One of the great stories of the 2023-24 Florida Gators basketball season was the emergence of freshman Thomas Haugh. With the extra year of eligibility due to COVID and high major teams loading up with veteran players to be as old as possible, the impact of freshmen has been less than ever in recent years. While Haugh was getting a lot of positive reports out of training camp, expectations were still measured due to the fact he was a first year player, but quickly Haugh established himself as a rotation level SEC player.
Haugh is a player who had solid offers out of high school but many who evaluated him wouldn’t have expected him to be someone who could go to a school like Florida and compete right away.