It meant basketball and football. Last second I thought of baseball and don’t even know for softball and others so yeah.
Top high school recruits is an interesting line of inquiry. According to 247, these are our highest rated recruits since they started rating: Beal Lewis Walker Hill Boynton Nembhard Mann Young Robinson CJ Ingram There is definitely a lot to like in this list, but it’s also striking how few of our Gator legends show up here. (Though Brewer was just off the list at #11). And a Golden player is already there. You know, I wonder who would I trade of our current players to get players off this list? Certainly I would want Beal and Mann, but I think I would prefer Clayton. I definitely would like to get Young as well, but Condon’s stats are actually better than Young’s at this point. Hill is probably an upgrade over Aberdeen, but Aberdeen is a bench player, so that is probably not a fair comparison. Now not every Golden team will be as skilled as this one, and certainly there could be arguments for many of those other players, but this list is the top rated players of the last couple decades vs a team from a single year. At the very least, it seems that there is more than one way to skin this cat.
The bigger need here is gator fans better be ready to pony up into the NIL fund for this program and make sure he has all the resources he needs and he doesn't feel like he's limited here vs some place like UNC, Kansas or UK. We already know we have the community to keep a coach here vs a big program in Billy D. I made a post about this during March Madness last year talking about this exact issue. The biggest reason I could see him leaving is he feels his potential is being stunted vs the resources at a blue blood. And I said then what I'll say now: if he continued on the trajectory he was going, gator nation better be ready to make sure he feels loved and has all the NIL money he needs to compete with anyone and fully exercise his talents. He has continued on that trajectory.
What I’ve found interesting about that Blue Bloods in recent years is that they haven’t been as successful as really good coaches who find a solid program and stick with it. Out of the top tier, UNC has struggled, Kentucky lost its head coach, Kansas isn’t having a great year, and Indiana has been terrible. Only Duke is legitimately competitive at a high level (and Scheyer is going nowhere). Plenty of others traditionally in that second tier aren’t doing much, either: UCLA, Arizona, Arkansas, Louisville. Probably not fair to put UConn in that next tier given what Calhoun and Ollie did before Hurley, but the best programs right now really are where they are because of that coach who brought them there: Pearl, Oats, Barnes, Painter at Purdue, Few, Sampson, Buzz, Otzelberger, etc. They’ve all had some degree of success before, but they have surpassed that because of good head coaches who stayed put and didn’t go to a Blue Blood. Hoping that holds for Golden. He has turned this program around almost overnight with the NIL resources on hand, in part because he didn’t get into bidding wars over elite 5* preps or marquee transfers. He knows what he wants, has gone out and found it, and then develops and retains it. Florida has enough resources to be a consistently competitive national player.
I was just reading that the State of Alabama passed a law exempting NIL money from state income tax. Jeebus. Talk about favoritism for athletes above the common man and woman. Fortunately, Florida has an edge in that we don't have state income taxes. We should use that in recruiting. If we did have a state tax, I would not be okay with exempting any earner from it.
HS players are too hit and miss. Getting top proven transfers is often more reliable. Golden has shown that he can draw a variety of talent from a variety of sources, and is an amazing evaluator of talent. Aberdeen, Haugh, Condon….show me 3 better finds in college basketball. He’s also great at player development, look at the improvement in those 3 players alone. And he gets players that want to and do play and compete as a team. He’s building a sustainable culture. Golden is the man
Fun to read. And no way Hill over Aberdeen….is was fast in the open court. He was a poor and inconsistent finisher. He was a terrible shooter. Give me Denzel all day as far as an efficient player. Yes on Mann and Beal, that’s it.
I’d trade Walker for any of our front court rotation guys (including Alexis), sadly. Really seemed like a waste. I remember some game Bilas was working when he said “Chris Walker needs to look in a mirror. Walk-on Jacob Kurtz is taking his minutes.”
Chris Walker was a classic case of trying to run before you can walk. Believed his own hype train and was really inattentive to coaching. Needed to work from the ground up learning to use his frame much more fluidly and add some bulk for D-I. All the 5 star talent was locked in there, but unfortunately the keymaster was someone who believed the chest was already unlocked.
Hill was the one who consistently dribbled the ball off his foot and out of bounds isn’t he? Think he only had one year of playing decent if I recall
Lol... yep, suddenly he's become a bit of a savant... just wait, if our football team does very well (10 wins or more) then he too might be lauded for a raise.
There was a lot of more going on for that poor kid. https://247sports.com/college/flori...m-chris-walkers-god-mom-to-the-ncaa-26026310/
I recall Hill being being pretty solid as a PG, or at least fast against the press and pretty good vision. His main issue was shooting (or lack thereof). It’s just hard to make it work if your PG is shooting 50% from the FT line and 20% from 3. His last year here he at least got his FT shooting back up to 66%, but still far less than ideal.
TG has a better record his first three years here at UF than BD. We are a legit contender to win it all in his year 3. I am hoping we are going to do everything needed to keep him because he will/is an amazing young coach.
