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Previewing the Florida Gators Men’s Basketball program. Can Todd Golden continue the momentum he built upon last season?
It’s possible to think a team should be good while remaining skeptical about how good they can be. If any team fits this bill for the upcoming season, it has to be the Florida Gators.
Three years ago, things were stagnant in Gainesville. Mike White had finished his fifth ‘fine’ season in a row, and with the temperature on his seat rising, he made the move to Athens, allowing the Gators a fresh start with Todd Golden.
So far, Golden has produced some solid, if unspectacular, results. Last season, the Gators used a revamped guard rotation and some fresh new but experienced bodies at the rim to make a 50-spot jump in the KenPom.com ratings. It was enough for a couple more conference wins and a 7-seed in the NCAA tournament. Most of the offensive improvement came via offensive rebounds, which jumped from 320th in the country to 8th. This year, Golden leaned hard into his ‘size matters’ approach to lineups.
Previous SEC Previews:
6. Kentucky Wildcats, 10-8
7. Missouri Tigers, 9-9
8. Ole Miss Rebels, 9-9
9. Texas A&M Aggies, 9-9
10. Texas Longhorns, 8-10
11. Mississippi State Bulldogs, 7-11
12. Vanderbilt Commodores, 7-11
13. Oklahoma Sooners, 7-11
14. Georgia Bulldogs, 6-12
15. LSU Tigers, 5-13
16. South Carolina Gamecocks, 5-13
Florida Gators
Last season: 24 – 12 (11-7 in conference) #26
The Masses Prediction: 7th in conference, 10.6 – 7.4
SEC Media Pick: 6th in conference
Analytics Average: 8th in conference, 32nd overall
Christopher Hanewinckel-Imagn Images
HEAD COACH: Todd Golden | 3rd Season, 40-29
After a rough start to his Florida tenure, Todd Golden set things on a better course last season. His reputation as an analytics dynamo might have proven shaky in year one, but focusing hard on his team’s ability to cover the glass and win rebounding battles shot the Gators up the charts. Taking that lesson to heart, Golden assembled a team full of post players.
As the grounds in college basketball have shifted, many of the old guard have moved out, and there’s a newer, more adaptable, younger core of coaches like Golden who have emphasized portal recruiting over high school recruiting. He’s searching for the gaps and signed several international prospects over American-born high school players while holding most of the roster openings for the portal.
What lies ahead for Golden is the opportunity to elevate Florida back to the heights it reached under Billy Donovan. While the past two seasons may have mirrored Mike White’s last five years, the third year could be the turning point. A step forward in the upcoming season could be the catalyst that reassures Gator fans that the team is indeed on the path they expect it to be.
Following the red line above, you can see the slippage under White. It never bottomed out but was a steady decline culminating in Golden’s first season. That was the start of the build. In the last 26 seasons, the Gators have only missed the tournament six times, not including the COVID season, when everyone missed the tournament. So, making the tournament is the expectation. With the league’s depth now, a top-half finish should be enough to get anyone in.
LOST PRODUCTION
Minutes: 39.81% | 2nd
Points: 43.15% | 4th
Possessions: 43.48% | 4th
The Gators’ changing of guard last year helped drive them back into the NCAA tournament, and by changing of guard, I mean literally changing their guards. Zyon Pullin’s addition last offseason was largely overlooked around the league, but his team-leading minutes and second-leading points were integral to the turnaround. He was the team’s most efficient scorer and its leading assist maker.
He and Tyrese Samuel set the tone for the squad with Samuel cast as the rugged rebounder and enforcer around the rim. While the Gators are fortunate to be returning so much, they are losing two of their top three scorers from last season, and three of the top 5 if you include Riley Kugel.
Robert Goddin-Imagn Images
Florida has a 7’9” dude on their roster. SEVEN FOOT NINE!
This preview won’t be entirely about Olivier Rioux, but it won’t not be about him a little bit. In some ways, Golden taking a bit of a flier on someone like Rioux says a lot about how he envisions the evolution of college rosters. Rioux isn’t expected to impact the team this year, and from what I’ve read, he’s not on scholarship. But he’s really, really tall.
The most important piece is returning point guard Walter Clayton, Jr, the leading scorer from the team a year ago. Clayton averaged over 17 points per game after transferring from Iona. Perhaps best known for his ability as an outside shot-maker. Sixty percent of Clayton’s shots were jumpers, and 60% of those were catch-and-shoot opportunities. Leave him open, and you’re likely to pull the ball out of the net, with 1.7 points per possession on unguarded catch-and-shoots, per Synergy.
Will Richard, a quality wing who excels in transition, is also back for his senior season. Richard’s all-around game is excellent, and he doesn’t require many possessions, with just a 17% usage rate.
One of the most notable additions to the SEC is Florida Atlantic guard Alijah Martin. The 33rd ranked transfer per EvanMiya’s rankings, and the 9th best transfer in the SEC per those same rankings. He averaged over 13 points per game over three years, helping Dusty May supercharge the FAU program.
Micah Handlogten was a fixture in the middle of the paint and one of the league’s better rim protectors. Unfortunately, he broke his leg in the SEC Tournament and may be out the entire season this year. Golden added Chattanooga transfer Sam Alexis and Washington State transfer Reuben Chinyelu to replace him. Alexis is a Florida native who spent two seasons bruising the middle of the Southern Conference. And Chinyelu is an unheralded but high-ceiling center out of Nigeria.
