Ahead of a season with high expectations, Florida head coach Todd Golden, senior center Rueben Chinyelu and junior guard Boogie Fland spoke with the media for the first time about the 2026-27 campaign.
All three discussed the stakes and how this team, which is expected to be the preseason No. 1, is shaping up with over a month before the season tips off.
Here are five takeaways from Thursday’s media availability.
The team is confident Denzel Aberdeen will be cleared
If there’s one question left about this Florida Gators team, it's whether guard Denzel Aberdeen will be cleared for a fifth year.
Aberdeen spent his first three seasons at Florida before transferring to Kentucky for his senior campaign. During the 2025-26 season, he averaged 13.6 points and 3.4 assists per game for the Wildcats.
The Orlando native announced his return to Gainesville for the 2026-27 season on April 10, but remains ineligible amid the ongoing back-and-forth between the NCAA and the many athletes in Aberdeen’s shoes seeking another year of eligibility.
On Sept. 11, Aberdeen filed a temporary injunction against the NCAA, and Golden said he is confident he’ll have the former national champion ready to go for the upcoming season.
“Denzel has the best case, individually, of any guy that's kind of in this situation of dealing with the NCAA's confusing, operative system that they're employing right now,” Golden said.
Aberdeen’s hearing date is set for Tuesday at 10 a.m. Judge George M. Wright of Florida's Eighth Judicial Circuit will preside over the case.
Florida is prepared to shoulder high expectations
With the players on its roster, and potentially adding Aberdeen to that list, Florida is the most likely option to be the No. 1 team in the AP preseason poll heading into the season.
However, Florida is not new to having high expectations heading into a season.
A year ago, the Gators were the team to beat, fresh off a 2025 national championship. As a result, they took on a laborious nonconference schedule that included matchups against Arizona, Connecticut and Duke. With last year’s experience, Florida is ready to take the loaded predictions head-on, and that starts with Golden.
“I feel like last year kind of carrying the torch of the national championship into the season was a lot,” Golden said. “This year, I feel like all of us kind of got through that last year and we know we're gonna have a lot of expectations, but. we're not as worried about it this year.”
The Associated Press is set to release its preseason rankings for men’s basketball in mid-to-late October.
The Gators were in the lab over the summer
From starters to deep-bench pieces, Thursday revealed that many of Florida’s players spent the offseason grinding and getting in shape.
Golden credited this to athletic performance director Victor Lopez and the rest of the strength and conditioning team.
"He's about as good as anybody is out there if you look at the transformation of our guys when they get here and what they look like when they leave and the growth that they make while they're here,” Golden said. “It's something that we don't take for granted. We think we have the best strength and conditioning program in the country that way.”
When it comes to specific players, Golden highlighted sophomore guard Alex Lloyd's improvement in his defense, rebounding and valuing the basketball. The fifth-year head coach added that CJ Ingram has improved despite dealing with “a little bit of a back issue.”
Another player who has made progress is Urban Klavzar.
He spent much of the offseason at home in Europe when the team wasn't holding practices and is reportedly in the best shape of his career.
“Whatever he did over there, keep doing it.” Fland said. “He might be the fastest on the team. I was the fastest last year, but he might be the fastest, not gonna lie."
Team chemistry is already there
When a team like Florida has an overwhelming majority of its players return for the upcoming season, it already has strong chemistry.
For the Gators, those relationships flourished with bonding during the summer.
In August, Thomas Haugh, Alex Condon, Aturas Butajevas, Alex Kovatchev, Aberdeen, Ingram, Fland and Lloyd went on a trip to Los Angeles to train and hit the gym. Fland said Condon and Haugh organized the trip, and they even made time to check out some amusement parks.
“We tried to get everybody, but you know, some people had gone home already,” Fland said.
That’s not the only teammate trip that took place during the summer. Brothers AJ and Isaiah Brown spent time in New York City — Fland’s hometown — during the offseason.
"I told them ‘hit up any deli, any good food spot you can,’" Fland said.
Chinyelu is back — and hungry
Chinyelu is coming off one of the most dominant seasons by a Florida center in program history.
During his junior season, Chinyelu set program single-season records for most double-doubles (19) and offensive rebounds (137), and he was the first Gator in 50 seasons to average double-digit rebounds (11.2). He also averaged 10.9 points per game.
Chinyelu earned Naismith, NABC and Southeastern Conference Defensive Player of the Year honors. He also was named SEC Scholar Athlete of the Year and received all-conference second team honors.
Despite this success, his season ended with a 0-point, 1-rebound outing in Florida’s 73-72 upset loss to Iowa in the second round of the 2026 NCAA Tournament.
"I was pretty upset at myself for not being able to do more,” Chinyelu said. “It wasn't a good taste."
After testing the NBA pre-draft conference and participating in the combine, the 6-foot-10 center announced his return to Gainesville on May 21. He said the Iowa game played a part in his return. Still, he looks forward to running back another season with Florida’s returners, including frontcourt standouts Haugh and Condon.
“Just being able to be around them, just getting to play with them, guys that you know you've played with for like two years, three years,” Chinyelu said. “You guys have created this bond. You guys are brothers. So just being able to know that I'm able to do that and chase another championship playing with them, it's something that was up there.”
Florida’s quest for its fourth national championship starts Nov. 2 with its season opener against Miami in Tampa’s Benchmark International Arena, where UF lost to Iowa in the season-ending bout.
Contact Jeffrey Serber at Jserber@alligator.org. Follow him on X @JeffreySerber.
Jeffrey is the Fall 2026 men's basketball reporter and a third-year journalism sports & media major with a media, management and production minor. In his free time, he enjoys hanging out with friends and family and rooting for the Miami sports teams.
