Gators Basketball's Defense Shows Clear Improvement

The Florida Gators historic start to their season be possible in part to strong improvements made on defense

The Gators defense has made significant strides this season / Matt Pendleton-Imagn Images

Gainesville, Fla. — The Florida Gators' defense in the 2023-24 season was a hologram when trying to guard its opponents. Baskets were dropping with ease and the points per game allowed were just too high to be sustainable. 

This forced head coach Todd Golden to shift his focus onto one clear thought. Fixing his team’s defense. 

And with just one non-conference game left in the 2024-25 season for his Gators, Golden seems to have solved that problem. 

The initial step in fixing it began when Florida welcomed Alijah Martin, Sam Alexis and Rueben Chinyelu to the program this summer, all of which are more than capable defenders at their positions. 

But there’s more to it than just these three, the Gators are also seeing higher minutes and better production from guys like Denzel Aberdeen and Thomas Haugh this season. Both are above-average defenders in their respective ways. 

As a result of this combined effort from everyone on the roster, the Gators find themselves in the top 50 teams in the country when it comes to scoring defense, giving up 65.0 points per game. 

This number looks even sweeter as well when you take the time to look at what they were allowed last season. In the previous season, Florida was surrendering 79.2 opponent points per game. This number put them 327th out of 351 total teams. 

Another area that has seen a drastic change is opponent field goal percentage. A season ago, they were No. 196 across all Division I teams. Now, the Gators are ranked No. 12 in this category, holding their opponents to just 37.8% from the field per game. 

These two are probably the most important ones when it comes to winning games and if they keep it up, then it’s hard not to believe in this team’s chances to take home the SEC and be a threat for March Madness. 

These aren’t the only areas where the Gators are excelling though. 

Florida also ranks No. 18 in three-point percentage defense (27.9) and No. 27 in blocks per game (5.2).  So, effectively, the defense is limiting opponents three’s while also protecting the paint at a high level. If that isn’t a recipe for success, I don’t know what is. 

However, the real test for Florida has yet to be handed out. 

The non-conference schedule has been favorable to Golden and his players, but now the gauntlet of the SEC is upon them. 

With that in mind, there’s no doubt that these numbers will rise. Especially when their opening three conference games are against Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas. 

But, at the same time, their defense looks like a buzz saw that most teams will not be eager to face and look tenfold better than it did last year.  

Golden and the Gators put in tons of effort to fix the defense and in the early going of things, they are certainly reaping the rewards from their labors.