Pulse Check: Florida Gators Basketball

By Reese Cummings

( Photo by Florida Men's Basketball Instagram)

Florida entered the 2025-26 season with a massive target on their back and a very familiar goal: defend a national championship. After last year’s dramatic title run, capped by a comeback win over Houston for the program’s third NCAA crown, Todd Golden’s team is openly chasing back-to-back titles, something only a few programs in college basketball history have ever done and something Florida itself accomplished in 2006 and 2007. With a preseason top-three ranking in both the AP and Coaches Polls, the Gators aren’t sneaking up on anyone this time; they’re being talked about alongside the sport’s heavyweight contenders from day one.

The big storyline of the offseason was the roster flip from last year’s guard-driven team to this year’s frontcourt-heavy core. Florida lost its starting backcourt of Walter Clayton Jr., Alijah Martin, and Will Richard widely viewed as the best trio of guards in the country during the title run along with expected senior leader Denzel Aberdeen, who became what Golden jokingly called a “cap casualty” in the NIL era and transferred to Kentucky. At the same time, the Gators got huge news up front: Alex Condon tested the NBA draft waters but ultimately chose to return, joining fellow returners Thomas Haugh, Rueben Chinyelu and 7-foot-1 Micah Handlogten to give Florida one of the deepest, most experienced frontcourts in the nation. 

To rebuild the backcourt, Florida hit the portal with a mix of luck, timing, and relationships. Princeton star Xaivian Lee first got intrigued by the Gators while watching them run Alabama out of the gym, loving how fast they played and how often Condon was getting lobs in a free-flowing offense. Later, during Florida’s Final Four run, Golden broke his own rule about not recruiting during the NCAA tournament to connect with Lee, who had entered the portal and still kept in touch with former prep-school teammate Thomas Haugh. Lee committed shortly after the confetti fell. Around the same time, Condon crossed paths with Arkansas guard Boogie Fland during an NBA predraft workout with the Brooklyn Nets and pitched him on coming to Gainesville. Fland, a former five-star prospect and projected lottery pick whose thumb injury had derailed his first college season, eventually decided that returning to school and stepping into a huge role at Florida was the best way to boost his draft stock.

Golden has been just as focused on chemistry and legacy as he has on X’s and O’s. Knowing that many of his players weren’t even born during the 2006–07 repeat, he invited the team to his house to watch the “SEC Storied: Repeat After Us” documentary so they could see how much that group’s success was built on relationships and selflessness, not just NBA talent. He’s also encouraged his guys to connect with former Gator greats like Al Horford and Joakim Noah, giving current stars such as Condon a sense of what it would mean to cement their own place in Florida history. Off the floor, the 2025-26 group has leaned into team-bonding: sushi trips to Dragonfly, hibachi outings, and even snorkeling with turtles on an off day, all designed to build the same kind of tight-knit culture that powered last year’s run.

On the court so far, the season has started with both reminders of Florida’s potential and hints at where it still needs to grow. The Gators opened with an ambitious schedule, falling in a shootout to Arizona in Las Vegas before grinding out wins over North Florida, rival Florida State, and then Miami in Jacksonville to move to 3–1. Early on, the biggest concern has been three-point shooting: through three games, Florida was hitting just over 21% from deep, well below last year’s title-team pace, even as Xaivian Lee, Boogie Fland and sharpshooter Urban Klavzar continued to get good looks. Coaches and players have responded by doubling down on extra shooting sessions and a “keep shooting” mentality, arguing that their defense, size, rebounding and depth are already at a championship level and that once the shots start falling, this group has everything it needs to make a serious run at another banner in the O’Dome.