'All Aboard' on the Boards

Gators rebounding at practice / Fall 2023

More of this, please: A scrum of Gators give chase to a rebound during a summer practice, part of the program's major emphasis to upgrade a major weakness from last season.

'All Aboard' on the Boards

Monday, October 2, 2023 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Practice had been over for nearly an hour, yet Micah Handlogten was still in the gym Thursday. He was the last player there, but wasn't alone. The sophomore center was joined by assistant John Andrzejek and a couple managers, who were overseeing a free-throw shooting routine that wasn't going great, with Handlogten twice firing the ball against the wall in frustration.

The charge: 25 makes, but with at least five in a row, nine out of 10, two swishes and without consecutive misses. Fail to hit any one of those benchmarks along the way? Start over.

It took about 40 minutes, but Handlogten got there. Good for him. Florida is going to need better than the 54.3 percent he shot from the line as a freshman at Marshall last season, so more such post-practice challenges figure to lie ahead.

That said, the Gators did not bring the 7-foot-1 Handlogten to the program to shoot free throws. They brought him to rebound and help provide a collective upgrade to what was a frustrating low-post situation at UF last season. With three-time All-Southeastern Conference forward Colin Castleton, Florida was basically a one-man show in the paint. When Castleton's season ended in February due to a broken wrist, the Gators were a broken interior team.

"The [UF] coaches were up front about it, yeah, and told me it was something they really, really needed to improve on," Handlogten said of his initial conversations with the Gators after entering the transfer portal. "They said they wanted to replace a lot of guys and bring in a strong core of players who could fill in the gaps they had last year. I saw the opportunity in that and I took it."

Same with 6-11 Alex Condon, a late-blooming Australian prospect who the Gators happened on early in the recruiting process. After watching three months of his boundless energy, the Gators' staff believes it struck freshman gold. Same with Tyrese Samuel, who banged his 6-10, 235-pound body around in the Big East last season to the tune of 11.0 points and 5.9 rebounds per game. Handlogten, the program's first 7-footer in more than three decades, was the Sun Belt Conference Freshman of the Year after averaging 7.6 points, 9.8 rebounds and 2.3 blocks per game. Throw in Condon's classmate, athletic, run-all-day 6-9 forward Thomas Haugh, who is taking practice reps at the "4" spot in addition to his natural "3" after Yale transfer E.J. Jarvis took a leave of absence to navigate some "personal" issues. The Gators also expect 6-10, 250-pound Aleks Szymczyk and his broken foot to be recovered well in time for Southeastern Conference play.

Center **Micah Handlogten** (with ball), the 7-foot-1 sophomore transfer from Marshall, averaged nearly 10 rebounds a game as the 2023 Sun Belt Conference Freshman of the Year, while posting some very impressive rebounding analytics that caught the eyes of the Florida coaches.

Those are five passionate-about-basketball "bigs" who should make for a much different look and much different productivity in the paint during Coach Todd Golden's second season at the UF helm.

"We went out and recruited it," UF associate head coach Carlin Hartman said. "When you recruit the right people who are about the right things they arrive with certain traits engrained in them."

That's what the Gators have seen to date; in practices. That's the first step.

Everyone knows what the second step is.

"We've got to do it in games," Golden said. "[The SEC is] really the best offensive rebounding league in the country and the numbers say that. It's also a poor defensive rebounding league and I think a lot of that has to do with the shot-blocking and the athletes in the league, but I do think we're deeper and that we have the ability and the capacity to rebound better, but we have to do it and once the season starts we'll learn. But, really, once we get into SEC play is when we're going to figure out if we have what it takes. That'll be a big determining factor in how good we can be."

**Alex Condon** drives on fellow freshman **Thomas Haugh** during a UF practice. The two rookies figure prominently in the Gators' frontcourt rebuild this season.

Before looking at where the Gators want to go, it's worth reviewing where they were for Golden's first go-around.

UF had Castleton (7.7 rebounds per game) until it didn't in February. Alex Fudge (4.5 rpg), who turned pro during the offseason, was inconsistent and struggled with the physicality of the SEC. Jason Jitoboh (1.5 rpg), now at Tennessee State, was 300-plus pounds and never the same after a '22 eye injury ended his season. CJ Felder (2.9 rpg), now at McNeese, played in just four league games after taking an early season leave of absence. Szymczyk (1.3 rpg), a wide-eyed freshman just off a plane from Germany, was forced into extended action after the injury to Castleton.

Ultimately, the lack of depth up front forced 6-4 Will Richard, a natural small forward/shooting guard, to play an undersized "4." He admirably rebounded at 4.5 per game, but the Gators would have been better served with Richard on the perimeter. They just didn't have the bodies.

In the end, Florida '22-23 ranked 285^th in the country in defensive rebounding efficiency, allowing opponents to offensive rebound at 30.3 percent. On the offensive end, the Gators ranked a staggering 320^th (out 348 Division teams), which was last in the SEC, in getting back just 23.8 percent of their misses.

