It’s never easy for head coaches when they lose one of their best players to the portal and even more so when that player commits to an in-conference rival.
However, for Florida Gators head coach Todd Golden, he’s confident that he’ll be able to replace former guard Denzel Aberdeen, who left for Kentucky this offseason.
“Losing Denzel Aberdeen was tough but we wish him nothing but the best,” Golden said live on The Field of 68. “I'm confident we can find somebody to take that spot.”
Golden has already grabbed one guard out of the portal this summer, and it’s a pretty good one in former Princeton guard Xaivian Lee. Lee, measuring in at 6-foot-4 and 190 pounds, ranks as the No. 32 overall transfer and No. 7 point guard, according to 247Sports Transfer Rankings.
As a junior, he averaged 16.9 points, a career-high 5.5 assists and a career-high 6.1 rebounds on 43.9/36.6/78.9 shooting splits.
There is one small caveat about him and it’s that this was the production in the Ivy League and not a Power 4 conference, which begs the question of his play translating to the SEC.
Although it doesn’t sound like Golden is too worried about this.
“Xaivian is an elite offensive player,” Golden said. “He has always performed as well against Tier A and B competition as he does against everybody else.”
Furthermore, Golden stated that the transfer will have the ball in his hands more often than not next season.
“We'll play him on the ball quite a bit this year,” he added.
There is much to like about him, Golden said. The rising fourth-year head coach noted his progression as a shooter year-to-year, but was more in love with his ball handling, assists percentage and turnover percentage.
“Where he’s incredibly elite is his ball handling and playmaking,” Golden said. “He had like a 35% assists rate with a 14% turnover rate last year. For the stat nerds like us, to have an assists rate like that and a turnover rate that low, it says a lot about his ball handling and play-making ability.”
Lee won’t be the only guard added to the Gators roster this offseason, though, after Florida lost a trio of seniors in Walter Clayton Jr., Alijah Martin and Will Richard, on top of Aberdeen’s unexpected departure.
One name that has been heavily linked to the Gators is Desmond Claude. The former USC Trojan is expected to visit Florida on Thursday, according to On3’s Joe Tipton on X. Claude just wrapped up his junior year, averaging 15.8 points, 3.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game.
Additionally, the Gators have also already added former Ohio Bobcat wing AJ Brown. Brown is the brother of current Gator Isaiah Brown.
Whomever they add, Golden strongly believes in his guys for next season.
“The Gators are gonna have a really good group again,” he said.
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