GAINESVILLE, FLA. — THIS OFFSEASON, months before the Florida Gators could focus on its pursuit of back-to-back national titles, a feat the program had previously achieved in 2006 and 2007, head coach Todd Golden first needed another championship roster.

He had known the best backcourt in America would graduate and push for spots on NBA rosters, but he couldn’t predict Denzel Aberdeen receiving NIL offers that would turn Florida’s new potential leader into what Golden called a “cap casualty,” ultimately departing for Kentucky. At that point, he didn’t know whether Alex Condon would remain in the 2025 NBA draft or return to Gainesville.

Through that draft process, though, not only did Condon decide to return, but he crossed paths with former Arkansas star Boogie Fland and tipped the scales of Florida’s title defense.

“I was like, ‘Come to the Gators. We might have to all run it back,'” Condon told ESPN of their conversation at a Brooklyn Nets workout. “So I don’t know if that swung his decision at all, but seeing him [commit to Florida] really helped me out with my decision.”

Fland clarified: “For sure, it added to my decision, especially when I knew everybody was coming back.”

That fortuitous meeting between Condon and Fland wasn’t the only stroke of luck Golden’s Gators benefited from as they prepared to chase another ring. To have a realistic chance at etching their names next to the John Wooden-era UCLA Bruins as only the second school to achieve a two-peat more than once, Florida needed more dominoes to fall. A chance connection to an Ivy League star and a watch party at Golden’s house were the next foundational pieces in the Gators becoming only the second reigning champion in the past decade to earn a top-three ranking in the following year’s preseason AP Top 25 — expectations that they are collectively embracing.

“I think we need to lean into [the pressure] a little bit because this team at some point is going to fail,” Golden said. “That’s just the bottom line. And I would love to be able to say, we’re going to go 31-0 before the NCAA tournament. That’s not going to happen. I think for us to be the best we can be, we need to, at some point, deal with that — the frustration, the vulnerability, the disappointment — to really grow.

“If we try to protect our guys from that pressure, I’m not sure we’re ever going to be able to experience that.”

THREE DAYS BEFORE Princeton’s season finale, Xaivian Lee was mesmerized, watching Florida flirt with a 100-point game against Alabama from a dorm room in New Jersey.

The two-time All-Ivy League guard couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. There was a Walter Clayton Jr. to Will Richard to Condon whip-around that ended with a dunk. An Alijah Martin slam on a fast break. Thomas Haugh got a finish in transition, too. And Clayton stood out as the maestro of a furious attack.

That’s when Lee began to envision himself in a blue and orange jersey.

“I just remember they were playing really fast and Condon was getting a billion lobs and I thought that it was good offense,” Lee said about watching that game. “It was fun. It was fast-paced, flowing. And everything was open and they were getting up and down the court.”

After the Gators punched their ticket to the Final Four a few weeks later, Lee received a text from someone new. Golden had broken his own rule of not recruiting during the NCAA tournament — he didn’t want potential reports to distract his team — to capitalize on the fact that Lee and Haugh, teammates during prep school, had kept tabs on each other through a group chat, including Lee’s decision to enter the transfer portal.

A week after the confetti fell at the Alamodome, Lee committed to Florida.

Golden’s decision to limit recruiting during the postseason put Florida in a tough spot. By the time his team had cut down the nets after a come-from-behind win over Houston in the title game, he had an inkling that Lee would join the squad, but he still had more work to do. While the frontcourt seemed to be intact after a flurry of NBA-related decisions — with Condon, Haugh and Rueben Chinyelu opting to return — the backcourt still had more questions than answers after Aberdeen’s surprising departure.

Fortunately for the Gators, another elite guard was having second thoughts about his future.

Fland was a five-star prospect who entered the 2024-25 campaign as a projected lottery pick before a thumb injury interrupted his season and, with it, his shot to prove that he could excel at the next level. It didn’t help that NBA teams questioned the measurements of the 6-foot-2 guard. A return to college — and maybe Florida, after his convo with Condon — began to feel like his best move.

“To be honest, I didn’t have a plan of coming back to college basketball,” Fland said. “I was going to tough it out and see what the draft experience was like and see what the scouts were saying. And then when I was in New York doing my predraft workout, I had a private meeting — that became public — with Coach Golden and the staff and the proposal was fantastic … it made me think and self-evaluate about the last year and things that I wasn’t able to accomplish and the things I need to work on.”

The phone kept ringing after Golden and Fland connected, with either Condon or Fland wanting to know whether the other had committed.

