A fleet of aircraft carriers makes Florida the no-brainer No. 1 basketball pick
If the late, great Al McGuire were alive today and able to evaluate the rosters of the teams that seem to have the best chance of winning the 2027 NCAA basketball championship, his no-brainer pick would be Florida for one specific reason – the Gators have the aircraft carriers. In Al-speak, aircraft carriers are big, strong guys who control the paint, protect the rim and limit the other team to one-and-done possessions. The Gators have three of them, all returning starters who would have been drafted if they had chosen the NBA Draft rather than return for a chance to win a second national title in three years. Depth comes in the form of four who measure out at 7-0, 6-11, 6-10 and 6-9.
If he were still around, Al McGuire would call that an entire fleet.
Nearly every media outlet that covers college basketball seriously has the Gators on top of their preseason rankings with good reason. No one in the country can match Florida’s size, talent and experience up front. Lots of teams have good guards but guards can only take you so far. If you don’t have the aircraft carriers who can dominate in the paint, the road to glory is very, very difficult. You can have a bad day shooting the three if you have big guys who dominate the offensive glass. Because the Gators were the No. 1 offensive rebounding team in the country a year ago, they were able to cover for a lot of sins on the nights when shooters couldn’t find the ocean from the end of the pier.
Florida has finished top six nationally in defensive efficiency each of the last two seasons per the kenpom.com analytics. Florida’s big guys limit scoring in the paint and if the opponent isn’t lighting it up from beyond the arc, there are a lot of one-and-done possessions. That’s not the way to beat the Gators.
There are a few schools with more size than Florida’s starting threesome of Tommy Haugh, Alex Condon and Rueben Chinyelu, but no team can match the productivity and experience. That sets the Gators apart. The three of them have combined to play 317 games with 198 starts. Combined, they have 3,077 points, 2,177 rebounds, 485 assists, 202 steals and 345 blocked shots. Haugh (17.1 points, 6.1 rebounds) was a first team All-SEC and second team All-America selection in 2025-26. Condon (15.1 points, 7.5 rebounds) is a two-time All-SEC second team selection. Chinyelu (10.9 points, 11.2 rebounds) was a first team All-SEC last year when he won the SEC Defensive Player of the Year and the Naismith National Defensive Player of the Year Awards. Condon and Chinyelu were starters on Florida’s 2025 NCAA championship team, while Haugh was an invaluable sub off the bench capable of playing all three front court positions.
Haugh showed his versatility last season when he moved to the wing, but in a typical game he will play outside plus do a stretch at the high post and also down low. Condon struggled with his outside shot a year ago, but he developed a little push shot that was effective from 10 feet in to become a dominant force in the second half of the season. Chinyelu is a physical presence defensively whose offensive game continues to evolve.
The possibility of injuries and foul trouble led Todd Golden to add depth in the offseason. With only Viktor Mikic returning as a backup, Golden signed international blue-chippers Domen Petrovic and Arturas Butajevas plus true freshman Jones Lay. Mikic has only played 21 games in his career and Lay is that unknown freshman quantity, so Petrovic and Butajevas were critical additions in the offseason. Petrovic averaged 16.1 points and 6.1 rebounds while shooting 36.3 percent on 3-pointers last year in Slovenia while Butajevas averaged 13.9 points and 6.8 rebounds while playing in Spain.
Florida was also very big last year, but Golden didn’t have the depth nor the versatility that he will have this year when the four big guys off the bench are added into the equation. Size and front court production were rarely a problem in a 27-8 season in which six of the eight losses were by a combined 18 points.
Most of the issues a year ago had everything to do with guard play, and in particular, shooting from the 3-point line. After losing one of the great backcourts in recent college basketball memory – Walter Clayton Jr., Alijah Martin and Will Richard, who all play in the NBA, and sixth man Denzel Aberdeen, who transferred to Kentucky – Golden started transfers Boogie Fland (from Arkansas) and Xaivian Lee (from Princeton) with Urban Klavzar and Isaiah Brown as the chief backups. Fland and Lee both had big moments, but they never provided 3-point shooting with any consistency and they never seemed to be an exact fit. Fland shot 24 percent from three while Lee shot 29.2 percent, both well below their pre-Gator levels. Klavzar won SEC Sixth Man of the Year, averaging 9.6 points while shooting 40.6 percent from three. Brown, a highlight reel dunker, shot a streaky 34.6 percent from three.
