Sophomore wing Will Richard (5) gets off a 3-ball over Kowacie Reeves (13) on his way to 11 points during Tuesday night's Orange & Blue Scrimmage at Exactech Arena.
Orange & Blue Debut
Tuesday, November 1, 2022 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
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By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida fans got a sneak peak at new Coach Todd Golden's first team Tuesday night during the Orange & Blue Scrimmage at Exactech Arena. The squads were split fairly evenly, with sophomore guard Will Richard scoring 11 points, including trio of 3-pointers, to pace the Blue squad to a 34-29 victory.
Then came a 3-point shooting contest (walk-on guard Alex Klatsky won), a slam-dunk contest (take a bow, junior guard Niels Lane) and a half-court shooting contest (with walk-on Jack May throwing one in and winning a flat-screen TV for a lucky Rowdy Reptile).
A good time was had by hall, so it seemed.
As for the live 5-on-5 basketball portion, Golden kept it pretty loose.
"I don't think we're going evaluate much, but we were able to finish the night with no injuries," Golden said. "Other than [sophomore transfer forward] Alex Fudge taking tumble in the dunk contest."
Fudge was fine, by the way.
Sophomore Alex Fudge, a transfer forward from LSU, tries to hurdle 6-foot-10 teammate Alek Szymczyk during Tuesday night's dunk contest.
Richard, meantime, looked better than fine, which was a good thing considering the Belmont transfer missed the first three weeks of preseason practice with a sprained knee. The 6-foot-5 wing flashed his all-around offensive game and helped his team to a victory in what was about 15 minutes of action with officials but no fouls called. He was paired alongside a starting Blue lineup of fifth-year guard Myreon Jones, sophomore point guard Trey Bonham, forward CJ Felder and freshman center Aleks Szymczyk. Freshman guard Denzel Aberdeen and Klatsky, the fourth-year junior, came off the bench.
The White squad had the roster's two headliners, two-time All-Southeastern Conference forward Colin Castleton and St. Bonaventure transfer/fifth-year point guard Kyle Lofton. They teamed with Fudge, sophomore wing Kowacie Reeves and freshman guard Riley Kugel. The two reserves were center Jason Jitoboh and Niels Lane, a pair of key role players on last year's team — the last under Mike White, now at Georgia — that went 20-14 and missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time in six years. Coach Todd Golden welcomes crowd Tuesday night.
Golden came to Florida in March after three seasons at San Francisco, where he led that program to its first NCAA berth in 24 years. His first UF team will have some familiar faces (six returning scholarship players), but the Gators' staff will have some decisions to make game to game relative to personnel. And they're happy about it.
"Our depth. It's a challenge for me and the staff to really drill down on an eight-man rotation at this point. To be honest, we can't and we wouldn't even try," said Golden, whose team opens the regular season Monday night at home against Stony Brook. "We have a number of guys that we feel really good about playing. …With that the biggest challenge, for the staff now, [is] how are we going to put these pieces together and are we going to make sure they all fit properly? I honestly think our biggest strength is depth and there will different guys every night giving us something."
And, as Golden added, that's not a bad problem to have.
