The dawn of the 2026-27 college basketball season sees the Florida Gators in a powerful position: on top of the sport. One year removed from the third national championship in program history, the No. 1 Gators return four starters, welcome back a familiar face and enter the season focused on overcoming a disastrous end to the prior campaign when UF exited the 2026 NCAA Tournament in the Round of 32.
While Florida still does not have an electric, efficient backcourt as it did during its title run, the veteran frontcourt is another year older and wiser. They committed to returning to the Gators and competing for another championship, not dissimilar to the decision made by the Oh Fours exactly 20 years ago ahead of the 2006-27 season.
Head coach Todd Golden, the fastest to reach 100 wins in program history, enters Year 5 as one of the most talked-about leaders in the nation, but he, too, has plenty to prove — namely that Florida can compete in the postseason without dominating from the perimeter.
The Gators enter 2026-27 ranked No. 1 in the Preseason AP Top 25 for the first time in 20 years. Florida received 47 of 59 first-place votes ahead of No. 2 Duke, which will visit the Stephen C. O’Connell Center on Dec. 1 for the first time since 1937.
Florida opens its campaign exactly one month earlier on Monday, Nov. 2, when it faces No. 14 Miami (FL) in Tampa, Florida. The game will tip off at 6 p.m. ET.
The Gators will play as few as nine or as many as 11 games against Preseason AP Top 25 teams. UF is also set to face No. 7 Texas (twice), No. 8 Tennessee, No. 12 Arkansas, No. 20 Alabama, No. 23 Kentucky and No. 24 Vanderbilt — with potential games against No. 10 Houston and No. 17 Kansas as part of the 2026 Players Era event in Las Vegas.
Florida has been projected by the coaches and media to win the SEC in 2027, which is not surprising given UF claimed the league last season and returns 81.8% of its scoring. Senior forward Thomas Haugh has received Preseason All-America and Preseason All-SEC first-team selections; he was also named Preseason SEC Player of the Year. Senior center Rueben Chinyelu, the nation’s best defensive presence, and senior F Alex Condon have received other honorifics ahead of the campaign.
“We’ve done a good job of taking the positives out of [the March Madness loss], which, transparently, I’m not sure we get Tommy, Rueben and Condo back if we make a deep run last year. I think those guys are ready to move on,” Golden said at 2026 SEC Media Days last month.
“That bad taste in their mouth provided an opportunity to get this group together for one last try, which is amazing, a great spin-off from the way last year ended. We’re doing a good job kind of using that as a learning experience. …
“We have an opportunity to try to get it right this year. It’s really, really hard to win at a high level. Just because we get these guys back, it doesn’t guarantee that we’re going to make the Final Four, but we have a better chance.
“We understand that having this group together for one last run is a special opportunity, and we’re doing everything we can to not let it slip or not take as full advantage of it as we should.”
Before the opening tip-off arrives, let’s take a look at Florida basketball entering the 2026-27 season.
Apparently, you can go home again
In an era of college sports that can see even the best teams flip most of their rosters and starting fives on an annual basis, it is admirable that Golden, his players and the Gators’ boosters have done what is necessary to not only keep Florida’s core intact but essentially return the same team that finished 27-8, won the SEC for the first time in 12 years and earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament last season.
The most substantial change is the return of senior guard Denzel Aberdeen, who left UF for rival Kentucky ahead of the 2025-26 campaign. Aberdeen’s departure was a source of debate — did he receive a better NIL package, not get promised a starting job or both? — and his return has not been smooth: A legal judgment was required to create the opportunity for him to play this season.
Still, Aberdeen adding orange back to his blue is a big deal. Not only does he have program experience and a championship mindset as the sixth man on the 2024-25 title team, he posted career-best numbers in every category last season, hitting 43.3% from the floor, 36.3% from 3-point range and 79.8% from the free-throw line with 3.4 assists, 1.8 rebounds and 0.7 steals per game.
“When he left, obviously we were disappointed to see him go,” Golden said of Aberdeen’s departure ahead of last season. “There was never any ill will. He remained close with the guys on the team. They were and still are great friends. As soon as the season was over, he reached out to one of the guys on the team and asked what it would look like, if we had any interest in bringing him back, because he had already had the mindset he was going to fight for a fifth year and get a waiver because he only played 40 minutes as a freshman.
