Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The newness of the Billy Napier era at the "Swamp" is about to get some hotly anticipated company. 

It's late September, which means college basketball games are right around the corner, but it also means preseason practice — as in full-blown, two- and three-hour workouts five days a week — is on top of us. Todd Golden and his first Florida Gators squad dive into it all Tuesday afternoon. 

Yes, Golden and friends have been at it since he got to town last spring, but NCAA rules allow four hours on the floor per week, plus weight training and conditioning. Now, it's full-go, with an occasional off day, in the run-up to the Nov. 7 opener against Stony Brook at Exactech Arena. 

The Gators return just one full-time starter off a squad that went 20-14 overall last season, 9-9 in the Southeastern Conference and missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2016. UF went to the National Invitational Tournament, but Coach Mike White wasn't around for those two games. He bolted for the vacant Georgia job on Selection Sunday and five days later the Gators had their new coach, luring Golden away from the University of San Francisco. 

As for that lone UF starter who returns, he's a good one (the team's best one, actually), with five other scholarship members of the '21-22 team opting to stick around as well to join forces with Golden's first transfer-portal and freshman class (four and three players strong, respectively). Early preseason projections put Florida anywhere from seventh to ninth in the league '23 league standings. 

The four Gators who are no longer around accounted for the bulk of minutes up for grabs — Tyree Appleby (transferred to Wake Forest), plus out-going fifth-years Anthony Duruji, Phlandrous Fleming Jr. and Brandon McKissic — also accounted for 50.1 percent of the team's scoring, 37.4 percent of its rebounds and nearly 67 percent of the assists.

Florida '21-22 was the worst 3-point shooting team in program history (.303), and that was with a bunch of wide-open looks. The Gators don't have anyone on the roster you'd label a bonafide "sniper" (at least not now), but they do have personnel proven to be highly efficient at 2-point shooting and drawing fouls. And after four straight seasons of playing basically at a snail's pace (267th, 167th, 326th and 226th in adjusted tempo, respectively), Golden's teams will push the ball and hunt for quick early shots (good ones, of course) before settling into their halfcourt offense. Last year's USF team was 82nd in tempo, but 197th and 155th the previous two seasons.    

The makeover began in April, took huge steps over the summer and goes next level this week.

Here's a breakdown of personnel and potential roles based on observations from practices, individual instruction sessions and conditioning workouts the last several months. 

[Disclaimer: All comments are subject to change, especially once the season starts and minutes are distributed. That's when the rubber soles hit the road, so to speak.]


BEST PLAYER — Colin Castleton  Safe to say that having Castleton, the 6-foot-11, 245-pound, two-time All-SEC player, unexpectedly decide to come back for a fifth season — after going through his "Senior Day" ritual in March — was something of a windfall for the new coaching staff. Castleton, despite missing five games with a shoulder injury, led the Gators in scoring (16.0 ppg), rebounding (9.2 pg) and finished second in the league in blocked shots (2.2 pg). He is one of the most accomplished big men in the country and instantly gives Golden a tremendous half-court weapon from which to base his pick-and-roll offense, an elite rim protector and respected leader with a ton of on- and off-the-court experience from which to draw. Castleton underwent offseason shoulder surgery and took his time rehabbing. While he's been cleared for all activities for some time, the Gators have held him out of scrimmages and contact drills as a precaution, but will be full-go for everything starting Tuesday. Golden is convinced Castleton's offensive game can be expanded to include a 3-point shot, which would open things up offensively even more. Some UF fans will cringe at the thought of moving one of the best post players in college basketball 22 feet, 1 3/4 inches from the basket (it didn't work so well with Kerry Blackshear Jr. a couple years ago), but get used to the idea. He's a career 57-percent shooter from inside the arc and 73.3 from the free-throw line, but 0-for-17 from deep. Here's betting he won't be at .000 at the end of '22-23. Here's betting also that Castleton will be the No. 1 focus of opposing scouting reports, regardless of where he is on the floor. 


