Last year, Florida Basketball entered the season as a team people took note of, but no one had it as their eventual national champion. It was a mini cause for celebration that Florida was ranked in the preseason top 25, and the Gators eventually powered their way to one of the most impressive seasons in college basketball history.
Florida isn't going to sneak up on anyone in 2025/26, and part of the reason for that is because Todd Golden stayed patient in order to assemble a roster capable of running it back.
Florida Gators should be a top five team entering 2025/26
With the addition of Boggie Fland, Florida just needs to have Alex Condon withdraw from the NBA Draft to have a roster that could almost be better than the one that just won a national title.
But if we hit the rewind button over the past month, there were some tough choices Golden had to make to assemble this roster.
The first was letting Denzel Aberdeen walk out the door after choosing not to match whatever Kentucky ended up paying him. On paper, Aberdeen was slated to be a starter for Florida next season, so Florida took a bit of a risk by not matching his NIL desires.
But despite what his dad may claim, Fland is a significantly better distributor than Aberdeen and, in truth, pairs up much better with fellow transfer Xaivian Lee.
But while Fland had yet to withdraw from the NBA Draft, Florida also had the option to go after Desmond Claude out of Southern Cal. Claude is a capable scorer, but as we noted at the time, his fit wasn't a perfect fit with Florida.
Golden seemed to agree and, rather than panic and take the first option in front of him, he was willing to wait for Fland to fall in his lap.
Florida still needs Condon to come back for this roster to be complete, but it has way more clarity than it did a month ago and should have all the pieces to head back to the Final Four in 2026 as one of the real threats to once again cut down the nets.