Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — In his last season at the University of San Francisco, Todd Golden's best team — winner of 24 games en route to the program's first NCAA Tournament berth in 24 years — was blessed with playmakers and shotmakers on the perimeter, but also had a balance of "bigs" that hit the glass and produced underneath. 

Golden's first Florida team was short on consistent and reliable options on the perimeter and had just one really good front court player — a great one, actually — in three-time All-Southeastern Conference forward Colin Castleton, and paid dearly for that void inside. When Castleton, the fifth-year senior, suffered a career-ending broken hand in February, the Gators were bullied and blasted on the block even moreso the rest of the season. 

So Golden and his staff took measure of that resounding imbalance (i.e. weakness) down low when they went hunting for size, athleticism, physicality and (above all) rebounders in the transfer portal. First came 6-foot-8, 220-pound forward EJ Jarvis (11.3 points, 5.5 rebounds, 1.5 blocks per game), by way of Yale. Then came 7-1, 227-pound center and Sun Belt Conference Freshman of the Year Micah Handlogten (7.6 points, 9.8 rebounds, 2.3 blocks), formerly of Marshall. 

That was a very good start. 

On Monday, UF announced its third incoming "big" with the signing of Tyrese Samuel, a 6-10, 235-pound forward from Seton Hall, who started all 33 games for the Pirates as a senior in '22-23 and averaged 11.0 points and 5.9 rebounds, with 37 percent of those boards coming on the offensive end. He's agile, has strong hands and possesses an element of toughness the Gators' coaches have made a cognizant all-around effort to upgrade. 

So gather up Samuel, Handlogten and Jarvis and roll them into the mix with returning sophomore Aleks Szymczyk, who showed some encouraging signs of development in helping fill the Castleton void late in the season, plus a pair of incoming freshmen in 6-11 Australian Alex Condon and 6-9 Thomas Haugh. In that group, the UF staff is feeling pretty good about the front-court situation (overall size, depth, skill sets, versatility) as it looks toward 2023-24.

Samuel, who hails from Montreal, will be the most seasoned of the bunch, and along with Jarvis, another grad-transfer, will give their young and impressionable front-court mates a couple outstanding mentors.  Though '22-23 was his lone full season as a starter, Samuel has four years of Big East banging on his resume, which means bodying up against the likes of Connecticut's Adama Sanogo, St. John's Joel Soriano, Marquette's Oliver-Maxence Prosper, Xavier's Zach Freemantle and the like from a conference KenPom.com ranked as the third-toughest in the country behind the Big 12 and Big Ten. Lining up against the big, thick, live athletic bodies in the Southeastern Conference (the nation's No. 3 league) will not phase him. 

And speaking of KenPom, Samuel's metrics (and we know how Golden loves metrics) are extremely favorable relative to efficiency versus usage, where he not only exceeded the Division I average in both categories last season but did so better than any player (yes, even Castleton) in the UF rotation. 

Samuel, who shot 59 percent in Big East play, had six double-doubles during his senior year, including four in his final six games, culminating with a 16-point, 11-rebound effort in the Pirates' season-ending loss at Colorado in the NIT. In two cracks against eventual national champion UConn, Samuel averaged 12.5 points and 4.5 rebounds and also had a 16-point outing early in the season against Kansas. 

He's not a 3-point shooter (only 15 attempts all season) and is not a great free-throw shooter (64.6 percent), but Samuel is a huge — and more importantly, proven against high-major competition — upgrade in an area the Gators were completely overmatched all season. 

IN CASE YOU MISSED
* Harry Fodder: How EJ Jarvis Fits In
* Harry Fodder: How Micah Handlogten Fits in
* Harry Fodder: How Walter Clayton Jr. Fits In 
* Harry Fodder: How Alex Condon Fits In