BEST TRANSFER — Kyle Lofton  The Gators not only have their first true point guard since Andrew Nembhard last ran the UF offense in 2020, but one who very well could be among the best and most experienced in all of college basketball. Lofton, a 6-3, 190-pounder from New Jersey, was a three-team All-Atlantic 10 selection at St. Bonaventure. After visiting UF early in his portal dalliance he liked the Gators so much he canceled planned visits to Arizona, Purdue and Tennessee. Those teams were seeded 1, 3 and 3, respectively, in the 2022 NCAA Tournament. Lofton was highly sought, and for good reason. As a Bonnie, Lofton not only was a four-year starter, but started every game — all 116 — of his career there and basically never came off the floor, helping guide the program to one NCAA berth, plus a run to the '22 NIT Final Four highlighted by road wins at Colorado, Oklahoma and Virginia. Over his four years, Lofton averaged 13.9 points (tallying 1,613 total) and 5.2 assists versus just 2.4 turnovers while playing a staggering 38.1 minutes a game. …  [Note: Not sure how many players in the country logged as many as Lofton's 4,422 minutes over the last four seasons, but it's a tiny room.] … He also averaged 1.6 steals, which speaks to his defense. Besides the numbers, Lofton already has put forth the intangibles needed for a floor general as far as leadership in practice and being an encouraging teammate, two traits that Golden, once a D-1 point guard himself, went looking for and values highly. Lofton is a career 42-percent overall shooter, though just 30.3 from the arc. His 2-point percentage sits at 47.1 and the Gators are convinced he'll make his share of deep balls (not that he was brought here to do that). 


SWISS ARMY KNIFE — Will Richard  As a prospect from just south of Atlanta, Richard received next to no attention from high-major programs. He signed with Belmont, a solid mid-major, came off the bench the first three games of his freshman season and made nine of his first 15 field-goal attempts, including four of eight 3-point tries, and was off the bench for good. The 6-4, 206-pounder averaged 12.1 points, 6.0 rebounds, shot nearly 47 percent from the floor, 32.6 from 3 and 80.4 from the free-throw line on the way to being named to the Ohio Valley Conference Newcomer Team — and then hit the portal. Richard had no shortage of suitors, with the Gators in the mix right away. The box score-stuffing numbers he tallied at Belmont were plugged into the new UF analytics formulas and spit out a difference-maker. His game is pretty much a complete one, what with an ability to spot-up and shoot, take defenders off the dribble-drive and finish at the rim, evidenced by his 60-percent marksmanship on 2-pointers. Look for his 3-point percentage to go up (the staff believes he one of team's best from long range). Richard's rebounding numbers belie that of a 6-4 player, but probably will fall back some against bigger, longer SEC athletes (though he had 22 points, eight rebounds and three blocks in Belmont's loss to crosstown foe Vanderbilt in the NIT). His willingness to mix it up inside, however, will not change. Defensively, he's long and feisty and will be fine guarding 1 through 4. His ability to do a little bit of everything (all pretty well) will make it difficult to keep Richard off the floor. That said, Richard will be sidelined for the start of practice with a knee sprain sustained in workouts last week.


CAN HE BUILD ON HIS POSTSEASON?  — Kowacie Reeves  As a freshman in '21-22, Reeves drifted in and out of the lineup (seven starts during the regular season, as well as five DNPs) before finding his stride and confidence late in the season; more specifically, the postseason. The 6-6, 190-pound wing went for a career-high 21 points in UF's overtime loss to Texas A&M in the SEC Tournament, then continued his productivity in the two NIT games. For the three-game postseason, Reeves averaged 16.3 points, shot 50 percent from the floor and dropped nine of 23 from deep (39.1 percent) while averaging 28 minutes per game. Just how those numbers transfer into his sophomore season, given the upgraded overall talent on the perimeter, will depend a lot on Reeves. He flirted with the transfer portal in the summer, but opted to come back and compete in the crowded backcourt. He's a talented player who has shown he can get microwave hot and score in bunches when his confidence is high. Reeves also is routine with his gym-rat thing when it comes to getting shots up on his own time, with a case to be made that he's the best long-range shooter on the team. Reeves, though, can be very hard on himself when things aren't going his way and is working to improve his next-play mentality. The battle for minutes at that "2" and "3" spot looms as the most fierce competition of fall practice. Each player at those positions, including Reeves, has had really good and some not-so-good days to date.


