Florida has completed their frontcourt recruiting (at least for now) with the commitment of Rueben Chinyelu who comes to Gainesville after playing his first season at Washington State.
Chinyelu might be a familiar name to you as the Gators recruited the Nigerian big man out of high school before he ultimately ended up going to Washington State. Florida will now get him with a year of experience under his belt and expect a leap in his sophomore season.
Coming to basketball somewhat late, already well into his teenage years, Chinyelu was identified and invited to attend the NBA Academy Africa, a program geared towards developing talent around the world that could one day play in the NBA (you may remember that Alex Condon was a product of the NBA Academy in Australia). Considering he has only played basketball for a handful of years his best is yet to come, and the Gators will hope to see him pop in year two.
Chinyelu’s freshman year was largely about development. He only played 13.9 minutes per game, nearly always playing against the opponent’s bench units and never playing crunch time. Ultimately, he averaged 4.7 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks, coming in at 4th in minutes in Washington State’s frontcourt. The Cougars were a solid Pac-12 team who made the NCAA Tournament so he has been in a winning scenario–but he hasn’t had a lot of production and right now is more upside than he is realized talent.
While the raw numbers might not be great, what he did in the small minutes he had was massive. His 25.1% defensive rebound rate and 9.6% block rate would have been first on the Gators, while his 16.1% offensive rebound rate would have been second. In a lot of ways these numbers mirror what the Gators saw in Micah Handlogten at Marshall–a player who didn’t have great overall numbers, but had tremendous rebounding and block rates.
Right now there isn’t a lot to Chinyelu’s offensive game. His post up numbers were not very good, and most of his points came off of offensive rebound putbacks and dump off passes. While he might not have been able to create a shot for himself, if he got it set up for him–he was money. Chinyelu shot a remarkable 40-50 (80%) at the rim which made him one of the best interior scorers in the country as he dominated with his length.
Speaking of length, this is where we have to mention the most notable element of Chinyelu’s game–his outrageous long arms. Listed at 6’11”, Chinyelu has a reported 7’8” wingspan, one of the largest wingspans that college basketball has seen in the last decade. You don’t need to get out a tape measure to find this out, as when you look at Chinyelu his ridiculous length is noticeable, and as he walks it seems like his fingertips nearly reach his knees. This extreme length helps him around the rim with finishing on the offensive end, but the bigger impact is on the defensive side and when it comes to rebounding. His block rate was ridiculous, and even when he was late to a rotation or the second to jump to contest a layup his extraordinary length was enough to get to a ball at its apex. Sure, he still has things to learn on the defensive end in terms of responsibility, but with so much length his mistakes can be covered up if he makes them.
Florida is putting a lot of confidence in Chinyelu, as I’m told they won’t be looking to add any more frontcourt players unless the perfect situation pops up. While Chinyelu has incredible physical gifts and should be on a steady upward trajectory he still was a player that didn’t play a lot of consequential minutes last season, and didn’t show much offensive ability at all. Florida’s strength and conditioning program will have to work on improving his mobility, and if that happens Chinyelu’s extreme defensive upside could be realized.
Florida now has two portal players committed in Sam Alexis and Rueben Chinyelu, and both are players that are much better on the defensive end than the offensive end. This is a noticeable change from what the Gators did last year, and speaks to how serious they are about improving their defense after a year where they ranked 94th in adjusted defensive efficiency according to KenPom.
Now with their frontcourt rounded out, the Gators will look to the perimeter as a focus.