The Florida Gators finished the 2024-25 campaign as the No. 1 team in the country, thanks to their NCAA Tournament championship win over the Houston Cougars. For the third time this century, the Orange and Blue are kings of the hill heading into the offseason.
The team’s success lies on the shoulders of Todd Golden, who came in to take over the head coach position from the previously departed Mike White. The young up-and-coming skipper brought with him a modern approach to the game and an aggressive attitude when to comes to the NCAA transfer portal.
As a result, Gainesville is now home to one of the top men’s basketball programs with a sustainable path to continued success. This optimistic outlook is a major reason why The Athletic’s CJ Moore placed Florida at No. 2 in his way-too-early rankings for the 2025-26 men’s college basketball season.
Breaking down Florida’s way-too-early rankings
“Returning the entire frontcourt is a great place to start for the national champions. They already had the deepest frontcourt in college basketball and will retain that title and add “best frontcourt in college basketball” to the superlatives. (And even if Alex Condon gets drafted, this is still a really good group.),” he notes.
“The assumption is the Gators will get a star guard out of the portal. The sales pitch is pretty easy: Come be our next Walter Clayton Jr. Denzel Aberdeen was one of the best bench guards in the country and should take a leap. It wouldn’t be a surprise if Thomas Haugh and Condon turned into 2026 first-rounders.”
Florida’s Projected Starting Rotation
- Denzel Aberdeen
- Thomas Haugh
- Alex Condon
- Rueben Chinyelu
- Portal Player TBD
Florida’s notable returners, newcomers
Returning:
- Micah Handlogten
- Sam Alexis
- Urban Klavzar
Newcomers:
- Alex Lloyd
- CJ Ingram
The Athletic’s way-too-early top 25 for 2025-26
- Purdue
- Florida
- Houston
- Louisville
- Michigan
- BYU
- Michigan State
- Auburn
- UConn
- Duke
- Arizona
- Texas Tech
- Alabama
- Iowa State
- Kansas
- North Carolina
- St. John’s
- Kentucky
- Creighton
- UCLA
- Illinois
- Missouri
- Arkansas
- Ohio State
- Tennessee
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