ELITE, HOMEGROWN ATHLETE — Alex Fudge Hard to believe, but the Gators haven't landed many of the top in-state prospects since Billy Donovan left. Kevarrius Hayes and Tre Mann are the lone top-five Florida prospects to wear Florida jerseys the last eight years, so the Gators gladly welcomed Fudge, who was the No. 8-ranked state prospect and first-team Class 5A all-state forward at Jacksonville Riverside (then called Lee High) when he signed with LSU in 2020. As a prep senior, Fudge averaged 17.9 points, grabbed 12.2 rebounds and swatted 5.7 shots per game. For the Tigers, he was a bit player off the bench as a freshman, but for good reason. LSU, on its way to a third straight NCAA Tournament, played mostly a three-guard rotation, with Fudge as the fourth forward. The three front court guys in front of him were Darius Days, 6-11 center Efton Reid and SEC Sixth Man of the Year Tari Eason. Some context: Days was a four-year starter who amassed more than 1,300 points and 800 rebounds during his LSU career and not only was a highly productive player but a team captain; Reid transferred to Gonzaga after the season, so there's that; and Eason was taken 17th overall by Houston in the 2022 NBA Draft. So there was a reason Fudge's time on the floor was limited. After the season, like every leftover player at LSU following the firing of Coach Will Wade, Fudge went in the portal and opted to return home, 90 minutes from where he starred in high school. He is a likable and gregarious teammate, as well as a lengthy one with a 7-6 wing span, which shows up on defense and on the glass, whether he's grabbing rebounds or flying into the fray for tipped balls that lead to extra possessions. At LSU, Fudge averaged just 3.3 points over 13.9 minutes per game (both ranking eighth on the team). He also averaged 3.2 rebounds, which was fifth, but his rebound average over 40 minutes was 9.1, which the analytics guys in the UF office really liked. Fudge shot 45 percent overall and just 28.6 from deep, but he's been working on the latter and will be a major player at the 3, 4 or 5 spots this season. 


BOUNCE-BACK GUY — Myreon Jones  The numbers (and these guys are big into numbers, if you hadn't heard) say Jones is due for a rebound season after his 3-point marksmanship took a nose dive in his first year at UF after two highly productive seasons at Penn State. The 6-3, 180-pound off-guard averaged 14.2 points and nailed 39.9 percent of his 3s during his sophomore and junior seasons with the Nittany Lions, but then dipped to 8.5 points and 32.1 percent from deep as a Gator. Jones, like his UF teammates, missed a bunch of wide open ones last season, but demonstrated he had not forgotten how to shoot when he bombed five 3s in the first 10 minutes in a victory at Missouri, then nailed seven in a home win against Georgia late in the season. When White left, Jones toyed with the idea of transferring, but after Golden watched both Penn State and Florida tape the two had a couple sit-downs. Jones decided to run his COVID year back with the Gators as one of three fifth-year UF players. He graduated over the summer and seems to have taken to heart encouraging words of confidence from the coaching staff. It's fair to assume Jones struggled with confidence last season — he was sought for his reputation as an outstanding shooter — but now he gets a do-over, albeit in a mix along with six other perimeter guys. If Golden can bring out "Penn State Myreon," Jones will play a lot. 


