Agreed. There's no accounting for what UK may have valued just the harm to us it would possibly do. But if Zel got what he thought he deserved, it might be life-changing if it's invested wisely.
Love the pick-up but gotta say it doesn't make a lot of sense unless it's just the fact that the money was there. I don't see him starting or, otherwise, having a bigger role (maybe even as big of a role) as he would have for y'all. It's being reported that UK has a good amount of money to spend, this year, but wouldn't this run the risk of making other UK commits want more money? No way most of the starters are getting near 2 million. This would make more sense to me if Oweh was staying in the draft.
UF coaches evaluated him for 3 years and determined that he had maximized his potential, so the NIL dollars he would get were probably capped. It's better for him to get what he can now, using his experience on a national championship team to command additional NIL money. For UF, Aberdeen was a one-year player and we can probably get a multi-year player with more development potential for the same NIL or less.
This is tough news for sure. Going to UK is a gut punch, but time to move on and for Golden to put the full court press on Henshall. Condon comes back and reunites with Henshall and Haugh now gets his high-school teammate Lee. That would be a big time pickup to get Henshall. While it stinks that Aberdeen is leaving for UK, watching Haugh and Condon for a 3rd year would be really cool should Condon come back and I think he should.
doesn’t seem like a good long term basketball career move to go from being a guaranteed starter to again coming off the bench.. that’s without taking into account a FL kid going to its basketball rival, which won’t help with his non basketball professional aspirations at home..
I have no idea if it's accurate (and it probably isn't), but I've seen on the interwebs that Denzel wanted $1 million to return to UF. CTG said no. So Zel got UK to give him $2 million. Those boys up at UK are next-level negotiators.
wow. WTF is happening in college basketball. At the same time, how can you say no to $2M to play college ball - but UK? That's a bit of a slap in the face to play for a rival.
I see someone wrote on there forum that they should of gotten Clayton last year and they would have won a natty, also they like adredeen but he is no Clayton. Hahaha
UF has arrived . . . . . . . . arrived at the point where blue-blood Kentucky is poaching players from the . . . . NATIONAL CHAMPION FLORIDA GATORS!!!
The numbers aren’t verifiable, so you have to take them with a grain of salt. A slap in the face either way.
No hard feelings against Abereen as I might have done the same thing for that much. It's easy to tell someone else to turn down money. It does make the 04's just that much more awesome in my eyes, when you think of what they gave up to come back to school.
Matt Norlander @norlander.bsky.social Some more CBB intel here, per sources: Kentucky landed Florida transfer Denzel Aberdeen earlier today. Aberdeen asked UF for $2 million, was shot down on that request and subsequently entered the portal. What he got from UK isn't known for sure, but stands to reason he landed in that range ...
I’m surprised I don’t really care Zel is transferring and that it will be UK. Could be my passion in general for college hoops is just down or I’m more reserved or I just expect these kind of things. More likely it is I would prefer to keep Zel but don’t think he is a crucial or unreplaceable talent so I find myself not upset at all.
