UF offensive coordinator Kevin Hovde has more scoring weapons and a better defense to create more scoring opportunities.
Gators' Offensive Goal in '24-25: Great to Greater
Thursday, October 17, 2024 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
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By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Kevin Hovde has a bright offensive mind. As Todd Golden's offensive coordinator, the Florida assistant coach devised a system that helped the Gators average a program-record 85.6 points per game on the way to winning 24 games – the most victories by the team since 2017 – and reaching the NCAA Tournament for the first time in three years.
Upon season's end, Golden and his staff dove into ways to improve across the board. For Hovde, that meant turning over the rocks of possibilities in a quest to make the most lethal point-scoring machine in Florida history even better. Kevin Hovde
That search led Hovde to a coffee shop in St. Augustine in July.
Billy Donovan was waiting.
"He was incredible," Hovde said. "No surprise, right?"
None. Much of the hour-long conversation addressed coaching at Florida, the expectations, recruiting and other generalities, but eventually the talked turned specifically to the Gators' personnel. Donovan, now leading the Chicago Bulls but still very much a UF fan who tunes into games when possible, brought up Walter Clayton Jr. He likened the standout guard to a collegiate version of New York Knicks all-star point guard Jalen Brunson; a gifted scorer but not necessarily a ball-dominant play-maker. The Knicks, Donovan explained, found ways to get the ball in and out of Brunson's hands, while still creating opportunities for him to score.
Not long after that meeting, Hovde took his intel on a drive to Bartow, Fla., Clayton's hometown, and presented the Gators' 2023-24 scoring leader (by way of Iona, where he was coached by Rick Pitino) with ways to get him more quality looks his senior season.
"Some quick reads for me and stuff where I don't have to run around too much," said Clayton, who was voted to the media's 2025 preseason All-SEC first team earlier this week on the heels of averaging 17.6 points per game, the most by a Florida player in 19 years. "Like, get off of the ball and get it right back and into a ball screen. We did some stuff like that with Coach P at Iona. I like it."
Senior guard Walter Clayton Jr., voted first-team preseason All-SEC by the media, spoke to the media at Tuesday's league tipoff event in Birmingham, Alabama.
The Brunson concepts were folded into the offense over the summer and have blended seamlessly with UF's two main core offensive principles.
They are:
Pace – The Gators want either to get a shot up or be in position to get into their halfcourt offense within six seconds. On that front, their practice court has a green stripe of tape – or "pace line" -- that extends across the court from the top of the key to both sidelines. Four of five offensive players (the lone exception being the "trail" (one of the two "bigs") are required to sprint past that line and be ready for either a throw-ahead (Clayton excels at those) or be in position to initiate the offense, usually starting with a dump into the post or a ball screen.
Unselfishness – This may sound simplistic, even self-explanatory, but it requires buy-in. This '24-25 group is selfless to a high degree, with not just extra passes, but the so-called "extra-extra" passes (like hockey assists), which have become a trademark of this group and producer of open looks for what should be a better outside shooting team than a season ago.
"We're still doing a lot of the same stuff, but I think we're just more aggressive with what we're doing. We're moving a lot harder," senior wing Will Richard said. "I feel like we have more weapons. We've got monsters inside, shooters outside and everybody is playing for each other. It's been really good, so far."
UF, which will take on Florida International in a closed scrimmage Saturday at Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center, ranked No. 12 in the nation in offensive efficiency last season, good enough for fourth-best in the Southeastern Conference. Ideally, the Gators would love to punch into the top 10 in 2024-25, but so much of their focus and practice time over the offseason – and now into the fall run-up to the Nov. 4 season opener against USF at Jacksonville – has been devoted to the defensive side of the ball, where UF finished 94th nationally (seventh in the SEC).
CHARTING THE GATORS Where the nation's top 12 offensive efficiency teams during the 2023-24 season ranked in defensive efficiency.