“We were excited to bring him back. We thought he would win the waiver. … We had conversations from every guy on our team about him coming back. Not one guy wanted to leave with him coming back. I think that speaks to him as a person, the character of our program, that the guys wanted to have him back. It’s been awesome to have him back. He looks great. He looks awesome. I think he’s going to be a big addition to our team this year.”
While Aberdeen is more of a shooter and less of an attacking presence than the departing Xaivian Lee, he should take a lot of pressure off junior Boogie Fland, who can spend more time focusing on distribution as the starting point guard. With a year of starting experience under his belt, Aberdeen has also improved his ball-handling, and he’s longer defensively, making him far more disruptive on the other end of the court.
Haugh will likely be the star, Chinyelu the dominant presence and Condon the game-to-game difference maker, but Aberdeen is the X-factor who raises the Gators’ overall ceiling and brings their national title aspirations closer to reality than they were a year ago.
Competing, finding the bottom of the basket
High-level scoring was Florida’s primary issue last season — the program combined to shoot just 32.1% from 3-point land — and while Aberdeen will help, there are solutions on the team who should make an even greater impact this year. Guards senior Urban Klavžar and junior Isaiah Brown have the potential to turn the Gators’ shooting woes on a dime and potentially even make that aspect a strength for the program.
Klavžar was excellent as the SEC Sixth Man of the Year, draining 40.6% of his attempts from downtown last season and hitting 90.3% of his free throws. Brown took a while to get going from a usage standpoint, but when he was on the court, his talent flashed. He hit 34.6% of his triples and 73.3% from the charity stripe overall, but his numbers improved in SEC play, and he has shown significant improvement in the offseason while becoming a more complete player. Florida won every game in which he hit a pair of 3-pointers (5-0) last season.
Brown struggled a bit in the preseason, but Golden is proud of the way he’s working, calling him a “great dude, reliable teammate” who is “obviously not playing with the same confidence or explosiveness that we’re used to seeing.” Still, Golden is confident Brown will turn it around in due time.
The Gators may also lean on junior forward Domen Petrović, a former professional player from Slovenia who averaged 16.3 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.6 assists last season while shooting 37.6% from long range. Petrović is playing his first year of college basketball, but his size (6-foot-9) and high-level experience against older players will give Florida a more apples-to-apples substitute for Haugh and Condon than it had last season.
How the rotation plays out will be incredibly interesting. Senior G AJ Brown and sophomores Alex Lloyd and CJ Ingram will all be competing for minutes at wing. Brown was unable to play with his brother last season due to a shoulder injury, while Lloyd is said to have made significant strides over the summer. Ingram has plenty of talent but is still young and developing with a lot of players ahead of him.
“We had some struggles early in the year last year, but we got really good when our bench started playing better, and when we went to the bench, there was no drop off,” Golden said after the Stetson exhibition game. “… We need 8 or 9 guys to get through the season.”
More to know
» Florida went 1-1 in preseason scrimmages, falling 82-76 to Baylor two weeks ago before beating Stetson, 85-68, last week. UF played poorly for the first six quarters but turned it around offensively with Aberdeen and Klavžar leading the way.
» Unlike last season, when the Gators dealt with significant staff turnover under Golden, players will be more comfortable with the names and faces supporting the program as they are back for a second straight campaign.
» Golden on Fland entering his second year with Florida: “I’m excited for Boogie and our program to get him a second year. I think that continuity, being able to continue to build a partnership with me and the rest of our program, will suit him really well for a successful season this year.”
» Golden on Condon not living up to expectations last season: “He was pressing a little bit and didn’t play his best until really after the Auburn game in SEC play. Then he played like one of the best players in America the last month and a half, two months of the season. KenPom MVP five out of the last 10 games. Playing at an insanely high level. All of our guys, myself included, can use last year as a learning experience to not allow the expectations to affect us, dictate how we go.”
» Freshman center Arturas Butajevas (6-foot-11) averaged 13.9 points and 6.8 rebounds playing in Lithuania last season. He has extensive international experience, too, competing in three FIBA tournaments, and could wind up spelling Chinyelu, particularly later in the campaign. “Arty’s one that we think could really come on and really give us some good minutes as the season goes on,” Golden said.
» Freshman center Jones Lay (7-foot) is Florida’s lone high school recruit. He was unrated nationally.
