As the Florida Gators look to retool their roster for the 2025/26 campaign, Todd Golden and crew have already had two key additions out of the transfer portal. Florida has added Xaivian Lee and AJ Brown to the mix out of the transfer portal to help replace Walter Clayton Jr., Will Richard, Alijah Martin, and Denzel Aberdeen.
Portal God Todd isn't done trying to work the transfer portal and is slated to have another highly rated guard in town this week.
Florida Gators to host Desmond Claude
Joe Tipton of On3 is reporting that Southern Cal guard Desmond Claude is slated to visit Florida on Wednesday.
Listed at 6'6", Claude is a downhill scorer who prefers to attack the rim to score and also has a solid pull-up jumper at the free throw line as needed. When he draws defenders once in the lane, he is a willing passer and averaged 4.2 assists per game to go with his 15.8 points per game in 2024/25.
Turnovers are a concern with Claude, who averaged 3.5 turnovers per game, and while he had the best three-point shooting season of his career in 2024/25, he still only shot 30.7% from deep.
Gonzaga, Ole Miss, and Virginia are also schools in the mix to try and land Claude.
If Florida does land Claude, it will be interesting to see how Golden sets up his rotations. Given Brown's ability to shoot threes (38.8% in 2024/25), it would seem Brown is the better option for the two-position/shooting guard. If Lee winds up running the point, Claude can slot in at the three, though Golden hinted Thomas Haugh is going to play there if Alex Condon opts to come back.
But as we learned from Florida's national title run, one can never be too deep at guard, and it is also possible Claude could show up to Gainesville, be better than Lee, and he winds up running the point.
Either way, step one is to keep Claude in Gainesville once he arrives for his visit this week.