UF Basketball: Golden can afford to be patient filling out the roster

Perhaps in a couple of weeks Todd Golden will be able to give a more definitive answer about the team he will be sending out on the O-Dome floor in November. He has at least two open scholarships and that number could swell to at least four if Walter Clayton Jr. and Will Richard get enough affirmation from workouts to remain in the NBA Draft.

It is entirely possible that Clayton and Richard could light it up working out for NBA teams and at the combine if they are invited. Because the NBA only selects 60 players in a 2-round draft and neither Clayton nor Richard appear on anyone’s top 75 lists, it seems more likely they will be returning for their senior seasons at Florida. The uncertainty, however, means Golden and his staff will continue to interview and recruit players from the transfer portal.

The portal has already provided Golden with three building blocks for an improved team in 2024-25. Although he lost second team All-SEC big guy Tyrese Samuel to graduation and 7-1 Micah Handlogten is scheduled to take a redshirt year to rehab the leg he fractured in the SEC Championship Game against Auburn, Golden has reloaded the big guy rotation by adding 6-9, 240-pound Sam Alexis from Chattanooga and 6-11, 245-pound Rueben Chinyelu from Washington State. Combined with 6-11 Alex Condon and 6-9 Thomas Haugh, who had impressive freshman seasons, Florida should be very strong up front next season.

“Sam, even though, he had a very good year last year as a double-double guy, had some really great numbers,” Golden said. “A really good rim-protector. We feel he’s got room to just keep getting better. He’s only 19. Really young, but strong, big body. It’ll be a great summer for him here and we think he’ll be really impactful next year.

“And Rueben is a guy, when you look at his counting stats from last year they don’t really jump out, but if you dig into his numbers and see that he was over 60 percent from the field, a great rim protector, incredible size, we feel like he’s going to take a huge jump going into next season.”

Compensating for the loss of point guard Zyon Pullin will be difficult since he provided the Gators with consistent scoring, one of the best assist-to-turnover margins in the entire country and good defense that often times was lockdown quality. Golden dipped into the portal to bring in 6-2 Alijah Martin from Florida Atlantic. A 3-year starter for the Owls who averaged 13.2 points and 5.9 rebounds last season, Martin brings the experience of conference championships and a run to the 2023 Final Four to the Gators.

One of the reasons Martin chose UF over several other schools that reached out to him once he put his name in the portal is a chance to play the point. He will get that chance but the position might end up being played by committee.

“I think what’s important for him is just to get more of an opportunity to play on the ball,” Golden said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going to be the main point guard, but we are confident in his ability to play out of the ball screen a little more. At FAU last year – and they were very good, obviously – he was more of an off-ball and spacer, but we want to give him more of an opportunity to get downhill in our ball-screen action and make more plays for himself and others. It’s just kind of the natural progression of his career. For him, to be an impact player at the next level, he has to be able to prove he can do that, so it’s going to be a good marriage for the both of us to allow him to be able to do that and prove that he can.”

That doesn’t rule out a committee approach. Clayton played the point at Iona and backed up Pullin on the point last season. Denzel Aberdeen came on strong at the end of last season, raising hopes that he will be a major contributor as a junior. He has size (6-5), a nice touch from the 3-point line and a fearlessness when it comes to taking the ball to the rack. Rising sophomore Kajus Kublickas, a Lithuanian important who played sparingly as a freshman, is well liked by the coaching staff.

With two scholarships remaining and Handlogten taking a redshirt, Golden has decisions to make. Does he add another big guy? Does he go for someone in the 6-6 to 6-8 range that can play on the perimeter and do inside duty when the Gators go with a smaller lineup? A shooter? A point guard in the Pullin mold?

Golden made it abundantly clear that there is no need to rush to any decision. The portal continues to expand so there is no shortage of talented players to select from. He knows he needs 12 available bodies to compete at the SEC level, but no decision has been made about recruiting to a certain position.

“Again, I think we're in a really good spot right now and we can kind of take a step back and kind of see what's out there,” Golden said. “With Walt and Will, that's going to determine a lot of what happens. If they both come back, we'll definitely get one more in the frontcourt and maybe a younger guy in the backcourt or on the perimeter. If one of those guys ends up staying in the draft, then we're going to have to adjust, so it's hard to really say today what those two other scholarships will be. But we're just going to be cognizant of what happens and try to get some contingency plans in place if we do end up having one of those guys move on to the NBA.”

