Gators' Handlogten 'Healthy as He's Ever Been,' Ready for Bigger Role

Now, Handlogten enters his third season with the program competing with returning starter Rueben Chinyelu, reportedly in the best shape he's been in since joining the team as a transfer from Marshall. Handlogten said the offseason consisted of losing body fat and gaining strength while keeping his mobility.

“I was 100% after the championship, it was more just trying to get back into shape, trying to lose a couple of the body fat percentages that I had," he said. "I think I was up to 17 or 18 percent body fat, which for me is just not very sustainable. I was able to get down to nine percent, which is really big for me as far as mobility goes, so just trying to improve my body like that.”

That work he put in is evident to those around him. Alex Condon said Handlogten is in the best shape he's ever seen him. Thomas Haugh said he is a "rebounding machine," praising Handlogten for his mobility up and down the court.

"He's playing great right now, and as healthy as he's been in a long time," head coach Todd Golden said. "You can tell his confidence continues to grow. I think he's one of the best centers in America, I do."

Part of his confidence comes from matching up Chinyelu on a daily basis. The intensity between the two has carried over to the rest of the team. Even more important is the fact that Handlogten and Chinyelu do not let the on-court competition carry over off the court.

"Playing against him has been lovely. Has been fun," Chinyelu said. "You know, we go at it each day knowing that it's nothing personal. It's just business. So, whenever we're on the court, you know it's business, you know it's going to take care of business, because, you know that's what we do.

While Handlogten looks to elevate his play on the court, he is also looking to continue growing as a leader. With Florida losing three seniors and four total contributors at guards, Golden is looking towards his returning bigs to take on the leadership role for the team.

"Their energy and enthusiasm has been great. Even at the beginning of the summer, they came back with an awesome mentality," Golden said. "So my expectation and the rest of the staffs’ expectation is for them to lead the way for the rest of the guys in terms of the work ethic and what the expectation is for practice every day.”

Handlogten, who has played college basketball the longest of the four bigs, has taken role personally.

"It's been a really big change for us, but we’ve adapted to it really well," he said. "You have the four bigs from last year all coming back, and that was really big for us because during the offseason, we all talked about it and we wanted to all grow and do this back to back thing together.

"We want to go for it, and so we kind of all sat down and we realized that we obviously don’t have those three senior guards that were our leaders, and so someone had to step up, and so we all kind of took it upon ourselves as the returners to take that step.”

As confident as he's ever been, as healthy as he's ever been and taking on a larger leadership role, Handlogten is poised to save his best college season for last as the Gators look to go back-to-back as national champions.

"He was a huge reason why we won last year, him coming back, his unselfishness, his willingness to give up half of his year to be a part of it. He played such an impactful role," Golden said. "I think he will be even more impactful for this year's team than he was last year."

Florida opens the season on Nov. 3 in Las Vegas against Arizona.