A SECOND (AND ANALYTICS GEM) POINT GUARD — Trey Bonham  He wasn't on a lot of high-major radars until, that is, a visit was scheduled for Florida. After that, Purdue, Texas A&M, Xavier and a few others got in the mix, but Bonham and the the UF staff were well down the road and landed the former Virginia Military Institute point guard. He's just 6-foot and 170 pounds, but Bonham (13.6 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 4.0 apg vs 2.2 turnovers as a sophomore last season) has quickness, moxie, want-to on the defensive end (1.3 steals pg), all backed by the kind of built-in discipline that two years at a military academy can foster. All that stuff is there for the eyes to see. What the numbers crunchers found was Bonham's efficiency in some key analytics categories. Despite his size, Bonham made 54.7 percent of his 2-point shots, but also ranked 143rd in the country in fouls drawn per 40 minutes at 5.1, which speaks to his ability to drive the ball into the lane and force contact. On the occasions he got to free-throw line, Bonham shot a robust 79.2 percent. For context, Castleton led the Gators in the fouls-per-40 category at 5.7, which ranked 74th nationally. The next-best Gator was Appleby at 319th (4.5 fouls per 40). Bonham also hit a respectable 36.9 percent from the 3-point line. These numbers, of course, came in the Southern Conference. Just how they'll convert against bigger, faster, longer players patrolling the SEC paint is something Bonham (and his coaches) will find out eventually, but the Gators should have a pretty good idea watching how he fares against a bunch of lengthy UF players during preseason scrimmages. There's also the issue of playing time. Lofton isn't coming off the floor unless circumstances warrant. Lofton and Bonham, though, will play together at times, which will give the Gators two true point guards and elite ball-handlers in the game. That'll be really different. 


CLEARED, BESPECTACLED, READY TO REBOUND — Jason Jitoboh Last January, Florida was on the road at one of its house of horrors, Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, Tenn. The Gators led by eight with just over two minutes left in the first half when the 6-11, 290-pound Jitoboh took a hand in the face from 7-foot, 265-pound Tennessee center Uros Plavsic. Jitoboh dropped to the floor and stayed there several minutes, until being helped off the floor. He was done for the season with a severe eye injury that required two surgeries. At the time, Jitoboh was starting in place of the injured Castleton and playing the best basketball of his career, having averaged 8.5 points and 5.3 rebounds while shooting 65 percent over the previous five games (with a 6-for-6 shooting performance and 10-rebound game mixed in there). Jitoboh's basketball future, in fact, was actually in doubt after the second surgery, but the biggest Gator has worked himself back and will be a huge factor in the post this season. Jitoboh will have to don protective eye wear, but that's OK. Like he was doing last season at the time of the injury, Jitoboh will provide UF with a massive and very different post presence to spell Castleton and, yes, even pair with him at times (maybe even with Castleton and Fudge to give the team a massive front court look). And while probably, for now, still a little heavier still than both he and the team would like, Jitoboh is carrying the weight and moving much, much better than his first two seasons when he averaged just 5.3 minutes over 33 games with 23 DNPs.


ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY DEGREES — Niels Lane   Nine months ago, nearly halfway into his sophomore year, it would have been a slam-dunk guarantee that Lane would have been in the portal after the season. On Jan. 29, when UF took its home court to face Oklahoma State in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge, Lane had appeared in just seven of the team's 20 games (almost exclusively in mop-up duty) and played a total of 45 minutes. The Gators were terrible in the first half that day and trailed by 13 at the break, so White benched his four of his starters to open the second half, with Lane thrown into the mix just, well, because. His energy, especially on the defensive end, was infectious and was a huge factor in UF's 81-72 come-from-behind victory. Over the team's final 14 games, the 6-5, 206-pound wing averaged 19.1 minutes a game, used his length to guard all five spots and proved himself as a high-major contributor, evidenced by his 16-point, nine-rebound afternoon against A&M in the SEC Tournament. Lane has limitations, but when he plays to his role — as a guy who can defend all five positions, if need be, and stays active on the offense, especially hitting the glass — plays find him. He had zero confidence the first half of his sophomore season, but enters his junior season knowing he belongs and that there will be a sizable role for him on Golden's first team. 


