Florida guard Urban Klavžar has been cleared to play by the NCAA, Gators coach Todd Golden announced Thursday. The development is just the latest in a string of good news for the Gators amid a 3-0 start to 2024-25. The 20-year-old freshman played the last three years professionally in Slovenia. He was sidelined indefinitely pending an NCAA review into his eligibility, which bled nearly two weeks into the season. Golden said Klavžar will make his college debut for No. 20 Friday as it travels on the road to face rival Florida State.
The 6-foot-1, 195-pound Klavžar was one of six newcomers to the Florida roster for the 2024-25 season. 247Sports ranked him as the No. 211 overall player in the Class of 2024 and the No. 24 point guard prospect. He was the final addition to Florida's 62nd-ranked recruiting class after committing in July and enrolling four weeks later.
Florida has a wealth of talent in its backcourt already, and adding Klavžar to the mix should add depth and scoring to a team that has both in spades. He's played professionally with Real Madrid, UCAM Murcia CB and CD Estela Cantabria as a teenager, and last season with Cantabria he averaged 8.9 points and 1.5 assists per game while shooting 42.7% from 3-point range. Klavžar also played for the Slovenian senior national team on the FIBA circuit in 2023, where he averaged 7.3 points per game.
Senior Gators guard Walter Clayton Jr. is coming off an All-SEC campaign and currently leads the team in scoring and assists and coming off an All-SEC campaign. That makes it unlikely Klavžar works his way into the starting lineup, but his scoring punch and playmaking could be a boon to Golden's bench and give Florida another complementary weapon alongside Clayton, Will Richard and Alijah Martin.
Florida opened the season ranked No. 21 in the AP Top 25 and moved up one spot this week to No. 20 after a 2-0 start to the season. It defeated Grambling State 86-62 on Monday to improve to 3-0 to set up an undefeated vs. undefeated matchup Friday night in Tallahassee, Florida, between Florida and Florida State.