Todd Golden isn’t hiding where Florida stands on Denzel Aberdeen. The Gators coach says he’s “very confident” the guard will be eligible, and he’s treating Aberdeen like a major piece of Florida’s plans if the courts let him play.
Aberdeen’s path back to Gainesville has been a strange one. He transferred to Kentucky last offseason after Florida’s national title run, then ended up back with the Gators for the 2026-27 season while pursuing a fifth year of eligibility.
If that bid holds up, he’ll line up against the Wildcats in the regular-season finale at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center on March 7.
Golden made clear Aberdeen was part of the core Florida wanted to keep together this spring, alongside Thomas Haugh, Alex Condon and Rueben Chinyelu.
“Our big key was our ability to retain our best players,” he said. “… Bringing Denzel Aberdeen back has been a huge lift for our program.
We retain, I think, six or seven of our top eight or nine. We had some real good continuity that way.
Bringing Denzel back adds to that.”
Florida didn’t just hope Aberdeen would come back, either. After Kentucky’s season ended, the Gators got in touch quickly, and a Florida player - later confirmed to be Alex Condon - also reached out to plant the idea. When Golden learned Aberdeen wanted to return home to Gainesville and chase a fifth year, he put it to the team.
The answer was immediate.
That support matters, because Aberdeen’s status still has to be settled by the courts. Golden, though, hasn’t changed his stance. He says Florida believes the guard is in good shape to play.
“He’s eligible right now. He won his temporary injunction,” he said.
“The NCAA is trying to keep him from playing, just like any other person in that class, which is a conversation for a different day. We remain very confident.
I think Denzel, first of all, I think he has the best facts of anybody in regards to these Five-for-Five situations, a great legal team that put an incredible argument forward. We’re planning on having him and we feel good about it.”
Golden also stressed there was no bad blood when Aberdeen left Florida for Kentucky. The two sides stayed connected, and Golden said the current Florida players never had an issue with bringing him back.
“Denzel, as you know covering Kentucky, is an incredible young man, a great kid,” Golden told KSR. “When he left, obviously we were disappointed to see him go.
There was never any ill will. He remained close with the guys on the team.
They were and still are great friends. As soon as the season was over, he reached out to one of the guys on the team and asked what it would look like, if we had any interest in bringing him back, because he had already had the mindset that he was going to fight for a fifth year and get a waiver because he only played 40 minutes as a freshman.
“We were excited to bring him back. We thought he would win the waiver.
We thought he had a great case for the Five-for-Five standpoint. We had conversations with every guy on our team about him coming back.
Not one guy wanted to leave with him coming back. I think that speaks to him as a person, the character of our program, that the guys wanted to have him back.”
And Golden likes what he sees on the floor, too. After a breakthrough year at Kentucky, Aberdeen stepped into the primary point guard role when Jaland Lowe went down for the season. Florida’s coach said the guard has come back looking sharp.
“It’s been awesome to have him back,” Golden continued. “He looks great.
He looks awesome. I think he’s going to be a big addition to our team this year.“
Florida and Kentucky will get one more meeting in the regular-season finale in Gainesville on March 6, with Aberdeen’s eligibility still the only thing standing between that reunion and a full-time homecoming.
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