Florida Gators Basketball Transfer Profile: Will Richard

In college basketball, with every new season comes new faces. With the transfer portal hitting all-time highs, coaches are looking to bring in experienced transfers to fill their spots instead of recruiting out of high school. After the Florida Gators lost three players to the portal, head coach Todd Golden got active and brought in 4 new transfers, including Will Richard, to upgrade his roster. Who are these transfers and can they help the Gators back to the top of the SEC?

Hail Florida Hail will be highlighting each one of these new transfers and bringing our fellow Gator fans insight on their pasts, along with their potential future impact.

After highlighting Alex Fudge, the next profile is sophomore transfer from Belmont, Will Richard.

Player History: Will Richard, G

This young star is coming off of his freshman season at Belmont, where he put up 12.1 points, 6 rebounds, and 1.8 assists while shooting 47% from the field, 33% from three-point range, and 80% at the line.

He started 30 of his 33 games at Belmont, playing just shy of 30 minutes per game. His off-ball play helped push Belmont to a 25-7 record, unfortunately losing in the first round of the NIT tournament to Vanderbilt.

Although his play time in college has been short with only one season, he has proved himself as a very capable shooting guard in this league being able to score comfortably off of cuts and catch and shoot situations. Will Richard is the perfect archetype for the Florida Gators.

Richard’s Fit as a Florida Gator

Richard will likely find himself in the rotation at the 2-guard spot behind 5th year Myreon Jones. Although Richard had a few higher numbers statistically than Jones, Myreon has 4 years of NCAA experience under his belt and that outweighs any statistical category.

Richard’s off-ball play is what the Gators value, especially bringing in one of the best playmaking guards in the country in Kyle Lofton. With Lofton being able to get into the paint and collapse defenses, Richard will be able to space off-ball for catch and shoot threes or attack the rim for easy layups.

His 3-point shooting may be lower at 33%, but by zone he is a lights out shooter from the right side of the floor. On the right side of the floor, Richard shoots 44% compared to his 31% on the left side. If the Gators can utilize his shooting on the right side of the floor, they are looking at 1.3 points per shot, an elite efficiency. Additionally, Richard shoots 81% at the rim averaging 1.6 points per possession.

If Golden can utilize Richard’s off-ball play getting him looks on his strong side and have Lofton catch him on the way to the basket, Richard is going to be a very hard player to game plan for.

In Summary

Will Richard is coming off of a hot freshman season into a program looking to compete out of the gate. His shooting and ability to attack off-ball is going to create lots of problems for opposing defenses when matched up with Lofton.

I believe he will start this season on the bench behind Myreon Jones, however who is to say he won’t prove himself as a quality starting 2-guard in the tough Southeastern Conference.

Keep up with the Florida Gators here.