Gators confident in matchup vs. Tide despite presence of former G League player
Each Thursday night during the season the men’s basketball coaches for the Florida Gators are in a Gainesville restaurant for roughly an hour for a radio show called “Gator Talk.” This isn’t abnormal. College coaches have media requirements worked into their contracts. Local radio (and certain bars’ Thursday night service booms) isn’t the same without them.
And through the years, coaches have said a lot of crazy things in these fan-amped settings. So what Todd Golden said Thursday doesn’t really stand out.
“We’re going to beat ‘em anyway,” the Florida coach added during an appearance. “If he plays, we’ll beat ‘em anyway.”
“He” requires some background.
No. 19 Florida will face No. 23 Alabama on Sunday. The Tide has a former NBA G League player, Charles Bediako, in their rotation. He first played Jan. 24 against Tennessee, scoring 13 points off the bench. That inspired the Tide to start him against Missouri on Wednesday, and he knocked in 14. On Jan. 17, he scored four points in his last G-League game. It was in Birmingham, not far from where he previously played on the Crimson Tide … in 2023. He only averaged 6.4 points per game in the olden days.
Golden, like many other college coaches, was outspoken in opposition to Bediako playing college ball again, three years removed from going undrafted. To his credit, it took a temporary restraining order in the Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court to get Bediako on the court.
“They were able to finagle the situation where they got a judge in Alabama who is actually a donor at Alabama to write a temporary restraining order to let this guy play games at Alabama,” Golden said. “But I also don’t necessarily fault [Alabama coach] Nate Oats because this is a very competitive space, and it’s our jobs to win games and do everything we can to be the best program in our specific league.”
A month ago, Baylor vaulted James Nnaji into eligibility after he was selected in the second round of the NBA Draft but didn’t sign a contract. He was a foreign player who never played college basketball. But the thought of him competing on a college team undermined the principles the sport had practiced in some form for years: If you declared for the NBA Draft and stayed in the pool past the late-May deadline to withdraw, your eligibility was up.
But Nnaji’s now playing for Baylor, if that’s what you want to call his 1.4 points per game. The fact that the NCAA couldn’t hold him out has inspired other faltering pros to reverse course. The NCAA is fighting Bediako’s eligibility, given that it undermines precisely the line in the sand it drew a month ago.
“The NCAA has not and will not grant eligibility to any prospective or returning student-athletes who have signed an NBA contract (including a two-way contract),” NCAA president Charlie Baker said as the Nnaji situation unfolded. Bediako signed a two-way contract in 2023.
“Everywhere I’ve been and going back to my high school days, I’m going to do right by my players, every single situation, as long as they didn’t do anything wrong,” Oats contended. “Charles has done nothing wrong.”
Bediako might open the floodgates for colleges to begin recruiting former G League players and potentially even failed NBA players. The field is rapidly shifting, and the coaches know it.
“He was at Alabama for two years. He played there. He was there during the NIL era. He was aware of what he was giving up by declaring to go to the draft. He stayed in past the date. That’s always been: if you stay in — you sign a contract — you’re done. So it’s a slippery slope,” Golden said. “We just need some people to stand up.”
But first, they must wait. Bediako’s preliminary injunction hearing is on Feb. 6, and he will play until then, including against Florida on Sunday.
This story was originally published January 30, 2026 at 3:28 PM.