Fland will be back this year as the lead guard. He is an elite defender and is expected to regain his lost shooting touch. He will be paired with Aberdeen, who has transferred back to UF from Kentucky. Aberdeen’s request for a waiver to play a fifth year of college basketball is pending, but bet the farm that either the NCAA grants his request or else he will win in the courts. Aberdeen is most comfortable as the off guard who can do a spell at the point several minutes per game. He is an excellent defender who played critical minutes in Florida’s run to the 2025 national championship.
Klavzar and Isaiah Brown are back proving experienced depth and production. AJ Brown, Isaiah’s older brother, spent the 2026 season rehabbing from shoulder surgery. He brings experience plus firepower to the table as both a shooter and driver. CJ Ingram is an X-factor. He’s still growing and can legitimately play three positions (both wings and the high post). He will see a lot of action as Haugh’s stunt double and in full court press situations. Reports are that Alex Lloyd and the first year jitters are a thing of the past. He is a point who is also a microwave shooter capable of going off on serious streaks. Alex Kovatchev got in late last year after transferring from Sacramento so he spent the year learning the offense and defense. Minutes will be hard to come by but he brings size and experience to the wing.
A key word in all this evaluation is experience. Florida’s starting five will have a combined 492 games played with 291 starts. If the Gators don’t have the most experienced starting five in the country, then they certainly are on the short list. Off the bench the Gators have 299 games of college basketball experience with another 131 games (98 starts) of international experience. That is 791 college basketball games with 361 starts, plus there is the international experience.
On paper, this is the deepest and most experienced college basketball roster since Kentucky’s 1996 national championship team that eventually sent nine players to the NBA. That team’s top 11 combined to play in 898 games through that season with a collective 388 starts.
In building this year’s Florida roster, Todd Golden has put together a team with so many interchangeable parts that it can adjust to any style of play by opponents and survive a case of happy whistles by SEC zebra crews. The Gators are loaded. Probably the only fair description is scary good.
THE 2026-27 FLORIDA ROSTER
Starters
Tommy Haugh (6-9, 215, SR): 100 games played, 41 starts; career 1,111 points, 586 rebounds.
Alex Condon (6-11, 236, SR): 107 games played, 70 starts; career 1,181 points, 762 rebounds.
Rueben Chinyelu (6-10, 260, SR): 110 games played, 87 starts; career 785 points, 829 rebounds.
Boogie Fland (6-3, 185, JR): 56 games played, 53 starts; career 689 points, 229 assists.
Denzel Aberdeen (6-5, 200, SR): 119 games played, 40 starts; 911 points, 203 assists.
The bench
Urban Klavzar (6-1, 190, SR): 61 games played; career 418 points, 39.1 percent 3-pointers
Isaiah Brown (6-5, 210, JR): 52 games played; career 217 points, 101 rebounds.
CJ Ingram (6-7, 210, SO): 21 games played; career 46 points, 50 percent 3-pointers.
Viktor Mikic (6-11, 260, JR): 21 games played; career 22 points, 16 rebounds.
Alex Lloyd (6-4, 190, SO): 17 games played; career 21 points, 13 rebounds.
Alex Kovatchev (6-5, 200, RJR): 52 games played, 16 starts; career 206 points, 147 rebounds.
AJ Brown (6-4, 210, RSR): 65 games played, 46 starts; career 731 points, 37.1 percent 3-pointers
Domen Petrovic (6-9, 225, JR): 94 international games played, 70 starts; 1,041 points, 491 rebounds
Arturas Butajevas (6-10, 220, FR): 37 international games played, 28 starts; 482 points, 254 rebounds
Jones Lay (7-0, 240, FR): True freshman
I surely miss Al McGuire and am grateful for those times of listening to his sharp, insightful commentary. His pairing with Billy Packer was ingenious.
As fine and thorough as a quality preview can be. The early season match-up with Duke could well be repeated for the National Championship. Florida has an incredibly well constructed team. What a season awaits.
I certainly have high hopes for mens hoops team for the 26-27 season