The NBA Draft has come and gone, and one year after the Gators had three players selected, Florida wound up with no one chosen across the 60 picks. That wasn’t too much of a surprise, as most of Florida’s big names came back, and Xavian Lee was the only remote possibility to get selected.
But that doesn’t mean there weren’t a ton of storylines that connected back to Florida; here are some of the most notable narratives we saw.
Notable NBA Draft storyline lines for the Gators
Michigan matches Florida’s 2007 squad
Michigan was as dominant a team as modern college basketball has seen in quite some time, and they had a far less stressful run than the Gators had in 2025. Michigan’s reward was getting three players drafted within the top 12 picks of the draft.
Michigan became the first team since Florida’s legendary 2007 team to have three lottery picks, with none of them being a freshman.
Bennett Stirtz goes No. 16 overall
Florida’s season ended far sooner than it should have, in part because the Gators couldn’t contain Bennett Stirtz driving full court and passing for a corner three. The Gators actually contained Stirtz well enough for the course of the game and only gave up 13 points to him, but that final drive and shot is going to haunt Florida fans for quite some time. He is now a member of the Thunder.
Koa Peat goes No. 30 overall
The way opening night went for Florida against Arizona, you would have thought that Koa Peat was about to go be the No. 1 overall pick by the time things were done. Peat had 30 points to open the season as the Gators looked shellshocked trying to guard him.
And it’s not like Peat had some crazy falloff the rest of the season, but the knock on him is that his game doesn’t translate well to the NBA because he doesn’t have a great jumpshot.
What was Kentucky doing?
Kentucky had two players drafted, Jayden Quaintance and Otega Oweh, and still got swept by the Gators in three attempts. It poses an honest question for Kentucky: if the Wildcats had two NBA draft picks and still were a mid-tier SEC team, when will it get better under Mark Pope?
Emanuel Sharp goes in the second round
One of the clips that is also going to forever live in Gator lore is the final sequence that led to winning the national title in 2025 when Houston’s Emanuel Sharp went up for a potential game-winning three, got scared off by Walter Clayton Jr., and instead had to awkwardly watch the ball on the ground as time ran out. He is off the Charlotte.
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