Junior guard Urban Klavzar (7), one of the top 3-point shooters in SEC play at 43.8%, had four of UF's season-high 11 makes from the arc in Saturday's win at Ole Miss.
Warming trend: UF Heating Up From Deep
Wednesday, February 25, 2026 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
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By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
AUSTIN, Texas – Good news, bad news.
First, the bad.
If the 2025-26 college basketball season ended today, the Florida Gators would finish with the lowest 3-point shooting percentage in the 40 seasons since the NCAA's advent of the game-changing arc in 1986. Their number, which currently sits at 30.3%, has remained the worst among the nation's 79 power conference teams (from the Southeastern, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East and Atlantic Coast) since basically the start of the season in early November.
Now, the good news (which actually is very good).
The season doesn't end today. Not even close. And, even better news, those UF 3-point shooting numbers, while accurate, do not reflect the way the No. 7-ranked Gators have fired away from long-distance during the current season-best, seven-game win streak they'll take into their Southeastern Conference shootout against offensive juggernaut Texas (17-10, 8-6) Wednesday night at Moody Center.
"We all kind of just thought it was a matter of time till the shots started falling," UF junior wing Thomas Haugh said. "It's not that surprising, honestly."
[Read senior writer Chris Harry's "Pregame Stuff" setup here]
Through the season's first month, the Gators were at 26%. Through the second month and heading into SEC play the number was 28.2%. Two weeks later, through 17 games, it was 27.9%.
It was somewhere during that cross-eyed stretch that UF associate head coach Korey McCray, who tutors the guards, looked at assistant Taurean Green, who heads the team's player development, and said, "We got our work cut out for us, bro."
So they went to work.
Junior wing Thomas Haugh (10) has been the most consistent 3-point shooters among the starters this season at 34.9, with his 51 makes second-most on the team behind Urban Klavzar's 59.
The last 10 games, nine of them wins, Florida has drilled 34.3% of its shots from deep, with double-digit makes from distance in three of the last four games (a first such stretch this season). In Saturday's road-clearing rout of Ole Miss, the Gators went 11-for-22 from distance (50%), with five different players connecting from deep, led by sharp-shooting guard Urban Klavzar's 4-for-5 marksmanship off the bench.
Even point guard Boogie Fland, an inexplicable 17.9% on the season and just 12.2% in league play, got into the act by nailing a trio of 3s in the second half.
CHARTING THE GATORS Since the NCAA introduced a universal 3-point line for the 1986-87 college basketball season, Florida has shot below 33% only seven times over those previous 39 seasons, not including the Gators' current 30.1% -- which would mark the lowest in program history -- which has been trending upward with at least six games to play. Here's a look at those sub-33% seven, with at least one from each of the program's five head coaches over the last 46 years.
"We know what this team is capable of shooting the ball," said Klavzar, who is on pace to become the first Gator to hit 40% from the arc with at least five attempts per game since Noah Locke in 2020-21. "We see it every day in practice."
And during extra shooting sessions.
"Guys are putting in the work. They have settled in and are shooting with confidence," McCray said. "We made it a point of emphasis. We have guys coming in every morning, other than our day off, and getting in the gym collectively. It's all paying off."
The 10-game sample size – which would put UF squarely in the middle of the SEC's 3-point pack, instead of at the very bottom – suggests the Gators could be progressing toward the actual mean of their shooting potential. Then again, it could also just be a blip.
If it is the former, however, the possibility of the reigning national champions – with their top-five defense, best rebounding front court in the country and elite offensive efficiency in the 2-point area – making a repeat run becomes very real.
"When we shoot the ball well from 3, as I've said before, it's a little bit like the cherry on top for us," UF coach Todd Golden said Tuesday. "That gives us a much higher ceiling."
No team that has shot under 30% from the 3-point line has ever won a national title; never reached a Final Four, in fact. So, the Gators' current number of 30.1 bears watching. But so does that 10-game upward movement, which the team hopes continues to an 11th against the high-scoring Longhorns, as well as a 12th against even higher-scoring (and second-place) Arkansas Saturday in Gainesville, in a game that will have serious ramifications relative to the SEC regular-season title. And so on.
In the interim, though, the matchup against UT carries significant weight, too.
Guard Xaivian Lee (1) is at 27.0% from deep on the season, but 39.1% the last four games.
The Longhorns boast the No. 6-rated offense in the country. They have an outstanding big man in 7-foot Matas Vokietaitis roaming the paint and a handful of talented scorers on the perimeter, including wing Dailyn Swain (34.2% from 3), plus guards Jordan Pope (36.1%) and Camden Heide (fifth in the nation at a deadly 49.4%). UT, as a team, shoots 35.4% from the arc.
UF has guys who've posted similar numbers of late. Will it continue?
Florida will fire away and find out.
"We're putting in the work and seeing them go through," Fland said. "We have so much more we want to do, so much more we want to accomplish."
Continuing their long-range proficiency of late would widen the path to get there.
