Florida ended last season on a 12-game winning streak, helping Todd Golden’s Gators win both the 2025 SEC Tournament And the 2025 NCAA tournament.
Now they are legitimate candidates to repeat.
But the reigning national champions didn’t get off to a great start in their potential back-to-back season earlier this week, losing their opener 93-87 to Arizona in Las Vegas on Monday. In simple terms: Five-star freshman Koa Peat overwhelmed Florida’s frontcourtfinishing with 30 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three steals in 36 minutes. So it will be interesting to see how the Gators respond when they return to the court Thursday night for their home opener against North Florida.
Tip-off is scheduled for 8:00 PM ET.
Freshman college basketball debuts follow: Cameron Boozer, AJ Dybantsa impress, Koa Peat explodes
Cameron Salerno
“I think our bigs know as a group that we have to be the best frontcourt in the country this year,” said Florida junior Thomas Haugh, a 6-foot-4 forward who finished with 27 points and four rebounds against Arizona but was still part of a frontcourt dominated by an 18-year-old playing his first collegiate game. “We can’t let someone like that come here and score 30 points on us. That’s not acceptable and it won’t happen in the future.”
As always, we’ll see.
Worth noting: Florida plays at Duke on December 2, which is of course led by another five-star freshman in Cameron Boozer. The 6-9 forward is one of the legitimate candidates to become the No. 1 overall pick in 2026 NBA draft. He finished with 15 points, 13 rebounds, three steals, two assists and a block in Duke’s season-opening win over Texas.
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