Florida’s loss on Saturday felt like every other loss the Gators have had in the 2025-26 season. Florida couldn’t shoot from three to save their life, yet still had a chance down the stretch to close things out before once again letting the game slip away.
At the center of the three-point woes are Florida’s transfer guards Xaivian Lee and Boogie Fland. Lee has at least started to turn things around, while Fland hasn’t even come close. And while the simple answer would be to bench Fland and let litteraly anyone else try their hand at guard, the deeper metric paints a more complicated picture for Todd Golden and the Gators.
Boogie Fland continues to struggle
Fland was 0-6 from three against Missouri, and he is now two for his last twenty from deep. Based on what Florida fans thought they were getting when Fland committed out of the transfer portal rather than head to the NBA, Fland has been by far among the biggest letdowns across all of college basketball.
But according to the analytics site Evan Miya, simply benching Fland isn’t an automatic answer. Florida’s best three-man lineup pairing in terms of Team Efficiency has been Rueben Chinyelu, Thomas Haugh, and Fland. In terms of “Overall Value,” Fland ranks 4th on the team and is ahead of all of Florida’s other guards in this category. Most notable is that Fland’s defensive rating is by far the highest of any of Florida’s guards.
Thus, the conundrum for Golden is asking at what point does the complete inability to knock down shots override the perceived value Fland provides on the defensive end? Part of the gambit with Florida’s lineup of Haugh, Chinyelu, and Alex Condon is that the Gators have so much size to alleviate the defensive pressure on the guards that Florida needs two guards capable of knocking down shots.
Fland isn’t doing that right now, and until he does, the ceiling for Florida is going to continue to feel like a Round of 32 exit from the NCAA Tournament.