“As soon as [Fland] goes in the portal, I’m like, ‘Dude, this is a picture-perfect situation for both sides,'” Golden said. “It just really is. We need a point guard and another ball handler with [Lee]. We needed one more really talented guy and we had what I thought were all the other pieces really in place. We had the whole frontcourt back and for [Fland], I’m like, ‘This guy is going to be so much better this year just from last year’s experience.”

AS HE LOOKED at his roster over the summer and thought about its chance to make history, Golden had to remind himself that most of his players might not understand the past.

“Some of them hadn’t been born yet,” he said about the program’s 2006 and 2007 national title runs, a stretch led by Al Horford, Corey Brewer and Joakim Noah, a trio of future lottery picks and NBA standouts.

He aimed to solidify the magnitude of the moment by inviting the team to his house to watch “SEC Storied: Repeat after Us,” an ESPN documentary about the program’s two-peat, once practice began in August.

“I wanted them to understand how tight that team really was and about their relationships and that it was about more than making money in the NBA,” Golden said. “They loved each other, man. That was why they were really, really good. I wanted to show them the documentary because the second year was really hard for those guys. It was tough.”

At the Final Four, Condon got in touch with Horford and visited Noah’s house later that summer. Connecting with them helped Condon understand where this team could cement itself in the annals of Florida men’s basketball history if they can accomplish what Horford and Noah’s Gators did almost 20 years ago.

“I think creating a legacy is something we want to do,” Condon said.

Emulating the bond that the 2005-07 rosters had is why the 2025-26 Florida Gators have all been intentional about building their chemistry this offseason. There have been frequent trips to Dragonfly, a local sushi joint, but some members of the team prefer a nearby hibachi restaurant with unlimited portions. The team also went snorkeling with turtles in a den on a recent Sunday, a first-time experience for many of them.

“[Lee] and [Fland] have done a good job of hanging out with us off the court and starting to build those connections,” added Condon. Scattered around Golden’s office are trinkets yielded by the bond of last year’s group.

There is a framed key to the city that was presented to the team by Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward when the Gators returned with their new hardware. In another frame, there is a proclamation from the U.S. Senate that commemorates the day they won the program’s third national title, and a signed letter from President Donald Trump that Golden picked up on the customary trip to the White House.

But it’s the sea of shoes that have arrived in droves — 32 pairs, to be exact — that align his office and highlight the role Florida now plays in the Jordan Brand hierarchy, also stamping the benefits of a national title run.

“I don’t know a ton about shoes,” Golden said. “But the kids love that s—.”

When he was the head coach at San Francisco, Golden said he had just four pairs of shoes in his office. That fortune, though, also comes with a pressure that is magnified with his entire frontcourt back — 7-foot-1 center Micah Handlogten (2.6 PPG) should play a bigger role this season — and a new pair of elite guards.

Lee and Fland both thrive with the ball in their hands, but they’ll have to share the load this season and find the same synergy that anchored last year’s backcourt. The frontcourt will also demand a few tweaks. Haugh will have to showcase a perimeter game and versatility he mostly demonstrated in spurts a year ago. Chinyelu and Handlogten will play more significant roles for a deep frontcourt, too. Are they ready for that? Condon was never the same after he suffered a midseason ankle injury last year, though he’s doing extra workouts on a stationary bike after every practice to increase his durability.

At this time last year, Florida had not yet been viewed as a real contender. The fanfare came later. That’s the difference between the two iterations of these teams: The expectations for 2025-26 were set at a high level before the season even tipped.

Golden knows the Gators can either run from them, or — like the 2007 and 2008 national title teams — use those great expectations to make history.

“We flew under the radar for a long time last season,” Golden said. “This year … we’re going to be preseason top-five most places, so we’re not going to have the ability to do that. And I want the guys that are back to feel the pressure and the pride of trying to repeat.”

Additional reporting by Jeremy Fowler, Stephen Holder and Dan Graziano

AT A STONE church on a hill, in a pastoral town only two miles from their training facility, the New York Jets paid their respect to a franchise icon Tuesday morning in Madison, New Jersey. More than 400 mourners packed into St. Vincent Martyr for Nick Mangold’s funeral Mass, 10 days after the beloved center died because of complications from kidney disease at age 41.

Jets general manager Darren Mougey was among the last to arrive, walking purposefully into the church as a bagpiper filled the crisp autumn air with strains of sorrow. Mougey wore a dark suit and the expression of a man whose mind was racing. Five hours remained until the NFL trade deadline at 4 p.m. ET, and he was sitting on a couple of blockbusters.

