On the morning of May 27, Florida coach Todd Golden was getting his hair cut at Aj23 barbershop in Gainesville when his phone rang. It was a FaceTime call from Alex Condon, his 6-foot-11 sophomore forward. Normally, Golden wouldn’t answer while he was in the barber’s chair, but this time he made an exception.
Condon had entered the NBA Draft in mid-April and spent the previous five weeks trying to play his way into a first-round guarantee. He attended the NBA’s draft combine in May but declined to participate in the five-on-five scrimmages. Condon worked out with several teams, most recently two days beforehand with the Phoenix Suns. Along the way, Golden tried to remain hopeful that Condon would return for his junior season, but the longer the process dragged on, the more Golden feared he could lose him.
Golden wasn’t sure what to expect when he picked up Condon’s FaceTime call. The moment Condon’s smiling face showed up on his screen, the coach knew he was in for some good news.
“You ready to run it back?” Condon asked.
“Absolutely,” Golden replied.
For Golden, that call was just one more piece of good fortune in a spring that has been full of them. That includes, of course, the thrilling 65-63 win over Houston on April 7 to capture the 2025 NCAA championship, but Golden has continued to rack up victories ever since. Between the decisions of Condon and starting center Ruben Chinyelu to withdraw their names from the NBA Draft, the commitments of three high quality transfers, plus the impending arrival of two top-50 freshmen, Florida looks very much like a team that is capable of repeating as SEC and NCAA champions in 2025-26.
“We feel really good about this group,” Golden told Hoops HQ. “We’ve been grinding hard up until this last couple of days. Getting Alex back on board was the cherry on top.”
Golden did not have much time to bask in the elation of winning a championship. He had already lost two assistant coaches to head coaching jobs (they were hired the week before the Final Four but finished out the season) and had a lot of catching up to do with respect to the transfer portal, which opened on March 24. “We didn’t want to deal with any of that stuff when we were in the middle of (the tournament), so we were a little behind in terms of roster building,” Golden said. He knew that the trio of senior guards who propelled the Gators to the title — Walter Clayton Jr., Will Richard and Alijah Martin, who had transferred from Iona, Belmont and FAU, respectively — were not coming back. He also had reason to believe that he could lose Chinleyu, Condon and 6-foot-9 sophomore forward Thomas Haugh, whose draft stock had skyrocketed during March Madness. When 6-foot-5 junior guard Denzel Aberdeen entered the portal on April 18 (he committed to Kentucky three days later), Golden faced the very real specter of losing his top seven scorers.
Aberdeen’s decision to leave was spurred partly by Princeton guard Xaivian Lee’s decision to withdraw from the draft and commit to Florida two days before. The 6-foot-3 senior averaged 17.9 points, 5.9 rebounds and 4.6 assists over his last two seasons. Lee was a teammate of Hough’s at Perkiomen School in Pennsylavnia, which gave Golden a connection he could leverage. It wasn’t a difficult sell, given that Florida was losing its top three guards and plays a very guard-friendly system, but Golden still had to out-duel (and out-bid) Kansas and St. John’s to secure Lee’s commitment.
“We were able to sell a proof of concept that those guys came from mid- to low-major programs and won a national championship at Florida,” Golden said. “I think Xaivian really appreciated the way our guards are able to operate, playing fast, playing out of transition and through ball screens.”
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The good news continued to roll in on April 24, when Haugh, who had been working with an agent to explore his pro options, decided not to enter the draft. That same day, Golden got another good player out of the portal in Ohio junior guard A.J. Brown, who scored 13.2 points per game last season and is the older brother of Florida sophomore guard Isaiah Brown.
Golden and his staff were still narrowing down other possible targets two days later when Arkansas freshman point guard Boogie Fland declared for the draft and entered the portal. Golden immediately decided to hold a roster spot for Fland, even though there was no guarantee that Fland would play next season in college, much less Gainesville. “We had been recruiting some other guys and had gotten down the road with them, but we made a pretty aggressive bet on his availability,” Golden said. “We just thought he’d be a really good fit.”
