With the offers that Todd Golden and the Florida staff are putting out at this point in the transfer portal season it’s clear that they’re interested in adding another point guard, ideally an older one that could start while VMI transfer Trey Bonham grows into the role of SEC ball handler.
This past week saw the Gators reach out to an interesting target that could help out in this area, St. Bonaventure’s Jaren Holmes.
Holmes, 6’4” and 210 pounds and powerfully built, started at Ranger (TX) College before transferring to St. Bonaventure where he has been a productive player for three seasons. Last year he averaged 13.5 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 3.6 assists, and when he entered the portal there were plenty of high majors to reach out.
To start, let’s contextualize these numbers.
You see, St. Bonaventure does something that’s rather atypical in modern basketball–they only play 6 players. Well, maybe a 7th player gets in for 30 seconds or so, if something goes wrong. Holmes averaged 38 minutes per game last season, which is not a typo. In fact, he played the entire game without a rest, a full 40 minutes, fourteen times last season. His lowest minute total was 30 against Duquesne, where an 81-55 win meant Holmes could get somewhat of an easier load.
Because of the fact the Bonnies play so few players, they play extremely slow to save their legs. Their games are very low scoring, so despite the fact that Holmes was always on the floor, there weren’t a lot of possessions to get a whole lot of shots up or a whole lot of points.
The 38-minute average likely affected Holmes’ legs a bit when it came to his three-point shooting. In his first two seasons at St. Bonaventure he was a 40% and 38% three-point shooter, but this season when the Bonnies went to a starters-only approach to basketball and he had to play nearly the entire game his percentage went down to 27%. Given a different situation where plays a normal minute load, you can likely expect him to shoot the ball better.
One area where the fatigue didn’t seem to hurt him was on the defensive end, where Holmes had a reputation in the Atlantic 10 for being a rugged defender on the perimeter. His 6’4”, 210 pound frame is perfect for guarding a variety of different players and you can see why coaching staffs such as Florida can see it translating to the high major level. Given that he was able to compete at a high level defensively while playing the entire game, you can only imagine what his energy to guard would be like when he only has to play a regular shift.
Florida is looking for a point guard ideally and Holmes was largely a shooting guard for the Bonnies, though he played backup point guard minutes (for the couple of minutes where starting point guard Kyle Lofton would go to the bench). However, even playing at shooting guard he was still able to showcase his playmaking abilities as you can see with his 3.6 assists per game. Florida could look at the possessions where he was tasked with making plays for his teammates and see how that could project to more minutes at the point, particularly within Florida’s offensive system.
It’s expected that Florida will play a five-out Princeton-style offense, meaning the role of the point guard isn’t exactly traditional. The “point guard” will be tasked with entering the ball into the center who acts as the pivot for most actions, so a typical point guard with the ball in his hands for most of the possession isn’t at all what the Gators need.
In Holmes, Florida could see a player that has the frame of a high major guard and is loaded with experience after three years in a good league at St. Bonaventure with a massive minute load. They could see how he shot the ball in previous seasons and how he was able to defend even while playing 38 minutes per game and think about how that could translate to Florida where he’ll likely get easier shots on the offensive end and be able to give even more effort defensively on fresher legs.
The Florida staff loves VMI transfer Trey Bonham, but there are some concerns with his defense and small frame. Holmes would be an excellent contingency for those issues, and if Florida landed him they could feel pretty solid in their point guard rotation.
Right now he is still taking offers from schools but Iowa State and Alabama are considered to be some of the top teams competing for his services.