Mougey stood in the back of the church (“A beautiful service,” he would say later) and slipped out before it was over, heading back to the office for urgent business. Back at St. Vincent, about three dozen of Mangold’s former teammates from the Jets and Ohio State congregated outside the church after the Mass, exchanging hugs and wiping tears. The casket was placed in the hearse, bagpiper playing again. A solemn moment.

Minutes later, a news flash on social media: Jets cornerback Sauce Gardner traded to the Indianapolis Colts.

Word slowly spread through the crowd of mourners. One of them was Darrelle Revis, a Pro Football Hall of Famer who, once upon a time, was traded by the Jets in his prime. He refused to believe his old team had parted with one of its young stars.

“No they didn’t,” Revis said matter-of-factly, when informed of the trade. “You’re joking.”

Somebody showed him Gardner’s social media post, bidding farewell to New York. Revis shook his head in disbelief. It was real, and it was stunning.

And it wasn’t the team’s only shocking move as the Jets (1-7) pulled off two major trades. They dealt Gardner and defensive tackle Quinnen Williams for four draft picks and two backup players, blew up the core of what once was a top-five defense and fueled a torrent of conflicting emotions in their locker room. This is a story about how the Jets, trying to overturn years of misery, culminated months of planning with two potentially franchise-altering moves in less than two hours.

Tuesday night, Mougey, who had barely slept the previous two nights, was hoarse and drained. He lost his train of thought during a video call with reporters. He apologized, adding, “I’m running with half a brain here.”

TO PREPARE FOR the trade deadline, Mougey and his staff met weekly, starting in Week 4. They discussed the roster in-depth, assigning potential trade value for each player. They studied contracts and comparisons from around the league, adjusting based on the ebb and flow of the season. The goal was to anticipate as many scenarios as possible. They were confident this would eliminate any recency bias.

Three weeks before deadline day, the Colts called and everything changed.

Initially, the Jets had no interest in moving Gardner, team sources said. After all, he’s only 25, a two-time All-Pro under team control through 2030 after a record-setting four-year, $120.4 million contract extension in July.

The Jets told the Colts it would take a Micah Parsons-like deal, the same team sources said — i.e. two first-round picks and a quality starter. Another reference point was the Jalen Ramsey trade in 2019, when the Los Angeles Rams dealt two first-round picks for the star corner.

The Colts weren’t biting.

That shifted a few days before the deadline, as the offers “kept getting richer and richer,” Mougey said. The Colts, coming off a loss after a blistering 7-1 start, were hoping to bolster their chances of a Super Bowl run and coveted an outside cornerback.

The market was drying up — they checked into Deonte Banks of the New York Giants and New Orleans’ Alontae Taylor — and perhaps that drove up the price for Gardner. Anticipating January home games, they wanted to prepare for visiting passing attacks that would look to exploit the comfy indoor conditions at Lucas Oil Stadium.

By Monday, they let the Jets know they “could potentially do” a deal that included 2026 and 2027 first-round picks, a Colts team source said.

The Jets didn’t shop the Colts’ offer to other teams, but they were emphatic about having mercurial wide receiver Adonai Mitchell included in the package, according to a Jets team source. Mitchell, a 2024 second-round choice, was buried on the Colts’ depth chart, but the Jets had positive scouting reports on him and a glaring need at receiver.

By the time Mougey left for the funeral, the trade was close to the goal line. He probably could’ve pushed it across early that morning, but he hit the “pause” button out of sensitivity to the day’s events.

The first-year GM didn’t know Mangold personally, but he’s keenly aware of what the team’s 2006 first-round pick meant to the franchise. He sees Mangold every day in the Jets’ fieldhouse, where mural-sized photos of Ring of Honor members hang from the rafters.

So Mougey made the two-mile drive to St. Vincent, hoping word of the looming deal wouldn’t leak. The last thing he wanted was a news alert disrupting the mourners, and in that case the Jets did a good job keeping both trades under wraps, so good that rival executives were surprised when the deals were announced.

“I did not expect this at all,” said an AFC executive who had dealt with the Jets.

GARDNER AND HIS brother, Allante, also one of his agents, were notified by the Jets around the same time — 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday. Sauce got a call from Mougey, Allante from Nick Sabella, the Jets’ senior director of football administration. They had no inkling that one of the biggest NFL trades of 2025 was in the works, according to Allante, who called it a sound business decision by the Jets.

“They couldn’t turn it down, and Ahmad [Sauce] deserves to be on a winning football team,” Allante said.

