The college basketball season is officially underway, and after losing their season opener in a thriller to No. 13 Arizona, the No. 3 Florida Gators, coming off a national championship, earned their first win of the season on Thursday night in dominant fashion.
Florida defeated North Florida 104-64, led by center Alex Condon, who recorded 25 points, 10 rebounds, and four assists. They also got 17 points and 13 rebounds from Micah Handlogten off the bench.
Yet, despite all the production, NCAA history was made in the final moments of the game when the Gators’ 7-foot-9 redshirt freshman Olivier Rioux took the floor for head coach Todd Golden’s team.
After sitting out the entirety of last season, the Canadian-born center officially became the tallest college basketball player in Division I history at the age of 19.
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In the postgame press conference, which featured Rioux sitting next to three of his Gator teammates, he was asked about making college basketball history and gave a subtle and short response.
“It’s just another day, I guess,” Rioux said.
When Florida recruited Rioux, they knew it would be a work in progress — a project for head coach Todd Golden to develop him into a collegiate-level basketball player given his unique size.
While he’s not there just yet, having sat out his entire freshman year while redshirting, Rioux appears to be making strides in the right direction. With the redshirt year, he still has at least three more years of eligibility remaining after this season.
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