CBS Sports follows CTG on the road recruiting

No mention of the top dawg

 

Enjoyable read, thanks 62!

 

Love to hear our coach say that for a change!

 

"We won't take a younger guy unless we think he is physically ready to play for us in his first year," Golden said. "We need pros. We need bad-ass dudes."

Golden doesn't expect most of his freshmen to be able to play significant minutes their first year. The calculus has changed, and Florida can't rely on high school recruiting as its primary source if it wants to get back to consistent top-three status in the SEC."

this says a lot about his recruiting philosophy and explains some of what we've seen from recruits

 

That piece, plus the Athletic article, really give you a sense of how Golden wants to build the program. He isn’t going to waste time, energy, or NIL cash on preps or the shady AAU circuit unless the prospect is local/regional and physically ready to play. His build won’t be anything like Donovan’s, or what White tried. He would far rather use the portal and international ranks to find immediate contributors who are physically more mature, know the game better, and have proven they can compete at a higher level.

 

It certainly seems like Golden has a clear plan and strategy that he has thought through in detail. It may or may not work out -- flat out admitting that we're just not going to compete for the best players in the country is...honest, certainly, and it does eliminate the most direct and straightforward path to championship contention.

But again, at the very least it's apparent that there's a mind at work here and the program is pursuing a clear strategy. Not to relitigate the Mike White era, but I never did have the sense that he had a vision that he was pursuing with determination -- there was a lot of improvisation and scrambling, albeit often out of necessity. Golden seems to know what he wants and what he's looking for.

 

I am repeating myself, but I expect Riley Kugel to be the most talented player on the team. Whether that means commanding big minutes as a freshman remains to be seen.

 

That article got me revved up. The future of Gator basketball is bright again.

 

Agree Riley Kugel is very talented, hope the jump to this level is a relatively smooth transition for him

 

If memory serves me correctly, Gator teams have used the portal successfully since it opened up. International, not so much. The biggest problem has been finding high school kids that develop and want to stay. Not much different except for the talent level that may end up here.

 

Not to mention that it seems we finally have some "height" and a few bigs on the team, Mike just never seemed to bring many "bigs" in.

 

I really, really like Golden's attitude and approach.

 

Pretty sure he was talking about his time at USF when speaking about not competing with the Blue Bloods..

 

They brought this up on the podcast again. He more or less said unless the player is from the state or a big Gator fan, they are not going to go hard after the top 15 type players. They don't feel it is worth the investment of time since the chances are so low of landing them once a UK or UNC gets involved. They'd rather focus on that next tier of high school recruits and lean heavy on the transfer portal.

 

I think that Riley Kugel is a top-15 player talent wise despite his lower ranking. I also think that Aberdeen is underrated. As of right now, we have 2 schollies available for next year. Considering that it’s easier to get top players out of the portal, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to focus all of the staff’s time on high school kids. Grab one good one now and call it a day until after the end of the coming season.

 

Agree 100%. It’s a fascinating era of roster construction, I think we’ve taken the right approach.

 

A) I think Kugel is exactly who Hovde had in mind when he said this in the second piece:

B) Your comment about the 2023 class is also what Golden said in the second piece, as well:

And what he added here:

 

I'm even more jazzed after reading Part II of the article.

 

According to MaxPreps, Kugel averaged 0.5 points as a junior. As a senior, he averaged 16.5 ppg, 4.8 rpg and 3.2 apg. He reminds me of what happened to Anthony Davis in that he had a growth spurt and exploded onto the scene late in high school. What particularly excites me about Riley is that he might continue to explode as he starts his career at UF. If so, he won't be playing college ball for long, so, hopefully, the Gators' coaching staff takes maximum advantage of him while he is here.