Following the expanding number of players that enter the portal on a daily basis tells Golden he can find an abundance of talented players. Talent is important, but more important is finding players that fit the culture that is being built at Florida.

Just because a player looks good on film and has stats to match doesn’t necessarily mean he will blend in at UF. Experienced players are nice to have, but it’s more important that whoever is added adds to the team chemistry and understands the vision and direction of the program as it moves into the third year of Golden’s tenure at UF.  

“Like we're pretty targeted in terms of who we go after and we want all those guys to be the right fits,” Golden said. “And we're pretty passionate about selling our program to these guys and the vision of how they would fit with what we're doing and it's great to see when they see it also. But we're not taking swings on guys that we don't think make a lot of sense. We're definitely not bringing guys to campus unless we really want them, for the most part. So we want to hit more often than not when we have these guys.”

The key word for now is patience. The portal will be open for a few more days and then Golden will have time to bring in selected players to fill the openings.

Even before the final roster spots are filled, Golden has a reasonably good idea what kind of team he will be putting on the floor next season.

“I think we’ve gotten better with the three guys we added in the portal, Rueben, Sam and Alijah,” Golden said.

And, with the right players filling the final spots on the roster, the Gators could make a very serious run at tournament time next March. At the end of the season, Florida was one of those teams nobody wanted to play. The Gators got a win at Rupp Arena, beat Auburn handily at home and then crushed Final Four participant Alabama in two of the three games the two teams played.

Seeing Alabama make the Final Four was a bit of a tough pill to swallow since the Gators handled the Crimson Tide so easily both in Gainesville and the SEC Tournament. Florida actually should have beaten Alabama three times since the Gators blew a big lead in Tuscaloosa and then lost in overtime.

“Yeah I mean it’s good but it was also tough at the same time, because we beat them pretty handily the last two times we played them,” Golden said. “I think we beat them by 18 here and 14 in the (SEC) tournament. We were up by 20 in the second half against them in the tournament. I actually texted Nate (Oats) after they made it to the Final Four and I was like, hey, and I actually like Nate a lot and he’s a really good coach and I was like congrats, great run, and it also makes me feel really good about where our program is now and he agreed.”

The decision to redshirt Handlogten: “He’s probably going to redshirt this year. I think that from just talking to him, the number one key in my mind is like his comfort and his recovery. Knock on wood he had a great surgery. Everything at Vanderbilt went really, really well. We were fortunate to get him in there as quickly as we did. And, just talking to him, it would be best for him to know that he doesn’t feel pressured to get back quick, which we didn’t want him to feel anyway. So, when we had that conversation, it was great. It provided clarity to him. It gave him comfort and in a way it helps us because before we got Rueben and Sam, you know, if guys were looking at us and they saw Micah coming back, starter. Like we knew it would be hard for him to come back but they wouldn’t really think about well is he going to be back in time or not. Like it was going to be a little bit difficult. So, having clarification on that and Micah’s such a great dude. Like he helps us recruit these other bigs. He’s an awesome young man. But it was good for Micah, good for our program and now he can just pour all his efforts into his rehab and not feel the pressure of ‘I need to try to get back on the court by November.’ My hope is now, obviously not next year but the year after, he should be an absolute monster, you know as he comes back fully healthy with a lot of confidence on the leg. So, you know, his recovery is going as well as it could. His mentality has been amazing. I’m really proud of him and the way he’s gone about it. So, he’ll be back.”

On what he’s seen from his returning players since the season ended: “They've all had a monster spring. It hasn't been that long, but just kind of their approach and their mentality after the season to get back in there pretty quickly. Those three guys that you mentioned, Condo, Tommy and Zel, first of all, they're really close. They have a great relationship. They're going to be living together next year and they kind of push each other on a daily basis and it's a tough group to keep up with because they work so hard. Tommy and Condo and Zel are in there lifting right now. So again they were really important for us to keep because they all obviously showed a good level of promise last year in their own ways and we think all of them will be really, really impactful next year. I'm really happy about Denzel. Just because he's a guy that had again some inconsistent playing time but really showed up down the stretch when we needed him the most. And I feel like he's at the point now confidence-wise where he really feels that he can take off and he's going to be a really good player. And then Tommy and Condo, I think we'll just continue to grow going from that freshman to sophomore year.”