UF Hopes 'Common Sense' Leads to Aberdeen Reunion

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Common sense.

Florida coach Todd Golden used the phrase three times during his Wednesday media scrum in addressing the Gators' pursuit of a fifth season of eligibility for Denzel Aberdeen, who played at UF for three seasons before transferring Kentucky for the 2025-26 campaign.

"It's just a common sense situation, in my opinion," Golden said.

Aberdeen, a key reserve as a junior on Florida's 2025 NCAA championship team, transferred to UK a year ago to play his senior season. The 6-foot-5 combo guard started 35 of the team's 36 games at point guard and averaged career-best numbers of 13.5 points, 36.5% shooting from the 3-point line and 3.4 assists per game in helping lead the Wildcats to 21 wins and the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

After the season, Aberdeen entered the transfer portal and after meeting with Golden and UF officials announced on social media he was returning to UF to finish work on his undergraduate degree in Education Sciences.

That won't change.

But with talk of the NCAA – in hopes of curtailing the transfer madness – perhaps of adopting at an eligibility model that would allow all student athletes a five-year participation window, UF will petition the governing body to award Aberdeen a fifth year based on him playing just 41 minutes (or barely one full game) during his entire 2022-23 freshman season with the Gators.

"This isn't a 27-year-old trying to play his eighth year in college at his sixth different school. This is a 22-year-old within his five-year clock coming back to get his degree, and I think it would be a really weird stance to try to fight him from playing," Golden said Wednesday during his first media gathering since the '25-26 season ended with a second-round NCAA Tournament loss to Iowa at Tampa on March 22. "Now if he had played 30 games and played 15 minutes a night, we wouldn't be going down this path. But to me there's a common sense approach on Denzel that I think should be solved pretty quickly."

There went those two words again.

The NCAA allows football players who play in four or less regular-season games to get an extra year – and does not count postseason games toward those participation guidelines. To Golden's point, why would a basketball player who was on the court for only 41 of the 1,324 minutes the Gators played that season – or barely 3% of the team's 33 games – not be afforded similar latitude?

"There are some really inconsistent redshirt rules in regards to men's basketball," said Golden, who just as well could be speaking on behalf of dozens of other NCAA sports. "And why are those two sports not equitable in regards to their rules?

That's the question UF will put to the NCAA on Aberdeen's behalf in hopes of putting Aberdeen back in the locker room alongside five (maybe six) players with whom he won the '25 national title.

Let the record show, Aberdeen's decision to transfer last season to one of the Florida's biggest rivals is neither now nor ever was an issue with his coaches and teammates, as evidenced by their rapport during three UF-UK meetings (all Florida wins) this past season. Every Gator in the basketball building loves Aberdeen, evidenced by the team's insistence last May – led by All-America guard Walter Clayton Jr. – that he accompany the team to its national-championship invitation to the White House after he had transferred to the Kentucky. The Rowdy Reptiles may have mocked Aberdeen with taunts of "GA-TOR TRAI-TOR" during his visit to Exactech Arena in February, but those feelings were nowhere in the Florida locker room.

"Listen, we missed him last year and he missed us," Golden said, chalking up their parting to the current landscape of college athletics. "I think he had a good experience at Kentucky, but obviously we're going to fight to get his additional year and allow him to be a part of our team and play again. … Denzel loves the guys on the team. I think he really appreciates our staff and our program and what we have going on here. There were no hard feelings. There was no animosity between him and I. And it was a very quick conversation. It was like, 'Hey, do you want to come back?' He's like, 'Yes, I do.' I was like, 'All right, great. Let's go.' "

And away they went.

Time will tell if common sense prevails.

Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu. Find his story archives here.

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