Florida Scores Yet Another Big Win as Boogie Fland Commits to the Gators

Florida immediately emerged as a strong candidate to land Fland after he dropped out of the draft, in part because his agent is Mike Miller, who starred for the Gators from 1998-2000 under coach Billy Donovan. Miller averaged 13.3 points and 6.0 rebounds in his two seasons in Gainesville, helping lead the program to the 2000 national title game.

The addition of Fland, an All-SEC caliber talent, makes Florida a clear contender to run it back. Despite losing standout guards Walter Clayton Jr., Alijah Martin and Will Richard, the team’s three leading scorers from 2024-25, the Gators should once again have one of the strongest backcourts in the country. In late April, they signed Princeton transfer Xaivian Lee, a 6-foot-4 rising senior who made the All-Ivy League First Team. Lee averaged 16.9 points, 6.1 rebounds and 5.5 assists for the Tigers, who finished 19-11. Both he and Fland were in the top 25 in Hoops HQ’s ranking of the best players in the portal. 

Florida is still waiting for 6-foot-11 sophomore forward Alex Condon to decide whether to remain in the NBA Draft. He has retained his collegiate eligibility and participated in the NBA Draft Combine last week. If Condon does return, Florida could enter next season as a consensus top-five team in the country.

Fland fills a major need for Florida: another playmaking guard capable of creating his own shot and orchestrating the offense. The Gators were dealt a significant blow when 6-foot-5 junior guard Denzel Aberdeen, who averaged 7.7 points and was projected to step into coach Todd Golden’s starting lineup, opted to transfer to Kentucky. That left Florida without any of its primary ball-handlers from last year and meant that the program had even more work to do in the portal to remain one of the top forces in the SEC. 

Of course, Golden and his staff were not able to shift their focus to the offseason until much later than every other school. The portal opened on March 24 and Florida didn’t cut down the nets in San Antonio until April 7. Still, the Gators have done an exceptional job of rebuilding their roster over the past month, also adding rising junior AJ Brown, a 6-foot-4 guard who averaged 13.2 points and shot 38.8 percent from behind the arc last season at Ohio. 

Golden’s fast-paced, analytics-driven system requires highly skilled guards who can get to the paint and spread the floor. Fland knocked down 36.5 percent of his threes prior to his injury, while Lee connected on 36.6 percent. Without Clayton Jr., a consensus first team All-American and projected first-round pick, Martin and Richard, Florida won’t be as prolific offensively (the program ranked fifth in the nation in points per game and second in adjusted offensive efficiency, per KenPom). But Fland and Lee are strong replacements who fit Florida’s style of play perfectly.

That backcourt pairing’s lack of size should be less of an issue for Florida, given the quality bigs the program has to anchor its defense and control the glass. Rising junior Thomas Haugh, a 6-foot-9 forward who played with Lee in high school (Perkiomen), is returning after breaking out in the NCAA Tournament, as is starting center Rueben Chinyelu, a 6-foot-10 rising junior, and his backup Micah Handlogten, a 7-foot-1 rising senior. Haugh also has the versatility to play on the wing, which would give the Gators even more size around Fland and Lee. 

Fland has the ability to take over games with his three-level scoring and facilitating. He was a top-20 player in the class of 2024, according to the 247Sports Composite, and won Mr. New York Basketball. Before his injury, he was leading all freshmen in both assists and assist-to-turnover ratio and had four games with at least 20 points.

With a year under his belt facing tough competition, including a matchup against Florida on Jan. 11 in which he registered 15 points and 4 assists, Fland is a safe bet to make a significant leap next season. If he does, then Florida could very well cut down the nets again in 2026.