With Chinyelu and Alexis, along with Alex Condon and Thomas Haugh, there should be enough interior reliability to compensate for the loss of Handlogten.
Troy Taormina-Imagn Images
The knowns here are obvious. The Gators’ three-guard front seems set in stone, with Clayton and Richard resuming their roles from last year and Martin stepping in for the missing production from Zyon Pullin.
Martin’s production was on a larger stage than Pullin’s, but Pullin’s usage rates at UC Riverside were far greater than what Martin was asked to do at FAU. With Johnell Davis in the backcourt with him, Martin was more of a secondary scorer. He’s also rarely been a primary ball handler, meaning more of those responsibilities will shift to Clayton.
Where things get more interesting is on the interior, where Golden has really emphasized building his roster. With six post players on the roster, Golden has to figure out how to allocate minutes. Handlogten is still battling a broken leg and may sit out the season. That should offer some clarity. Both returning bigs combined played 17.2% of the team’s minutes or 43.1% of the minutes available. Condon was a more prominent fixture in the lineup than Haugh, but both should factor into the lineup. It remains to be seen how big of a role Chinyelu will play. He’s a developmental big with a limited offensive skill set. But with the three guards lined up to take a hefty number of shots, he could be helpful for defense, rebounding, and rim protection.
Solid scheduling here when you’re likely to be favored in 12 13 games while still getting six Quad-1 or Quad-2 games. In SEC play, the Gators benefit home-and-homes against South Carolina and Georgia, both projected near the bottom of the standings. Plus, four home games where you’re likely to be favored and four winnable road games.
THE RULING
At this point, pretty much everyone thinks the Gators are going to be good. There’s no reason to think they won’t be. Walter Clayton was terrific last year, and Will Richard also took a step forward. Todd Golden quickened the pace and threw big bodies at the glass, improving their offensive efficiency. All those elements from last season exist on this roster.
But one thing about the Gators is that they had very good health, with their top nine missing a combined nine games all season and five of them playing in all 36 games. Pullin missed the first three games, and Handlogten’s broken leg happened in the second-to-last game. Few teams can sustain injuries to their top players, but there may be no team where the margin is quite as thin at the top.
Primarily, that’s Walter Clayton, Jr. The junior guard absorbed 18.5% of the total team possessions with a usage rate north of 24%. His offensive rating above 116 landed him on the All-SEC second team. Clayton is one of just eight players returning from the All-SEC first or second team last year, so in order for the Gators to meet expectations, Clayton will be relied upon to be every bit as good as he was last year.
Then, the question moves to Martin and Richard. Can Martin step into the scoring and distribution role vacated by Pullin? Is Will Richard prepared to take another step with his on-ball creation?
The Florida bigs were used to hammer the glass, but Tyrese Samuel’s back-to-the-basket game was undervalued. Is Sam Alexis the guy who will move into those possessions? Most of Alexis’ possessions with the Chattanooga Mocs were post-ups. The Gators had 222 total, 122 of which went to Samuel.
The fits up and down the roster make all the sense. The Gators look like they’ve retooled with near replicas of their team from a year ago. Now, we’ll find out just how exact of a match they have.
My Results: Florida Gators — 5th in conference, 11-7
About the preview: a number of respected basketball bloggers were asked to submit one pick for the entire league schedule game by game. The game by game option allows us to account for the unbalanced schedule when addressing any kind of power rankings. Each set of picks are reflected in “the Masses” picks. Included in “the Masses” are various SEC media members who made picks at my request, as well as additional credit given to the analytics projections.
If you’d like to submit your picks, click here for the Google Form we used. If you want to know your results, send me an email.
Additionally, instead of relying solely on KenPom.com for the analytics site projections, we’re taking the average of the four main sites (EvanMiya.com, BartTorvik.com, Haslametrics.com, and KenPom.com) to give a closer consensus picture. These are weighted a touch for reliability.
The projections: This is new! In an attempt to be as accurate as we could be we increased the amount of analytics used to make individual projections which influenced how these teams slotted in order. Matt Watkins used an indepth method for projecting the entire SEC transfer list, we then mixed in EvanMiya.com’s BPR projections, and BartTorvik.com’s preseason individual projections to round out the expected production based upon how each coach routinely uses his rotations.
GLOSSARY
* – an asterisk denotes a walk-on player
GP – Games Played
%min – percentage of total available minutes played, does not account for time missed due to injury
%poss – percentage of team possessions the player is responsible for ending a possession, whether by making a shot, missing a shot not rebounded by the offense or committing a turnover. For returning players this is noted as a percentage of total team possessions. For newcomers it was total possessions when that player was on the floor, better known as Usage Rate.
ORtg – Offensive Rating, similar to a points per possession but averaged out over 100 possessions. So it’s how many points a player would score if they were responsible for 100 possessions.
BPR – Bayseian Performance Rating, a single player efficiency metric created by Evan Miyakawa to determine both offensive and defensive impact when a player is on the floor.
PPG – Points Per Game, RPG – Rebounds Per Game, APG – Assists Per Game: All traditional statistics used to measure player production.
For newcomer player rankings, we used EvanMiya.com’ s rankings for transfers, and 247sports.com ‘s Composite Rating for Freshmen and Junior College signees.
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