2. Florida Gators
There was a fair amount of hype a year ago with the Florida Gators, going from Mike White to Todd Golden at head coach, who had just taken the San Francisco Dons to the NCAA Tournament. But at the end of the season, Coach White’s Georgia Bulldogs was just a .5 game behind the Gators in the overall records, with neither program making any postseason.
The obvious and understandable excuse for Florida was that it lost its best player, Colin Castleton, for the last month of the season after an injury. That being said, the team was at best, on the bubble all year round. Now they have to rebuild its entire roster since Castleton is gone, along with several guards.
Overall, they’ve lost five players this offseason, leading the wing trio of Alex Fudge, Will Richard, and Riley Kugel. They need to get at least 1-2 true centers and 1-2 true ball-handlers, currently without any in either position. Florida does have Yale transfer EJ Jarvis at the forward position coming but we’ll see what kind of production he’ll bring.
With Ole Miss hiring Chris Beard and the top of the SEC looking as formidable as ever, it’s going to be a challenge for Coach Golden to get the team in the mix. The honeymoon period is soon to be over and they’ll need to do better in the transfer portal than they did a year ago.