BACK TO HIS BC SELF? — CJ Felder  Just watching him during workouts and practice, and the way he interacts in the facility, you get the sense that Felder, the senior who transferred from Boston College last year, is just more comfortable with his situation this season. He's definitely healthier. A sports hernia had Felder playing through discomfort a good portion of last season and the effects of that injury were reflected in his statistics. At BC, Felder averaged 5.6 points and 3.9 rebounds as a freshmen, then upped those numbers to 9.7 points and 5.9 boards as a sophomore when he played 27.8 minutes per game and finished second in the Atlantic Coast Conference in blocked shots. In his first UF season, the 6-7, 230-pound Felder averaged 3.5 points, 2.3 rebounds and just 16.1 minutes a game. He did, however, improve one area of his game significantly: 3-point shooting. Felder made just 16.1 percent from deep as a freshmen, then 31.4 as a sophomore. Last year, he hit 38.9, which led the team (granted, on just 36 attempts on the season. but it still counts). He has shot the ball very well this offseason and preseason, but more importantly has looked more aggressive and physical in attacking the glass. The competition between Felder and Fudge for that "4" spot figures to be a good one, but both are going to play a lot. 


FRESH IMPACT  — Riley Kugel  Kugel, who decommited from Mississippi State last spring and signed with the Gators, was a late arrival to the new UF basketball party. He did not report until the start of the fall semester, but he wasted no time announcing himself with an athleticism and explosiveness off the bounce that (dare we say) reminded some around here of a 2018 freshman by the name of Keyontae Johnson. Even their rookie year builds are similar, with Kugel a solid 6-5, 185 before even taking a rep in new strength and conditioning coordinator Victor Lopez's weight room. Kugel definitely has some catching up to do compared to his two fellow freshmen (read on), but the eight weeks he missed earlier in the summer didn't stop him from making some wow-type plays when Golden turned his guys loose for timed pickup games after a few practices. His prep statistics (16.5 points, 4.8 rebounds, 3.2 assists) don't jump off the page the way he jumps off the floor, but Kugel won a state Class 7A state championship at Orlando Dr. Phillips. Of the three freshmen, he looks like the one who has a chance to play. Maybe a lot. 


OTHER FRESH FACES — Denzel Aberdeen & Aleks Szymczyk  Stuff happens over the course of a season. Players miss games because of injuries and other circumstances, roles change, foul trouble happens, all that.

As stated above, everything is fluid. But rare are the teams that play 13 guys. On a team with three fifth-year seniors, three more fourth-years and three more experienced underclassmen, it just makes sense to think that a freshmen or two will have to wait their turn, be good scout-team soldiers and embrace the development process. Kugel may not fit into that box, but the 6-5, 180-pound Aberdeen and Szymczyk very well might. Aberdeen, who teamed with Kugel on that Dr. Phillips state-championship team, arrived for Summer "B" and has pleased the staff with his attitude, work ethic and early growth. That said, he's got a wall of dudes on the perimeter who have already proven themselves as D-1 players. Szymczyk, the 6-10, 235-pounder from Germany, was a late arrival, signing with the team in August and, like Kugel, checking in for the start of the fall semester. A product of Golden's international connections, Szymczyk looks the part of a high-major freshman "big" and will do well to park himself next to Castleton and watch a great post player to go to work. Because of his size and nature as a true low-post guy, Szymczyk may be called on for minutes here and there, but the chance of one or both being candidates for red-shirt seasons is not out of the question. 


WALK-ONS  — Alex Klatsky and Jack May  A pair of holdovers from the White regime, but it was an easy decision to keep them around. Both Klatsky, the redshirt junior, and May, a redshirt sophomore and son of former UF assistant and current Florida Atlantic coach Dusty May, are not only perfect for their roles, but practically perfect in their roles. Both are always where they're supposed to be, completely prepared when it comes to scout team responsibilities and provide nothing but positive energy during practice and on the bench during games. The Rowdy Reptiles are waiting for Klatsky to bang that first 3-ball of his career (he's a very good shooter), while May has been sidelined since undergoing knee surgery for an injury suffered during summer workouts. He's close to a return, though.