, something that hasn’t always matched a lot of the media attention and local fan opinion. Perhaps the biggest marker of just how good the class ends up being is the play of AJ Brown, with rankings having a wide range of possible outcomes for his abilities.
Ultimately the Gators got players at the guard position which they needed to shore up, and they’ll be in a great spot to have another tremendous year.