Downtown Dilemmas: Florida’s Biggest Championship Obstacle

The Baylor bench erupted as the buzzer sounded in overtime and the scoreboard read 82-76. Sunday’s contest counted only as an exhibition, but Baylor just proved it could take down the No. 1 team in college basketball. 

For Florida, the loss didn’t necessarily come from the hands of the Bears, it was a familiar foe: an 18-inch-wide steel ring attached to the backboard. 

The Gators shot 4-for-29 from three and 34.7% from the field in an offensive performance that was disappointing, but not necessarily surprising. After an offseason filled with key core players returning and high expectations, one question remained: Can the Gators shoot?

With 6:27 to go in the first half, the Gators hadn’t hit a shot from deep. Rueben Chinyelu caught the ball in the paint, had two Bears on him and turned for help. 

Chinyelu spotted Thomas Haugh rotating to the top of the 3-point line and fired. Haugh caught the pass, set his feet and sunk a three to give Florida a 15-13 lead. It was the first three of the game for Florida and there wasn’t a lot to follow. 

Less than a week prior, Chinyelu confidently stated at SEC Media Days that Florida would win the national championship. Last season, Florida shot 31.2% from three, a number far lower than any of the past 10 national championship teams. After a loss in the round of 32 to Iowa, the Gators retained the majority of their roster, added Denzel Aberdeen and focused on revenge. 

In the matchup with Baylor, Aberdeen went 0-for-10 from long range, Haugh finished 2-for-6 and Urban Klavzar shot 0-for-5 from deep. 

“We’re an unselfish team, we play hard and try to play the right way, but we got to make shots too,” Gators coach Todd Golden said. “Those guys, specifically [Klavzar], had an off night by his standards, he had really good looks and just wasn’t able to capitalize.”

On Wednesday, Golden again mentioned Aberdeen and Klavzar’s performance, but brought up their track record, specifically Klavzar’s 2025-26 SEC Sixth Man of the Year and Aberdeen’s efficiency with Kentucky. 

“When we get those two guys that volume of threes, if we do that and lose we gotta live with it,” Golden said. 

An abysmal 13.9% from three likely won’t persist for the Gators, but echoes of the shooting woes from last season is a dangerous sign for Florida’s national championship hopes this upcoming season. 

Since the NCAA started tracking 3-point percentage, no national champion has ranked lower than 300 for team percentage. The worst was UConn in 2011, who shot 32.9% from three and ranked 211. Last year, the Gators were the 317th-ranked team in the category and the problem looks like it has leaked through the offseason. 

For the last 10 national champions, only three have shot below 36% from three: 2016-17 North Carolina (35.5%), 2023-24 UConn (35.8%) and 2024-25 Florida (35.6%). 

Of those teams, the 3-point attempts per game were: 20 for UNC, 23.8 for UConn and 27.4 for Florida. Florida didn’t exactly struggle from three in its run to the championship, but it did shoot more than other teams who struggled behind the arc. 

Last year, the Gators averaged 23.7 attempts per game. With a bigger lineup, Golden managed to reduce shots from behind the arc and instead focus on where the Gators thrived: the paint. 

But in the exhibition loss to Baylor, Florida shot 29 despite rarely hitting shots. Although the Gators are expecting increased production from Aberdeen, who shot 36.3% at Kentucky last year, the supremacy in the paint has remained a constant from last season. 

Another constant is the fluidity in transition. In the loss to Baylor, the Gators showed flashes of excellence on fast breaks, but when the offense slowed down, the shots just didn’t fall. 

Golden mentioned that on 13 threes in the first half, where Florida made one, about 10 of those were uncontested. If the Gators continue to leave points on the board, the vicious defense and paint dominance can only carry a team with championship hopes so far. 

“Offensively, we just weren’t really able to find a rhythm,” Golden said. “We allowed those misses to affect us in other parts of the game that don’t require talent.”

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