Offense rank
Team
Defense rank
Delta
1st
Connecitcut
4th
minus-4
2nd
Alabama
111th
minus-109
3rd
Illinois
80th
minus-77
4th
Purdue
12th
minus-8
5th
Gonzaga
51st
minus-46
6th
Baylor
72nd
minus-66
7th
Kentucky
109th
minus102
8th
Duke
16th
minus-8
9th
Creighton
24th
minus-13
10th
Auburn
6th
plus-4
11th
Arizona
10th
plus-1
12th
Florida
94th
minus-82
Don't mistake the emphasis on defense with a deemphasis on offense, however The Gators believe the the extra time spent on the defensive end of the floor, along with the addition of a trio of defensive-minded transfers, will lead to a big jump when it comes to stopping teams and, in turn, translate perfectly into the goal of creating more scoring opportunities, especially in transition. Senior Will Richard(5)
Not just for Clayton, but for everybody.
"We've got to maintain the level of offense we played last year," Golden said. "Because of the commitment we made to that side of the ball [last season] I think it maybe limited our upside on the defensive end as we got really good offensively. This year, I don't really feel that way about our team defensively. I think we've got a pretty good upside defensively. Now, I don't think we have quite as high of a ceiling on that side as offense, but we'll see."
In other words, the Gators believe they'll be very good on offense again this season, and with good reason. It starts on the perimeter with four high-level guards.
In Clayton they have one of the most creative and explosive scorers in the league. Senior Will Richard, the most vested player on the team with 64 starts over his 68 games the last two seasons, has shot the ball during the offseason like the guy who ranked in the top 5 percent nationally in offensive efficiency as a sophomore, when he hit 65.2 percent from the 2-point area and 41.6 from 3 in SEC play. UF added transfer guard Alijah Martin, an outstanding defender and talented three-level scorer from Florida Atlantic, where he averaged 13.4 points in his three seasons as a starter. And then there's junior Denzel Aberdeen, the closest thing to a prototypical point guard on the roster and now with the highest level of confidence of his coaches.
That the Gators began their offseason workouts with five players who were part of their core rotation last season (a high number in this collegiate transfer era) allowed things to come together quicker.
"We added new guys, but we had more guys who had been in the system already and knew what we were doing," Clayton said. "Having all those guys means more fluid ball movement, I think."
It has manifested itself with a free-flowing, break-neck system that has flashed the team's calling-card unselfishness during practices.
Said Hovde: "It starts on the perimeter and being unselfish there. But our bigs are such good ball-handlers too. There could be more great plays where maybe they catch on a pick-and-roll, but where a lot of guys would try to go up and try to score they might throw it out for a wide open 3. It's just beautiful to watch."
Assistant coach and offensive coordinator Kevin Hovde huddles with his team during a record O'Dome scrimmage.
The Gators are anxious to unleash (and preview) their new-look offense and defense Saturday against FIU. The team has a second closed scrimmage scheduled for Oct. 26 against College of Charleston, which is expected to contend in the Colonial Athletic Conference, at the O'Dome.
"We're going to be better," Aberdeen said. "Because our defense is getting better I think it will speed up our offense even more so that we won't have to run plays as much, run sets in the halfcourt as much, and we'll just be up-tempo and fast."
And the Gators again have an athletic and lengthy front court to do that – with any combination of returning sophomore speedsters Alex Condon and Thomas Haugh, plus transfers in Rueben Chinyelu (Washington State) and Sam Alexis (Tennessee-Chattanooga), all of whom can run – capable of rolling with any combination of those three perimeter players.
Improving on that No. 12 overall offense will be a tall task, but the Gators believe they can be better (maybe much) at 3-point shooting (they were 148th in the country last season at 34.5 percent) and in 2-point percentage (115th at 51.8 percent) through transition opportunities that spread the floor.
Richard, an elite shooting with designs toward rediscovering his sophomore-season form, is excited about the possibilities.
"Shooting is a big separator," he said. "I think we're really going to boost that this year."
Hovde, in fact, also took a summer trip to Atlanta to huddle with Richard in his hometown, sort of like the Donovan-inspired nod to Clayton, and brought with him some NBA concepts borrowed from the Golden State Warriors. Specific actions to get Richards some open looks in the places he likes.
"This year, you'll see us running stuff to get him a specific shot," Hovde said. "I don't necessarily want to play that way – I want to play fast, give them structure and let guys play together – but we want to take advantage of their strengths."