Recalling his conversation with Sabella, Allante Gardner said, “It was almost like he was saying, ‘This is going to hurt, but we have to do it for the future of the organization.'”

Sauce was supposed to be part of that future.

Only four months earlier, the Jets had locked in arguably their most popular player with an extension that made him the NFL’s highest-paid cornerback. Gardner loved the idea of playing his entire career in New York. He proclaimed his desire to help change the losing culture.

Coach Aaron Glenn, too, was giddy, saying Gardner and wide receiver Garrett Wilson (four-year, $130 million extension) were “foundational players.”

“I want them here for a long time,” Glenn, who has significant say on personnel decisions, said at the time.

For the Jets, with 14 consecutive non-playoff seasons (the longest active drought), the extensions provided a feel-good vibe at the start of training camp. It’s highly unusual for a team to flip a player so soon after extending him, but Mougey and Sabella structured Gardner’s deal in a way that allowed them to escape with minimal cap ramifications — only $13.75 million in signing bonus, with rolling guarantees that will be absorbed by the Colts.

That decision wasn’t an accident; Mougey said they wanted to make it a tradable contract, just in case. In essence, it made Gardner more desirable. As a different league source said, “If Sauce didn’t have an extension, do Jets get two [first-round picks]? Probably not.”

The Jets didn’t sign him to trade him four months later, but the landscape changed because of their subpar record and the desire to buttress their rebuild with draft capital. Though no one ever criticized Gardner publicly, there was internal concern about his ball production (three interceptions in 55 games) and high penalty rate (14 in his past 25 games).

Gardner is considered the most flawed of the elite corners, with one NFC executive saying, “Never been a huge Sauce fan, so that was a great deal to me that you just couldn’t pass up.”

An AFC executive added, “[The] lack of interceptions and penalties have always been the issue with [Gardner], but otherwise a really good player.”

Glenn praised Gardner’s talent but also suggested the change of scenery might be good for him. In his post-trade comments, he made it sound as if no player is untouchable.

Thirty years ago, Glenn’s coach and mentor, Bill Parcells, expressed the same sentiment to him when trade rumors were swirling. The Hall of Famer told Glenn, a young corner at the time, that he’d trade his wife for the right price. That always stuck with him.

Jets owner Woody Johnson recently called Gardner and Wilson “great talents,” saying their contract extensions were important to the organization. Try to imagine Johnson’s reaction when, only two weeks after making that comment, his top football lieutenants informed him of their plans to trade Gardner.

Actually, it wasn’t what you might have expected.

Johnson, known in the past for meddling, was pragmatic and professed his faith in Mougey and Glenn, according to a Jets team source.

FOR THE JETS, trapped in a losing vortex for the better part of two decades, history always repeats itself.

Twelve years ago, first-time GM John Idzik wanted to accelerate the rebuilding process, so he traded his most valuable asset for first- and fourth-round picks. And so Revis, arguably the greatest cornerback of his generation, was traded to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on April 21, 2013.

And there Revis was Tuesday, paying respect to Mangold, only two miles from where one of the most shocking trades in team history was going down. Once he absorbed the news, he praised the move.

“I guess this is kind of a similar path for Sauce,” Revis said. “In this situation, I think the Johnson family is trying to look to the future, getting these draft picks for him. It’s been a tough year, really tough for the organization, but I think the future is always bright and you can always turn things around.”

With the returns for the Gardner and Williams trades, the Jets hold five first-round picks over the next two drafts — two in 2026, three in 2027.

“It starts with trying to find a franchise quarterback,” said Revis, who played with Tom Brady on the New England Patriots’ 2014 Super Bowl championship team. “I think those guys have been trying to do that for the last couple of years.”

For the last 50, but who’s counting?

TWO WEEKS AGO, Williams learned from a reporter that he was on the verge of 100 games in a Jets uniform — 98, to be exact.

“You hear that?” he said in a joking way to a teammate at the next locker. “I never thought I’d make it.”

He didn’t — at least not with the Jets.

In that moment, Williams had to know there was a chance he’d be traded by the deadline. His camp had made it known that the former All-Pro coveted a change of scenery, league and team sources said.

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Williams, who went 27-2 in two playing seasons at Alabama, was worn down by losing. He arrived in 2019, was drafted No. 3, and the closest he came to a winning season in New York was 7-9 as a rookie. In fact, he experienced more losing than just about every player in team history.

Of the 73 players with at least 100 games played as a Jet, the lowest winning percentage belongs to current long-snapper Thomas Hennessy — a .300 mark from 2017 to present. Williams (.306) would be right behind him, second on the list.

