The Florida basketball team is on top of the college basketball world as the Gators took down Houston on Monday night to capture the national championship. The Cougars were in control for almost the entire game, but Florida finally pulled ahead in the final minute. It was a thrilling finish, and Florida was the team that ended up hoisting the trophy. Head coach Todd Golden has done an outstanding job with this program in just a few short years. In order to continue the success, he will need to bring in experienced players from the college basketball transfer portal this offseason.

In today's era of college basketball, the transfer portal is the name of the game. Bringing in experienced talent is crucial, but it goes well beyond that. Every big team is finding good talent in the portal, but being able to build a roster and get everybody to gel together and buy into the program's culture is the difficult part.

Utilizing the transfer portal will be especially important for Florida this offseason as they are going to be losing some good talent. There are instances when teams bring back most of their starting lineup and they really don't need to go into the portal for a lot of players. However, that is usually not the case with the national champions.

National champs are national champs for a reason. They have some of the best players in college basketball, and guys that are good enough to go pro are almost always going to leave after winning a championship. There's nothing better than going out on top. When a team gets close to winning it all but loses, it can leave a sour taste in player's mouths, and they might choose to come back despite having the option to go pro. That obviously isn't coming into play for the Gators this season.

So far, the Florida basketball team hasn't landed any transfer portal players, but their season just ended a couple of days ago. Todd Golden is soaking in the glory of winning a national title, and that will be a great recruiting tool for the players that he is targeting. Here are a few players to watch for the Gators as they look to reload ahead of next season:

Bryce Lindsay, James Madison, G

One player that the Florida basketball team is taking a look at is James Madison transfer Bryce Lindsay. Lindsay can score in a lot of different ways, and perhaps his most attractive strength is three-point shooting. Lindsay shot over 40% from three last year, and he ended up averaging 13.4 PPG. He is a big-time scorer that should be able to make a significant impact at the power five level. We know that Florida likes to shoot the deep ball, so they are looking at guys that have shown that ability during their career.

Right now, it seems like Maryland has a good shot at landing Lindsay as he started his career with new Terrapins head coach Buzz Williams at Texas A&M. However, Florida should be able to compete with any other program right now after winning the national championship earlier this week.

Xaivian Lee, Princeton, Guard

Princeton transfer Xaivian Lee is arguably the biggest Florida basketball target right now. Lee is getting a lot of attention in the portal as he had a huge season for the Tigers last year. He averaged just under 17 PPG, and he started in 30 games. Lee also shot the deep ball pretty well as he finished at 36.6% from beyond the arc. Lee has spent his entire college basketball career with Princeton as he has been there for last three years, but he is now ready to move on. Lee has the potential to be an impact player with a national title contender next year. He's that good.

Article Continues Below
Related Florida Basketball News

AJ Brown, Ohio, Guard

Lastly, we have Ohio transfer AJ Brown. Brown possesses a similar skillset to Xaivian Lee as he can also score in a variety of ways, and they both had big seasons with mid-majors last year. Brown ended up averaging over 13 PPG last season, and he also averaged 3.2 RPG and 1.1 APG. Brown has spent each of the last year threes with Ohio, and he would be a good fit on the Gators next season as they hunt for another national title. He shot just under 39% from deep this past season.

Transfer portal overview

The college basketball transfer portal opened up on March 24th, and it will be open for about a month as it closes on April 22nd. The final game of the season took place on April 7th, and the portal opening up before then does create issues for teams that are still dancing.

First of all, players that want to transfer have to make a difficult decision. They can either finish up their season with their current team and miss out on potential opportunities, or they can skip the NCAA Tournament so they can find their next home. We saw this happen already as Michigan freshman Justin Pippen left the program before the Sweet 16.

This also creates an issue for coaches as they are trying to devote 100% of their time to tournament preparation. A lot of coaches want to wait until their season is over before they explore the transfer portal. All in all, the opening date creates some issues.

The college basketball transfer portal is only open during this initial window, unlike football, which has two different windows. From now until the portal closes in late April, there will be a lot of transfer portal news in the college basketball world.