CHARTING THE GATORS – Rebounding in the SEC
Where the Gators ranked on the glass last season in rebounding both ends of the floor in conference play. Spoiler: Not good. The defensive rebounding statistic reflects percentage of offensive rebounds secured by the opponent. Together, Florida's two stats equal a difference of minus-11.6 percent. Jonathan Safir, the team's director of basketball strategy and analytics, put that number in more layman's terms. "That's an extra four or five possessions for the other team to score."

Rebounding Rank (Defensive)	Pct.	Rebounding Rank (Offense)	Pct.
1st - Kentucky	24.5	1st - Kentucky	39.2
2nd - Tennessee	27.3	2nd - Texas A&M	36.6
3rd - Alabama	28.3	3rd - Tennessee	34.8
4th - LSU	28.6	4th - Mississippi State	32.8
5th - Mississippi	29.2	5th - Auburn	31.7
6th - Mississippi State	29.9	6th - Vanderbilt	31.6
7th - Arkansas	30.1	7th - Arkansas	31.3
8th - Texas A&M	30.4	8th - Mississippi	31.1
9th - Auburn	32.0	9th - South Carolina	30.9
10th - Georgia	33.0	10th - LSU	30.4
11th - Vanderbilt	33.6	11th - Alabama	30.3
12th - Florida	34.5	12th - Georgia	27.4
13th - South Carolina	35.5	13th - Missouri	25.0
14th - Missouri	38.8	14th - Florida	22.9

Florida's game-to-game goal is to surrender no more than 25 percent on the defensive end and offensive-rebound at 33 percent. Those numbers can slide a little each way, with the number the Gators want being a plus-8 percent delta. The Gators were minus-6.5 for 33 games (and even worse, 11.6, in SEC play) and got pummeled on the glass in more than a few losses, including a slew of games where they were out-rebounded by double-digits.

Examples (all losses):

49-28 vs. West Virginia at Portland
42-28 vs. eventual NCAA champion Connecticut at home
45-31 at eventual SEC champion Alabama
49-36 at Kansas State
40-25 at Arkansas
40-21 vs. Kentucky at home

"It's an area we've got to make a jump this year," Golden said.

A significant one, at that.

It's an ambitious goal, especially when considering Golden's ideal lineup has no more than two "bigs" on the floor. So he wants effort and activity. Constantly. Captaining that charge will be Samuel, who used his muscular arms, broad shoulders and 7-4 wingspan to tally double-doubles in four of his final eight games with the Pirates last season. His 10.9 offensive rebounding percentage ranked 152^nd in the country in a conference that was rated the third-best nationally. He'll be an ideal mentor for his underclassmen teammates under the glass.

Tyrese Samuel (4) averaged nearly six rebounds a game at Seton Hall last season.

"Honestly, I won't have to teach them very much," Samuel said.

Starting with effort.

"Coach talks about how we didn't rebound that great last year. He's shown us stats, we've watched tape and now everybody just stresses, if the ball goes up, the bigs need to go get it," said Haugh, who graduated from high school in '22 but did a year of prep school as a bridge to his college career. "For me, it's nothing new. It's just how I've always played. The ball goes up, go get it. Rebounds are easy second-chance points. You get more opportunities and more possessions and that leads to more points. It's always been part of my game."

Not a day has gone by (whether during offseason workouts or last week's official start to fall practice) that Condon and Haugh haven't flashed multiple moments and winning plays during scrimmages on sheer effort alone. Their athleticism screams, but it's their want-to that goes so splendidly with their size. And their only going to get stronger. More seasoned, too.

But what a great baseline the Gators are starting with now.

"My biggest strength is probably my motor, my willingness to rebound and being physical," Condon said.

Handlogten, meanwhile, was an analytic freak as a college rookie last season. He was 41^st and 27^th in offensive (13.7) and defensive (27.3) rebounding percentage, respectively, in addition to blocking 8.7 percent of the shots taken when he was on the floor (27^th in the country). That he shot 71.1 percent from the 2-point area (10^th) didn't hurt, either.

How will those Sun Belt numbers convert to the SEC? That's a question Handlogten is dealing with each practice.

"I go body to body every day against Alex Condon and Tyrese Samuel and you've have to use 100 percent of your strength to deal with those guys," said Handlogten, whose aforementioned dedication with the free-throw line is another example of how improvement is so important to him. "You get stronger doing it, get better as you do it. It's so much more physical here, but it's allowed me to grow as a player and I'm starting to learn how to compete better."

When the Gators run "dummy" offense (5-on-0) they have a rule. If a shot is missed and the ball hits the floor, the five players on the court run. The message is clear.

Chase. The. Ball.

And. They. Do.

"It's hard to get 6-10, 6-11, 7-foot guys to play hard, but they're out there," Hartman said. "It's a matter of selling it, getting them here and giving them an opportunity."

The (glass) doors are wide open and just waiting for these guys to seize that opportunity. And lots of rebounds with it.