Boogie Fland was once signed to play at UK. Now, he’s joining the NCAA champions
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- Guard Boogie Fland will transfer from Arkansas to Florida for the 2025-26 college season.
- Fland was originally signed to play college basketball for John Calipari at Kentucky.
- Last season, Fland averaged 13.5 points and 5.1 assists at Arkansas as a freshman.
Just over a year ago, Boogie Fland was signed to play college basketball at Kentucky. But fast forward to May 2025, and Fland is now set to spend next season at his second SEC school.
On Tuesday morning, Fland — a 6-foot-2 guard — committed to defending national champions Florida out of the NCAA transfer portal. He will join the Gators after spending his freshman season playing at Arkansas for former UK head coach John Calipari.
Originally a five-star recruit and a McDonald’s All-American from New York in the 2024 high school class, Fland was part of a six-player recruiting class that Calipari had lined up at UK before the 2024-25 season. That group fell apart after Calipari’s decision to leave Kentucky for Arkansas after 15 seasons leading the UK program.
Fland was one of three players from that planned 2024 high school recruiting class at Kentucky who opted to follow Calipari to Fayetteville. Forwards Karter Knox and Billy Richmond III did the same. Ex-UK players Zvonimir Ivisic, Adou Thiero and D.J. Wagner also transferred last offseason from Kentucky to Arkansas.
Fland’s only season at Arkansas was limited by injury. In January, he was thought to be lost for the season after undergoing surgery on his right thumb. But, Fland returned for the Razorbacks in the NCAA Tournament, playing in all three games as Arkansas made a surprise run to the Sweet 16 in Calipari’s first season as head coach.
Across 21 games (18 starts), Fland averaged 13.5 points, 5.1 assists, 3.2 rebounds and 1.5 steals, while shooting 34% on a high volume of 3-pointers and 37.9% from the field overall. Fland averaged 31.7 minutes per game last season at Arkansas.
Now, after withdrawing from the NBA draft process, Fland is set to take his considerable talents to Gainesville next season and play for head coach Todd Golden and the Gators.
Fland had been projected to be a second-round pick in this summer’s NBA draft.
What is Florida basketball’s roster outlook for 2025-26 season?
According to college basketball statistician Evan Miyakawa, Fland ranks as the second-best player in the transfer portal this offseason, out of more than 2,300 portal entrants. 247Sports has Fland ranked as the eighth-best transfer in the country.
Fland is set to be one of three transfer portal arrivals for the Gators this offseason, along with shooting guard AJ Brown (Ohio) and point guard Xaivian Lee (Princeton). At one time, Lee was viewed as a potential transfer portal pickup for Kentucky.
The Gators lost three players to the transfer portal from their 2024-25 national championship squad. Most notably, junior guard Denzel Aberdeen, a key bench player, left the Gators for Kentucky despite being projected as a likely starter at Florida next season. The other departures were reserve forward Sam Alexis (Indiana) and lightly used guard Kajus Kublickas (Pacific).
Golden will have plenty of production to replace if the Gators are to compete again for a national championship, or even an SEC championship, next season. In addition to those three transfer portal departures, Florida is also losing guards Walter Clayton Jr. (18.3 points per game), Alijah Martin (14.4) and Will Richard (13.3). All three players are out of college eligibility.
A key stay-or-go decision for the Gators will be that of sophomore forward Alex Condon, a starter on last season’s national title team who averaged 10.6 points and 7.5 rebounds per game. If Condon elects to return to school, then Florida will likely be a preseason top 10 team.
Other key players expected to return for the Gators next season are rising junior forward Thomas Haugh (9.8 points per game), starting center Rueben Chinyelu (6.0 points and 6.6 rebounds) and rising senior center Micah Handlogten, who returned to game action late last season after breaking his left leg during the 2024 SEC Tournament championship game.
The Gators will also be bringing in two incoming high school freshmen this summer: four-star small forward CJ Ingram and four-star shooting guard Alex Lloyd.
This story was originally published May 20, 2025 at 11:57 AM.