It helped that Fland’s agent is Mike Miller, the veteran NBA forward who was a two-year starter at Florida, including for the 2000 NCAA runner-up. Fland, who averaged 13.5 points and 5.1 assists for the Razorbacks despite missing 15 games late in the season with a thumb injury, also vibed well with Condon while the two were working out together for the Brooklyn Nets. Golden had to sweat things out as the May 28 draft deadline neared and it became apparent Fland was on the cusp of the first round. But Fland could not secure a guarantee from an NBA team, so he decided on May 13 to withdraw. He committed to Florida a week later.
When Chinyelu withdrew from the draft on May 19 and Condon did the same eight days later, that completed a roster that will enter next season as a consensus top-10 team, perhaps a top-5 team. The ability to retain and recruit so well reflects positively on Golden’s system and his record, but as Golden is the first to recognize, it is mostly reflective of the program’s formidable NIL budget. There are a handful of programs, particularly in the SEC, that had more money to spend, but Florida clearly had enough to keep up.
“We’ve done a good job on that over these last couple years. We’re definitely competitive,” Golden said. “If you broke the SEC down into four groups, last year we were probably at the top of the second group. This year we’re probably right above that. Winning (a championship) definitely helped, but we’ve been able to retain our guys for below market, which allowed us the flexibility to go out and acquire good players. We haven’t had to go out and spend ungodly amounts of money.”
To this impressive mix, the Gators will also add two four-star freshmen in 6-foot-6 wing C.J. Ingram and 6-foot-3 guard Alex Lloyd, Florida natives who are ranked No. 19 and No. 41, respectively, in the 247Sports Composite. It won’t be easy for those young players to earn minutes next season, but they’ll have every opportunity. “C.J. and Alex are both guys who can compete to get into that rotation,” Golden said. “Even though they were highly touted, they come from good families and we felt like they wouldn’t come in with big egos. They’re both capable of playing big minutes. They might not play at all. They’re going to have all summer to prove to us that they deserve to be in there.”
The Gators will be strong once again on the perimeter, but Golden is especially, and understandably, excited about his frontcourt, which will also include 7-foot-1 senior Micah Handlogten and 7-foot-9 redshirt freshman Olivier Rioux. It will be common to see a lineup that includes the 6-foot-9 Haugh at the three, the 6-foot-11 Condon at power forward and the 6-foot-11 Chinyelu at the five. Golden likens that to the Joakim Noah-Al Horford-Corey Brewer trio that led the Gators to back-to-back titles in 2006-07.
“We’re going to be different,” Golden said. “Last year we ran through our guards and we’ll still have great firepower there, but with those four guys coming back, I think our front court should be our leaders and our calling cards. This team has a chance to be absolutely elite defensively. It’s a great challenge for me and our coaching staff to get these guys humming well this summer.”
The larger issue is how well the Gators will carry the mantle of being not only the reigning champs, but a highly-ranked team at the start of the season. Golden got a small taste of that dynamic when the NCAA Tournament tipped off. “We flew under the radar until the SEC Tournament, and then on Selection Sunday it felt like everybody was picking us to win the national championship,” he said. “I think we were a little tight that first weekend, but we were able to play through it and figure it out.” Golden picked the brain of UConn coach Dan Hurley on this topic when the two were at Dick Vitale’s charity gala in Sarasota in early May. “His advice was, dude, you gotta enjoy it,” Golden said. “You don’t want to get to a level where you’re so used to winning that you don’t give yourself any grace.”
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After attending the SEC meetings in Destin, Fla., last week, Golden can now turn his attention to team workouts, which begin on June 9, as well as summer recruiting. He’ll also have some windows where he can take family trips to Scottsdale, Lake Tahoe and The Bahamas, but it won’t be long until he is back in the grind and on the chase. Florida is indeed ready to run it back, but it will feel more like a marathon than a sprint. “We’re going to be the hunted all year and we’ve got to be able to fight that,” Golden said. “We have to be very mindful of not being complacent. We can’t rest on our laurels. So we’ve got to do everything we can to recreate that chip on our shoulder. We won (the championship) because we were an incredibly hard-playing team, and we were tough. We’ve got to make sure we don’t lose that.”
