By: Nick Marcinko -- April 24, 2025 Florida’s men’s basketball team landed their second transfer portal commitment of the offseason when Ohio guard AJ Brown pledged to the Gators on Thursday morning. Brown took an official visit to Gainesville on Tuesday. “Committed to the Swamp,” Brown’s agency wrote on social media. Ohio guard AJ Brown commits to Florida | GatorCountry.com
I won't pretend to be an expert on Brown, but he seems to be a pretty straightforward, one-for-one Will Richard replacement. That's not to say he'll be exactly as effective as Richard, but in terms of size and play style, he slots pretty cleanly into that role.
I think he comes in at about where Will Richard came in. Good shooter, good size. Will developed all the other aspects of his game in his 3 seasons as a Gator. We get AJ for 2 seasons, and if he progresses at the same rate, we'll be extremely happy.
Yeah, if he has good lateral movement and gets parked on a wing for 3s, I am satisfied with the pickup. The game tape seems like the speed of the games are not as fast as the SEC. Probably is going to take some time to get up to speed. Um, are we still shopping for players, like Stoy___ or the USCw guy? That is a LOT of new faces if the answer is yes.
I'll add that, on top of having good height, AJ appears to have wide shoulders and long arms. Guys like that tend to be very disruptive on defense.
Plus Will has the heart of a champion and proved that. He also never got down after subpar performances. He had a few 30 point games that followed a few games when he was scoreless. Not saying Brown doesn’t - just mentioning the heart Will brought to our team.
Yeah, that wind up . . . oof. Hope it's not an issue against the recovery speed in the SEC. Do we think Brown will play more two or three? Anyone?