Gators add McKissic, Felder to begin rebuilding process
Florida head coach Mike White added transfers Brandon McKissic and CJ Felder on Friday after a trying 10-day stretch that left the Gators with just five active scholarship players on the roster.
McKissic, a 6-foot-3 guard, announced he was headed to Gainesville after four seasons at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He led the 2020-21 Roos with a scoring average of 17.2 points, shooting 50.8% from the field and 42.9% from 3-point range.
McKissic, who also averaged 1.5 steals and 3.7 rebounds, was a finalist for the Lefty Driesell National Defensive Player of the Year Award.
The Gators also received a commitment from Felder, a 6-foot-7 forward from South Carolina who had a slew of suitors after averaging 9.7 points, 5.9 rebounds and 2.2 blocked shots as a sophomore for the 2020-21 Eagles.
McKissic and Felder, who announced the move on his Instagram account, will have plenty of opportunity to shine during the 2021-22 season for a Gators’ squad picking up the pieces and scrambling to fill roster spots after unprecedented attrition the past two weeks.
Two weekends ago, the Gators were minutes away from reaching the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16. Now White barely has a team to coach.
Seven players left the program during the 10 days prior to McKissic’s announcement Friday on his Twitter account.
Four Gators entered the transfer portal: guards Noah Locke and Ques Glover, big man Omar Payne and wing Osayi Osifo. Locke, though, was the only starter in the group.
Leading scorer Tre Mann and fellow sophomore guard Scottie Lewis left early for the NBA and hired agents, preventing a return to college. Big man Colin Castleton will explore his professional options, too, but did not hire an agent.
If the 6-foot-11 Castleton returns, the DeLand native will help form the foundation for the Gators along with McKissic and returning starters Tyree Appleby and Anthony Duruji. All four will have transferred to UF from other schools, including Castleton from Michigan, Appleby from Cleveland State and Duruji from Louisiana Tech.
Others are sure to follow
McKissic’s lead as White mines the transfer market to fill out his roster.
The trend is not unique to Florida. More than 1,100 players are available in the transfer portal — four of them Gators.
Signing players from other schools has unearthed some top Gators during the past decades, including past leading scorers Mike Rosario, Dorian Finney-Smith and Jalen Hudson. Rosario and Finney-Smith were lured by Billy Donovan.
But when Donovan
inked a transfer, he did so to fill gaps on a veteran roster. Meanwhile, White is increasingly relying on the portal to complete a roster.
Thirteen of the 17 high school recruits White signed during the last five years have left the school.
The Gators have one signed recruit for their 2021 class: 6-foot-6 guard Kowacie Reeves of Macon, Ga., the nation’s 37th-ranked recruit.