Tag: Rueben Chinyelu

247Sports ranks incoming Florida basketball transfers

All three of the transfer portal players Todd Golden is bringing to Florida are ranked inside 247Sports’ top 150.

The 2024 college basketball transfer portal closed on Tuesday, prompting an update to the 247Sports rankings of the top 150 players in the portal.

Florida’s three incoming transfers all made the list. Washington State center Rueben Chinyelu leads the group at No. 107. He averaged 4.7 points, 5.0 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game as a freshman last season.

Next up is Chattanooga center Sam Alexis, who almost averaged a double-double last season (10.8 points and 9.1 rebounds per game), at No. 112. Similar to Chinyuelu, Alexis is a defensive presence who should dominate the paint after putting up more than two blocks per game as a sophomore.

Rounding out the list is Florida Atlantic shooting guard Alijah Martin at No. 132. Todd Golden says he’s looking for a Zyon Pullin-esque contribution from Martin this season. Pullin was an All-SEC First Teamer in his one year as a Gator.

The Orange and Blue only lost two players to the portal — Riley Kugel (Kansas) and Aleks Szymczyk. Kugel is ranked one spot below Alexis at No. 113 on the list.

Follow us @GatorsWire on Twitter and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.

Florida scores another transfer portal win with former Cougars center

The Gators may have found their stand-in for Handlogten this season in this west coast transfer.

Florida basketball added another player from the transfer portal to its 2024-25 roster on Thursday. Former Washington State Cougars center [autotag]Rueben Chinyelu[/autotag] — a rising sophomore originally from Enugu Agidi, Nigeria — committed to the Gators for the second portal score of the offseason for Todd Golden’s gang.

“We are thrilled to welcome Reuben into our basketball family here at Florida,” Golden announced. “He is an ultra-talented young man who fits into the culture of our program seamlessly. He has fantastic tools on both the offensive and defensive end, and we expect him to make a big jump across the board as he enters his second collegiate season.”

Chinyelu played 35 games for WSU last season with 12 starts, averaging 4.7 points per game while adding five rebounds per game and 45 total blocks in 14-ish minutes of playing time per game.

The Gators had pursued him during the 2023 cycle, hosting Chinyelu on an official visit in September 2022, but ultimately chose the Cougars over Florida, the Tennessee Volunteers and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights.

The 6-foot-11-inch, 245-pound transfer will ostensibly fill the role that Micah Handlogten — who will need some time to recover from a severe leg fracture — had in the rotation next season.

Follow us @GatorsWire on Twitter and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.