Florida has one more game before it opens up SEC play against Missouri in January. During the non-conference slate, the Gators have been on the doorstep of knocking off an array of top ten opponents, but have been undone by poor play from their guards. Xaivian Lee is starting to come along, while Boogie Fland still leaves much to be desired.
Coming off the bench, Urban Klavzar has been decent in spots but hasn’t fully kicked the door down just yet. This has had Todd Golden still searching for the right combination of guards to employ, and against Colgate, he gave double-digit minutes to a player who had barely been seen all year.
Alex Kovatchev gets 11 minutes against Colgate
Prior to the Colgate game, transfer Alex Kovatchev had played a grand total of nine minutes in three previous appearances. But it was his four minutes against St. Francis that drew the attention of Golden. Kovatchev knocked down a three, had a rebound, and also picked up an assist. That performance granted him 11 minutes against Colgate, where he had three rebounds and was solid on the defensive side despite scoring no points.
Golden was asked about Kovatchev’s increased role after the game on Sunday:
“He's played well in practice. We've kind of given some other guys a little bit of a head start that we thought would be able to give us a little more upside. But I mean, everybody saw when he came in the other night against St. Francis that he played with great pop, shot ready, played made for others.
And so for us, it's like, man, this guy's doing everything we're asking him to do. He defends hard. He's a good athlete. Wanted to give him a rip in that third sub of the game. And you wouldn't look at his stat line and be blown away, but his plus-minus was really damn good.
And that's kind of what the only thing we care about right now in that role is come in and make sure we either hold water or go the right way. And in his 12 minutes, he was plus 16. So he defended. He did his job. Made sure the score was going the right way. And I think he'll be able to do that for us a little bit “
Kovatchev was a late addition for the Gators out of the transfer portal from Sacramento State. He averaged 5.0 points per game in 2023-24 and was primed to be a starter in 2024-25 before he was injured four games into the season.
Kovatchev notably got his minutes ahead of guys like Isaiah Brown, Alex Lloyd, and CJ Ingram.