For much of the last two decades, high school recruiting class rankings have been a metric watched closely by fans. While people are still interested in their team bringing in quality talent from the high school ranks–it’s now the transfer class rankings that have started to hold more weight. Currently transfer classes aren’t evaluated by as many services as the high school services, but still there are a number of respected industry professionals that evaluate the incoming transfer classes and put them in order to allow us to see who is expected to have the best incoming veterans.
In order to see where the Gators are viewed nationally and what you can expect from the incoming trio of Alijah Martin, Sam Alexis, and Rueben Chinyelu, here are where the top three transfer evaluation services have Florida’s class stacking up.
As a reference point, I will also put where these services had Florida’s class ranked last year so you can see how the Gators are viewed comparatively.
On3 Sports
2024 Class Ranking: 33rd
2023 Class (Last Year) Ranking: 5th
To start things off we have On3 who seems to have a somewhat measured view of Florida’s recruiting class. On3 gives transfers a “star” rating in the same vein as with high school recruiting, and it’s notable that they have each of Florida’s three transfers as four-stars, though Alexis and Chinyelu both got that bump after committing to the Gators for whatever that is worth. They also are given individual values out of 100, with Martin having a 91.00, Alexis having a 91.00, and Chinyelu having a 90.00. Truthfully those individual rankings don’t seem to be consistent with a team ranked 33rd in the class, but you can be the judge. It is worth noting that On3 correctly predicted the Gators having an excellent class last year–so it will be interesting to see if they are just as accurate this season.
247 Sports
2024 Class Ranking: 32nd
2023 Class (Last Year) Ranking: 12th
Sensing a theme?
Generally transfer rankins are all over the place, but 247 is close to On3’s view by having Florida’s class ranked 32nd. They also have individual rankings for players, with Florida’s trio of transfers also each ranked four stars just like On3. However, interestingly enough–they have Chinyelu and Alexis scored as 93.00 players, with Martin being just behind at 92.00. You won’t find many people or services that have Martin as the lowest value of the three transfers, so you can take that with whatever grain of salt you like.
EvanMiya
2024 Class Ranking: 27th
2023 Class (Last Year) Ranking: 6th
EvanMiya has been taking the college basketball analytics world by storm, and I can tell you with first-hand experience that a huge percentage of coaching staffs use his rankings and trust them wholeheartedly. He was one of the first people to have Florida’s class in 2023 held up as one of the best (at one point the Gators were number one in his rankings) and it forced the other services to respond and move the Gators up. This year he’s the highest of the transfer recruiting services on the Gators, but he’s not that far ahead of the pack. With EvanMiya we have the added bonus of his site clearly laying out the ranking of every player in the portal, so here is where Florida’s players all land:
Alijah Martin: 33rd
Rueben Chinyelu: 75th
Sam Alexis: 252nd
Looking at these three top transfer recruiting services it’s clear that there isn’t anywhere near the same level of enthusiasm for Florida’s class. It’s certainly interesting to see that three separate services have Florida in a similar spot, whereas the views of these sites on other teams often vary greatly. While the Gators are bringing in some useful players that will be solid contributors, if the team is going to improve on their first round NCAA Tournament exit from a year ago it’s going to be on the back of internal development and not big time names coming in from the portal. At least, that’s what the transfer rankings would suggest–but you can be the judge, and we’ll see in November when the ball is tipped.