“I think the world knew I was frustrated being there so long and still losing,” Williams said Wednesday at his introductory news conference with the Dallas Cowboys.

Williams foreshadowed his feelings with his infamous tweet in February, saying, “Another rebuild year for me I guess” — his response to the news that quarterback Aaron Rodgers was being released. That social media post didn’t sit well with folks in the organization.

The losing, coupled with a subtle position switch (he was used primarily as a 3-technique tackle instead of his usual spot at nose tackle), fueled his unhappiness. His usual production wasn’t there; he had only one sack — coincidentally, a takedown of former teammate Rodgers on the first play of the season (a 34-32 home loss to Pittsburgh).

Unlike the Gardner deal, the Williams trade came late and fast. Talks with the Cowboys intensified Monday, Jets team sources said. The Jets made it clear to Dallas that they had to be blown away to part with one of the league’s best defensive tackles. Another team, reportedly the Jacksonville Jaguars, made a strong push. It was an ideal situation for the Jets, who had two teams interested.

After returning from the funeral, Mougey finalized the trade — Williams for a 2026 second-round pick, a 2027 first-round pick and backup defensive tackle Mazi Smith.

Here was the clincher for the Jets, a team source said: They negotiated the right to get the better of the Cowboys’ two first-round picks in 2027, as Dallas has its own selection and the Green Bay Packers’ pick from the Parsons trade. That could have huge ramifications in the Jets’ favor if Dallas (3-5-1) has a losing season in 2026.

With a stockpile of draft capital, the Jets have the resources to trade up for a quarterback in ’26 or ’27 or use the picks to pry a veteran away from another team. They wanted flexibility. Well, they got it.

“More than anything,” Glenn said, “we want to make sure we build this team in our vision.”

JETS WIDE RECEIVER Allen Lazard checked his phone Tuesday and saw a text from a close friend. It simply said:

“OMG.”

Lazard figured it was a trade, so he checked X and saw the Gardner news. The Williams news broke a short time later.

The entire locker room responded in an “OMG” kind of way to the blockbuster moves. Edge rusher Jermaine Johnson posted on social media his support for the organization, but added, “I’m sick.” Running back Breece Hall said, “It sucks, but it’s the nature of the business.”

Glenn, charged with motivating a team that saw two of its best players traded for draft capital that won’t help it win in 2025, addressed it briefly in a team meeting. His message: Change in the NFL is a constant; change creates opportunity. Will his players buy it? There could be an answer Sunday (1 p.m. ET, CBS) when the Jets host the Cleveland Browns (2-6) — a game that could have huge draft implications.

Two miles down the road, on a blue-sky Tuesday, former Jets from the 2000s and 2010s were grappling with a different kind of shock. Only 15 years ago, Mangold anchored an offensive line that helped the Jets to the AFC Championship Game — their last playoff appearance.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Revis said.

The Jets have taken part in the circle of recovery and renewal for a half-century, trying to overcome the past while looking forward to a brighter tomorrow.

And so Revis, one of the best to ever wear a Jets uniform, did just that.

“With all these draft picks, I can kind of see the chess moves being made on the board,” he said, his voice competing with the tolling bell atop St. Vincent.

Pakistan captain Abbas Afridi produced a sensational performance at the Hong Kong Sixes 2025, hitting six consecutive sixers in an over to lead his side to a thrilling win over Kuwait on Friday.

Chasing Kuwait’s total of 123, Pakistan reached the target off the final delivery to claim victory by four wickets at 124. Afridi remained unbeaten on 55 from just 12 balls, hitting eight maximums in total, along with the six sixes in an over.

Shahid Aziz provided valuable support, scoring 23 not out off just five balls to help seal the win.

Earlier, batting first, Kuwait started strongly with opener Adnan Idrees hitting 17 off eight balls, including two sixes. Afridi struck in the second over to dismiss Idrees, reducing Kuwait to 23-1.

Bilal Tahir responded with consecutive sixes to take the score to 35-1.

Mohammad Shahzad’s third over went for 31 runs as Meet Bhavsar continued his aggressive innings, taking Kuwait past 50 to 66-1.

Abdul Samad conceded 22 runs in the fourth over, while Bhavsar smashed three sixes and a four to bring Kuwait to 88-1.

Maaz Sadaqat then claimed Bilal Tahir for 24 off six balls, and Usman Patel joined Bhavsar to take Kuwait past 100 with a six, four, and a single in the fifth over.

Afridi bowled the final over, conceding 39 runs, including two sixes and a four from Usman Patel.