Swampcast Talks Florida Baseball Resurgence, Florida Softball Regionals, Boogie Fland, Uf Basketball Rumors

In this week's Swampcast, the Sun's Kevin Brockway and Noah Ram discuss rumors surrounding Boogie Fland and Florida basketball, Florida softball regionals and Florida's baseball resurgence with veteran ESPN and SEC Network college baseball broadcaster Nick Belmonte.

There's reportedly interest from the Florida Gators to add Fland, a former five-star point guard who spent his freshman year at Arkansas before putting his name in the NBA Draft. Fland withdrew his name from the draft on May 13th at the NBA Draft combine in Chicago, the same day Florida basketball coach Todd Golden threw out the first pitch of a Chicago Cubs-Miami Marlins game at Wrigley Field.

Brockway wonders how Fland, who averaged 13.5 points and 5.1 assists as a freshman with the Razorbacks, would mesh with a remade UF backcourt that includes transfer guards Xaivian Lee and AJ Brown.

"How would he and Xaivian Lee co-exist as two guys that are kind of on-the-ball point guards," Brockway said. "I'd be curious about that. But he is a five-star talent, and he is intriguing."

Ram Florida down Florida softball's regional draw. As the No. 3 national seed, the four-team bracket for UF includes Florida Atlantic, Georgia Tech and Mercer. UF will open regional play on Friday against Mercer.

"FAU had some good wins early in the season," Ram said. "Georgia Tech had some good wins as well and they play in the ACC which is a good conference this year with Florida State, Duke, Clemson all hosting regionals. It's not easy but it is a regional where if all goes well, Florida shouldn't have any issue with."

Belmonte said that key to UF's turnaround has been the emergence of pitchers Liam Peterson, Aidan King and Jake Clemente and the production at the bottom of UF's lineup,

"The last four or five weekends their on-base percentage has been over .400," Belmonte said. "They are hitting over .300 as a group. We're talking about (Justin) Nadeau, (Ty) Evans, (Hayden) Yost, SEC player of the week and then Ashton Wilson when they put him in, those four guys they have contributed, and they've turned the lineup over."

Kevin Brockway is The Gainesville Sun’s Florida beat writer. Contact him at kbrockway@gannett.com. Follow him on X @KevinBrockwayG1. Read his coverage of the Gators’ national championship basketball season in “CHOMP-IONS!” — a hardcover coffee-table collector’s book from The Sun. Details at Florida.ChampsBook.com

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Florida baseball resurgence, Florida softball and Boogie Fland rumors topics on Swampcast