Todd Golden Provides Injury Update on Gators F Thomas Haugh

GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- Florida Gators junior forward Thomas Haugh missed the first game of his career, and potentially the last home game of his career, on Tuesday against Mississippi State due to a foot injury.

After the game, head coach Todd Golden said that while he was not sure which foot it was, it was unrelated to the ankle injury suffered last week against Texas, and that he was simply held out of the 108-74 win for precautionary reasons. On Friday, Golden said that Haugh is expected to play in Saturday's regular-season finale at Kentucky.

"Doing great. Great practice today," Golden said. "He’ll still be probable for tomorrow, but barring anything unforeseen, I would expect him to play tomorrow.”

Thomas Haugh has helped Florida win an SEC regular-season title, SEC Tournament title and national championship over the last two seasons. | Kyle Lander / Florida Gators on SI

Haugh had played in 105 games leading up to Tuesday's win, which clinched the outright regular-season conference title for Florida. He hit the 100-game mark in the 86-66 win at Georgia on Feb. 11. This season has been his best with a career-high average of 17.1 points per game, which leads the team, with six rebounds, two assists and one block per game.

The 6-foot-9 wing is considered one of the top contenders for the SEC Player of the Year.

"We're not worrying about it, but I could definitely make a case for him to win SEC Player of the Year, absolutely," Golden said on Monday. "I think if we're able to finish the way I hope we do, and we win the league outright, he's had an incredible statistical season leading us.

"Could Rueben (Chinyelu) being a great player and (Alex Condon) also being a great player cannibalize him a little bit? I don't know. I think all three of those guys deserve a ton of accolades, to be honest, but Tommy's profile statistically is pretty diverse and pretty efficient across the board. He deserves a lot of credit. My hope would be if we win the league outright, that the player of the year in the SEC came off our team. That would be my hope."

As a result of his play, Haugh continues to rise on draft boards for the 2026 NBA Draft. He is currently rated as the No. 10 prospect in CBS Sports' NBA Draft Prospect Rankings and the No. 11 prospect in ESPN's NBA Draft Big Board.

Florida will have an update on Haugh on its first availability report on Friday, which will be released at 8:10 p.m., and another on Saturday at 11 a.m. Tip-off against Kentucky at Rupp Arena will be at 4 p.m. with television coverage on either ESPN or ESPN2.