The Florida Gators had the best May 2025 of any program in college basketball.
Two members of last season’s national championship team, Alex Condon and Rueben Chinyelu, made the announcement that they will return for one last ride in 2025-26. They join forward Thomas Haugh, who decided he’d be staying in Gainesville on April 25. With 7-1 Micah Handlogten back for another season as well, it’s hard not to look at Florida’s frontcourt and automatically assume it’ll be the best unit in the country.
Go ahead, try and find one that’s more proven.
Now, I don’t want to be disingenuous here. Florida’s frontcourt was a major factor in the Gators’ national title run last season, but the now-departed backcourt quartet of Walter Clayton Jr, Alijah Martin, Will Richard and Denzel Aberdeen proved to be the catalyst — especially Clayton. The 2024-25 Florida Gators were Walter Clayton Jr.’s team, and they won’t return to the Final Four without a group that can hold a candle to that unit’s production on both ends of the court.
(Quick aside: If I’m the GM of an NBA team and I own a mid-to-late first-round pick, I’m sprinting to the podium to select Walter Clayton. There is no need to overthink this, NBA.)
After claiming Princeton transfer Xaivian Lee in April, the Gators completed their assumed starting 5 with the addition of Arkansas’s Boogie Fland. Before we take a deeper dive into the Gators’ offseason roster construction, here’s what Florida’s starting lineup is almost sure to look like heading into next season:
PG Boogie Fland G Xaivian Lee F Thomas Haugh F/C Alex Condon C Rueben ChinyeluThat’s a deadly group, but it doesn’t stop there. The Gators also brought in some depth pieces that should give Golden a very solid 9/10 man rotation, one that should be among the top 5 preseason favorites to win the national title yet again (+1600 on DraftKings, by the way.)
Let’s take a deeper dive into this roster and find its strengths, weaknesses and outlook for next season.
The positives
Of which there are plenty.
The frontcourt is set to be even better than it was last year. The entire unit is back apart from Sam Alexis, who averaged under 5 points per game last season.
Before Alex Condon officially announced his intention to return to Gainesville, Todd Golden told reporters that the plan was for Thomas Haugh to start at the 3 in 2025-26. “He’s a guy [who’s] really maturing into a complete player, you know, has the ability to score obviously both inside and he’s stretching it out from 3,” Golden said. “He play makes well, he can really pass for a frontcourt player, and we’re going to play him more at the 3 this year.”
Haugh is 6-9. Condon is 6-11. Rueben Chinyelu is 6-10. Micah Handlogten, who missed half of last year with a leg injury, is 7-1. Condon, who shot 32% from 3 last season, just enough to earn a hand in the face, will likely see a healthy amount at the 4 while Chinyelu and Handlogten hold down the 5.
In order to see more time at the 3, Haugh is going to have to develop a slightly more consistent 3-point shot. He connected on 34% of his 3s last year, but only 32% in conference play. If he can up that number to around 36 or 37%, the Gators are cooking with peanut oil.
The potential benefits here are off the charts. There are few teams in the SEC, let alone the country, that can deal with a frontcourt that has that combination of size, length and assumed offensive ability. We haven’t even mentioned incoming freshman CJ Ingram, either.
Ingram is a high 4-star small forward will play plenty at the 3, both in relief of Haugh and with Haugh on the court at the 4. He’s a bouncy athlete and a strong shooter, so Golden has what could be a compelling offense-first lineup of Ingram-Haugh-Condon at his disposal if he wants it.
Then there are Xaivian Lee and Boogie Fland, whose strengths should shine with this frontcourt. Both Lee and Fland are capable playmakers, but you’d be impressed with either’s ability to flourish off the ball as well, especially Fland. The latter could stand to be a little more efficient — something we’ll touch on further below — but considering the length down low, the Gators should own the offensive boards.
There are plenty of reasons to believe the Florida Gators will have the very best offense in the country next season.
Question marks
As a collective unit, the Gators could take a solid half step backward defensively.
Losing Will Richard hurts, but losing Alijah Martin may hurt even worse. Both were pests on defense, and the amount of hustle that doesn’t show on the box score for Martin especially was significant.
It stands to reason that the frontcourt defense will improve, but how much of last season’s production surrounding the interior defense was spearheaded by Martin, Richard and Clayton suffocating the ballhandler on the perimeter? It’s far from a perfect metric to measure defensive efficacy along the perimeter, but opponents shot just 29.4% from outside against the Gators, which ranked 5th in the country. That forced teams to work inside, where Florida boasted a block percentage of 11.7% — 64th in the country out of 350+ teams.
Fland has experience and an impressive résumé against SEC offenses, which is why this point is mostly aimed toward Lee and transfer shooting guard AJ Brown. I like Brown’s offensive upside a lot. He’s a balanced scorer out of Ohio with a 56/38/82 split and a knack for drawing fouls. He’ll be the Gators’ first player off the bench in the backcourt next season.
I am a little concerned about what his defense will look like against SEC competition coming from the MAC. His numbers were much-improved from the year prior to last, for sure, but there’s no preparing for the stark change in competition until you’re trying to guard Otega Oweh, Tahaad Pettiford, Nijel Pack or Ja’Kobi Gillespie. I’m not expecting Brown to be a complete defensive liability, mind you, but what exactly will he be able to bring on that end of the court?
Lee is the real target of my skepticism here. The Ivy League is even worse competition than the MAC, and Lee’s numbers were inferior to Brown’s with the Bobcats. I just struggle to believe in a world where Fland, Lee and Brown aren’t a considerable downgrade on that end of the court compared to Clayton, Martin and Richard.
We’ll see.
How good can Florida be?
Let me pose a question to answer a question: How well can Boogie Fland and Xaivian Lee operate on the court together?
As mentioned earlier, I think this is a strong pairing by Todd Golden. Both have a downhill mindset and both are threats to dish out 10+ assists on any given night. With the sheer amount of elite talent down low, the ball movement should be absolutely elite in Gainesville with the starting 5 we laid out above. Looking for another reason to believe in Xaivian Lee and this Gators lineup? He and Thomas Haugh were teammates back in high school.
The SEC is the best basketball conference in the country, and the Gators are considered by many to have the best roster heading into the new year. I have the Gators No. 1 ahead of Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee. Their floor should be the Elite Eight as far as I’m concerned.
Walter Clayton Jr. had the best single season a Gators basketball player has ever had last year. For me to pick the Gators to repeat, I’ll need proof that someone — be it Boogie Fland, Thomas Haugh or Xaivian Lee — can take over a game in a similar light when it matters.
Who’s it going to be, Gators?
Florida had the best May in college basketball. How good can the Gators be in 2026? Saturday Down South.
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