How Maxwell Hiller’s Commitment Could Help … Florida Basketball

With the No. 2 offensive tackle in the 2027 recruiting class, Maxwell Hiller, committing to Florida, a new question is now floating through Florida athletics.

Will the Gators also land his brother, Colton Hiller, a top three recruit in the 2028 class … for basketball?

The 6-foot-6, 210-pound small forward is considered one of the best rising juniors in the country, ranked No. 3 in both ESPN and 247Sports’ systems. 

Landing his brother was the first big recruiting win for  Florida football coach Jon Sumrall. Landing Colton would be the biggest high school recruiting win for basketball coach Todd Golden. 

Golden’s high school recruiting strategy has been the subject of discussion — mostly because he doesn’t have one. As with many top college coaches, he’s  heavily leaned on the transfer portal instead of recruiting high schoolers. The few recruits he does land, such as C.J. Ingram or Alex Lloyd, are ranked closer to the middle of their class than the top — frequently falling within the top 100 but outside the top 30. If Florida manages to land Colton, he’ll be the highest ranked recruit of the Golden era.

Despite only being a sophomore, Hiller has been offered by 18 schools, including two SEC ones, Alabama and Missouri. The sophomore’s value hasn’t been overstated though. Last year, he was a part of the gold-winning USA Men’s U16 national team and is expected to participate in the 2026 Men’s Junior National Team April minicamp.

So far Colton has been on unofficial visits to Alabama and Duke, but his plans for his future certainly aren’t set in stone. 

For Florida’s sake, recruiting brothers has been shown to work out. Duke definitely knows, given it recruited fraternal twins Cameron and Cayden Boozer this season. Illinois, another team Colton has gotten an unofficial offer from, also knows how to recruit twins with its duo of Zvonimir and Tomislav Ivišić. But those were all pairs of basketball brothers.

Maxwell might just be the deciding factor in whether or not Colton will come to UF. He’s already started working to get other football recruits to come to Gainesville. Who knows, maybe Maxwell’s Gator spirit will spread to his brother as well.

Category: Basketball, Feature Sports News, Gators Men's Basketball