Florida basketball: Gators open the new season today with Arizona

(Photo by Chris Spears)

LAS VEGAS, Nevada – Todd Golden has the kind of problem every Division I basketball coach wishes he had. Florida’s 4^th-year coach has a full roster of 13 players, all of them capable of contributing, so how is he going to divide the minutes?

“Man, so much depth,” Golden said last week as the 3^rd-ranked Gators were fine tuning for tonight’s season opener with 13^th-ranked Arizona at T-Mobile Arena (7 p.m., TNT). “I still want more guys!”

Among the lessons learned last season was it might be impossible to have too much depth. When the injury bug struck Golden had players and options at his disposal, enough that the Gators never missed a beat. When Alex Condon suffered a high ankle sprain against Mississippi State, Tommy Haugh stepped in to fill the void in the starting lineup and 7-1 Micah Handlogten burned his redshirt to ensure there were more than enough tall, talented bodies to go around. When Walter Clayton Jr. suffered a sprained ankle against Tennessee and when Alijah Martin suffered a painful hip pointer against Vanderbilt, Denzel Aberdeen stepped into the starting lineup and Urban Klavjar came off the bench to provide another shooter who could stretch defenses.

Thanks to adequate depth the Gators suffered little if any lapses in productivity. They won their final 12 games and went on to win the third NCAA championship in school history. As good as the depth was a season ago, there is more of it now.

There is enough depth and versatility that Golden can afford to tinker with his starting lineup, abandoning the two big, three perimeter approach that he’s been using since he became Florida’s basketball coach in 2022.

“We’re gonna do what we can do to get our best players on the court as much as possible,” Golden said.

That means moving Haugh to the wing where he will combine with 6-11 Alex Condon and 6-10 Rueben Chinyelu to give the Gators the tallest and most talented front line in the country. This was pretty much how the game was played for decades before the 3-point line came about and coaches went small to have three shooters in the lineup.

Well, Haugh may be 6-9, but he can shoot, handle the ball, rebound and defend four positions on the court. He’s a matchup issue that will force opponents to adjust their lineups in a way that might not be comfortable. Haugh proved in the NCAA Tournament that he is every bit as capable of knocking down 3-pointers as he is posting up and scoring on the inside.

The way Golden’s offense operates with five players touching the ball, Haugh should see the ball all over the court. Golden is counting on that being a nightmare for opposing coaches.

Haugh won’t be restricted to the wing. He will still get minutes inside where he will team with Condon, Chinyelu and Handlogten. There is also fast developing Serbian Viktor Mikic, a 6-10, 265-pounder who would play most every place but Florida. At UF he is a victim of too many live, talented bodies and only so many minutes to split up.

“Rueben will start, with Micah the backup and Condo coming over from the four a bit,” Golden said. “Micah has a great IQ, as you all know. He’s not a consistent jump shooter, but he’s really easy to keep us in our offense. Rueben has made some big strides. He’s played very well this preseason. Again, they’re guys who know how to play basketball and our perimeter knows how to put them in good spots. Micah always finds a way to help us win when he’s on the floor.”

Everybody in the country is aware of Florida’s depth and talent on the inside. What people are nervously awaiting is to see how the Gators operate with Boogie Fland (6-3, 180) and Xaivian Lee (6-4, 180) operating the two guard spots. Both are natural point guards but Fland will act as the Gators’ primary ballhandler most of the time.  He’s explosive off the bounce, a good knockdown shooter from the 3-point line and a hound of a defender. Both Fland (5.1 assists) and Lee (5.5 assists) are proven scorers who are every bit as good getting teammates involved in the offense as they are getting their own shots.

So far during practices and in Florida’s preaseason scrimmages against Florida International and Illinois, Fland and Lee showed they play well together.

“We feel like we’re playing two point guards out there at the same time,” Golden said. “The reality is most teams have a really good perimeter defender that they want to put on the ball and make that guy's life hard. But that next guy out there is going to have to guard one of those two. And when they do that, and you're playing out of the ball screen, and you're allowing them to make second-side decisions. We feel like that's a really advantageous position for us. We've assisted well in our first two scrimmages.; We’ve taken care of the ball. We actually didn't take very good care of the ball against FIU. I thought we did an elite job of that this past weekend. And that's got to be something that our team's really good at. We have a lot of guys that value the basketball and know how to play. So ball security should be something that we're good at.”

Klavzar played well in the scrimmages. He’s a more confident shooter than he was last year and his defense has picked up considerably. The Brown brothers, sophomore Isaiah and junior transfer AJ (from Ohio U) offer physicality and athleticism. Freshmen Alex Lloyd and CJ Ingram won’t play a lot of minutes, but Golden has confidence that all his perimeter guys can score, defend and handle the basketball.

Golden understands that last year’s results fuel this year’s expectations. He knows he has talent, depth and probably more experience than any team in the country. But, it’s a new year and new years always create their own share of question marks. In Florida’s case there is also that matter of being the reigning national champion.

Some teams and coaches melt under the weight of those expectations, but Golden is having fun. As much as last year?

“Honestly, more fun in the sense of like, you know, last year going into the season, we had some a little bit of expectation, but there were still lot of question marks about what our program was, right?” he said. “Like, we had given up 100 points in the tournament year before, 'Do they guard, like, how good really are they?' You know, I think we've been able to get our program after winning the national championship last year to a level where, you know, people respect what we've done, they respect our program. And for me, the challenge is to continue to keep it at that level. And so, you know, there's not as much worry about proving who we are. I'm just more concerned about putting our program in the best place that we can be to win games. And you know, this is like last year. We had an incredible time every day with our group last year. Like they were a great group of guys. We enjoyed being around each other and competing together, and I feel the same way about the group that we have in there right now."

ANTICIPATED STARTING LINEUPS

FLORIDA: Alex Condon (6-11, 230, JR); Rueben Chinyelu (6-11, 265, JR); Tommy Haugh (6-9, 215, JR); Xaivian Lee (6-4, 180, SR); Boogie Fland (6-3, 180, SO)

ARIZONA: Koa Peat (6-8, 235, FR); Motiejus Krivas (7-2 ,260, JR); Anthony Dell’Orso (6-6, 205, SR); Brayden Burries (6-4, 205, FR); Jaden Bradley (6-3, 200, SR)