Florida basketball roster for next season is loaded with size, talent and experience

Florida's newest addition, Domen Petrovic (UAA Photo)

What happened with Todd Golden and the Florida Gators Monday should reverberate throughout the Southeastern Conference and all of Division I college basketball. By signing hybrid forward Domen Petrovic (6-9, 220) from Slovenia, a shooter who hit 40.5 percent from three for Sencur Gorenjska Druzba Kranj during the season in Europe, Golden let the rest of the world know he doesn’t have to search high and wide for a point guard to back up Boogie Fland.

If there have been questions about the construction of the roster for the 2026-27 season they have been about better shooting and who will back up Boogie. Denzel Aberdeen’s transfer solves some of the point guard issues since he played point off the bench when he was with the Gators during the championship run of 2025 and played point out of necessity at Kentucky last year. But he will be a 5^th-year senior this year and while he’s competent at the point for a few minutes, it’s not his full-time position.

Then there is Alex Lloyd. The signing of Petrovic gave us a good clue about Lloyd’s development. Golden hinted at it when he held a press conference a couple weeks ago, the day after Tommy Haugh announced he will be returning. Lloyd played mop-up minutes off the bench as a freshman last season where he looked more like a skinny wing than a point. Apparently he’s gotten in the weight room where he needs to add about 15 pounds of muscle and in workouts he’s showing Golden that he is the point guard of the future.

So problem solved at the point.

Petrovic gives the Gators a hybrid forward who can play the high post, run the baseline or play out on the wing. He averaged 16.7 points, 6.6 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game while playing in Slovenia during the European season. A teammate of Gator Urban Klavjar on Slovenia’s national team at the FIBA under-18 Euro championships in 2022 and under-20 Euros in 2024, Petrovic averaged 5.6 points and 3.6 rebounds in 2022 and 9.7 points and 3.9 rebounds in 2024 playing for the national team. This past season in Slovenia, he built on the 2025 season when he averaged 12.3 points and 6.0 rebounds per game. He shot 56 percent overall from the field, 84 percent from the foul line and nearly doubled his assist total, becoming a hot property for American schools seeking international talent. Because of Klavzar, Florida already had a file on Petrovic and had a foothold on landing him.

By signing him, Golden now has the only full roster in the SEC and one of the few full rosters in the nation. No one in the country has as much size, talent and experience as Florida, particularly in the front court where Golden can call on six players, all of whom measure at 6-9 or more.

“We are really excited to welcome Domen into our program,” Golden said. “He is a very skilled forward that has great positional size. He has shown incremental improvement every year, and he’s currently playing the best basketball of his young career. He is a high-achiever both on and off the court and will help us continue to raise the bar here at Florida!”

There is a slight catch to Florida’s full scholarship limit and it involves Rueben Chinyelu and Aberdeen. Rueben Chinyelu declared for the NBA Draft and has been invited to the mid-May combine in Chicago. ESPN rates Chinyelu the No. 43 prospect for the June draft, which would put him in the second third of picks (11-20) in the second round. Chinyelu has kept open his option to return to Florida and people who know him well say unless he feels assured of a first round selection, he will return to Florida for his senior season. He will have to dominate at the combine while demonstrating a heretofore absent 10-foot jumper to work his way into the first round. Figure he’s back.

Aberdeen has already played four years, the first three at Florida and last season at Kentucky. He played in 12 games during mop-up time as a freshman, 36 minutes total with nine coming in the NIT loss to UCF. He has petitioned the NCAA for a waiver that will allow him to play a fifth year. This is where things get slightly sticky. The NCAA Division I board has forwarded a 5-for-5 model that would not grandfather in athletes whose four years of eligibility expired in 2026. The new rule is expected to pass, which would mean Aberdeen has to go through the waiver process to play for the Gators or else take the matter to the courts. If he doesn’t get the waiver, he has a very good chance to win in the courts where the NCAA loses 95 percent of the time. In his favor is the inequality of redshirt rules for football and basketball. In football, a player can participate in four games – 1/3 of the season – and still be eligible. He can play in the bowl game as well and it won’t count. In basketball, participation in even one game can blow the redshirt. Football players have been gaining waivers for an extra year of eligibility because of the redshirt rule. Ole Miss QB Trinidad Chambliss was denied a waiver, so he went to the local courts in Mississippi and won, first at the local level, then in the appeals and finally at the Mississippi Supreme Court.

Chambliss 3, NCAA 0. He will play QB at Ole Miss this year where the Rebels will begin the 2026 season as a top ten team expected to make the College Football Playoff.

So, figure Aberdeen is going to be playing for the Gators. Either he gets his waiver or beats the NCAA in court, providing the Gators with an experienced wing who can shoot, defend and won’t have to be schooled on the intricacies of Golden’s offensive and defensive schemes.

Florida’s roster is absolutely loaded, which is why the Gators are No. 1 in every credible too early top 25. Even Joe Lunardi, the bracket guru for ESPN, has the Gators on his No. 1 overall seed for the 2027 NCAA Tournament.

Here is a look at Florida’s roster:

Big guys: Tommy Haugh (6-9, 215, SR); Alex Condon (6-11, 236, SR); Rueben Chinyelu (6-11, 265, SR); Viktor Mikic (6-11, 260, JR); Jones Lay (7-0, 230, FR); Arturas Butajevas (6-10, 220, from Lithuania); Domen Petrovic (6-9, 225, from Slovenia)

Perimeter: Denzel Aberdeen (6-5, 200, 5^th-year transfer from Kentucky); Urban Klavzar (6-1, 195, SR); AJ Brown (6-5, 210, RJR); Alex Kovatchev (6-5, 195, RJR); Boogie Fland (6-3, 185, JR); Isaiah Brown (6-5, 210, JR); CJ Ingram (6-7, 210, SO); Alex Lloyd (6-4, 180, SO)