Men's Basketball

The defending national champions have rebuilt the roster and now must build chemistry, as the team looks to the 2025-26 season with the start to summer workouts. 

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – This time last year, Alex Condon was getting acquainted with Rueben Chinyelu's elbows. The former was a returning Florida role player expected to step into a starting role, while the latter was a transfer with high-impact potential, especially on the defensive end 
 
The scenarios played out for both players, but the baseline for the two – and what became of that magnificent 2024-25 Gators team – was established over a summer of building, bonding and banging bodies. 
 
And here we are again. 
 
Friday marked the first official day of summer and members of the 2025-26 UF basketball team were up and at 'em at 7 a.m. on the marching band practice field for some hardcore U.S. Marine Corps-style drilling at the behest of strength/conditioning coordinator Victor Lopez. The manuevers were supervised by a handful of Marines who made the trip from Tampa at the invitation of Lopez, a former Marine himself.
 
The session capped the second week of workouts that over the next couple months will include tons of shooting, precise individual instruction, spirited team practices, plus weightlifting and cardio work. 
 
"The coaches sum it up by saying this is crunch time, a time that really matters," junior forward Thomas Haugh said. "Obviously, it's about getting us in shape, but it's also building character and helping us bond and keeping us together. Last year, we attacked this time of year head-on and it allowed us to be successful." 
 
Beyond, perhaps, their wildest dreams.

Every team convenes to start an offseason with the highest of goals, but only one can realize a national championship and the Gators did so. UF returns just four players from its main rotation that ripped through the Southeastern Conference Tournament with wins over three ranked opponents, then rode that momentum through the NCAA Tournament, with four pulsating second-half comeback victories and three wins over top-10 teams, including a pair of defeats of No. 1 seeds at the Final Four. That team was led by the senior guard trio of NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player Walter Clayton Jr., alongside perimeter standouts Alijah Martin and Will Richard, who together accounted for 1,790 points during their swan-song seasons – or 53% of the Gators' scoring output. 
 
UF figures to have one of the best front courts in the country in '25-26, with the return of the 6-foot-11 Chinyelu, 6-11 Condon and 6-9 Haugh, plus 7-1 senior Micah Handlogten, so there's going to be a lot of focus on what's to become of the new backcourt, where the Gators will turn to a pair of transfer guards in Boogie Fland (by way of Arkansas) and Xaivian Lee (Princeton) to provide offensive punch. Of the returning perimeter players only junior Urban Klazvar (3.2 points per game) played meaningful minutes last season and those came when the Gators were dealing with a mini-run of midseason injuries. Klavzar played only 18 minutes in the NCAA Tournament and all but five of those came in the 26-point first-round blowout of Norfolk State. 
 
The loss of Clayton, Martin and Richard, however, frees up rotation opportunities for Klavzar, as well as returning sophomore wing Isaiah Brown. The Gators also added Ohio U transfer and junior wing AJ Brown, but the older brother of Isaiah underwent shoulder surgery after the '24-25 and is not cleared yet for contact. Freshmen CJ Ingram (from Hawthorne, Florida) and Alex Lloyd (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) round out the newcomers. 
 
A pair of returnees, sophomore forward Viktor Mikic and 7-foot-9 walk-on center Olivier Rioux, are not back on campus yet. They're playing with international teams in their respective home countries of Serbia and Canada. 

The squad's nucleus is here, though, and knee-deep in the work. 

"In the summer, individual development is a huge part of it, but we have an opportunity, with these six or seven weeks together, to try to build a little bit of a team," said Gators coach Todd Golden, who at 39 became the youngest coach to win a national championship in 42 years in just his third season on the Florida sideline. "I think there's a great foundation with the guys coming back, but this gives us a great opportunity to get the rest up to speed."
 
Fland, a 2024 McDonald's All American from the Bronx, New York, averaged 13.5 points, 3.2 rebounds and 5.1 assists while shooting 34% from the 3-point line in 21 games during his freshman season with the Razorbacks. A broken finger sidelined Fland for 15 games, but he's fully healthy now and shown his teammates he can shoot the ball. His distribution skills will be on display later when scrimmage work begins. 
 
"Coach Golden, he has a standard and we've just got to meet it," said Fland, the first McDonald's All American on the UF roster in five years. "Excited to be here, excited to be with the program."
 
Like Fland, Lee is a highly skilled combo guard who put up even better numbers at 16.9 points, 6.1 rebounds, 5.5 assists and 37% from distance. Lee, though, did his thing in the Ivy League, so there will be a transition in dealing with the SEC. The time he's spending in the gym now is a good start, but Lee has plenty of faith in himself. 
 
The way he moves, handles and shoots the ball, he should. 
 
"I see a lot of people talking about 'How's he going to do against better competition?' But for me, I look at it like I am getting to play with a lot more talented, athletic guys," said Lee, who hails from Toronto and played one year of prep school alongside Haugh in Pennsylvania. "I'm excited about it, honestly. I did some [NBA] pre-draft stuff last year, got used to playing with guys at the high-major level. I'm coming in confident, trying to see, you know, how well I can do."

How the coaching staff – also is undergoing transition in losing coordinators Kevin Hovde (offense) and John Andrzejek (defense) to head-coaching jobs – meshes two ball-dominant point guards will be one of the most intriguing story lines of the summer (and the '25-26 season). 
 
So will the emergence of team leaders, with incumbents Haugh, Condon, Chinyelu and Handlogten the obvious candidates. 
 
After the first practice last week, it was Chinyelu who did the post-game talking. 
 
"We have guys here who have done it and know how to do it," Chinyelu said. "Now, we must enjoy the moment, always being present and taking every rep like a game rep. This is where it starts and it starts now. As long as we're present and attacking the day like a game day, we will all love that. I can't wait to go to war with my brothers."

Major Ulysses Sosa
6th Marine Corps District