Thomas Haugh is one of Florida’s feel-good stories on its run to the Final Four from the West Region’s No. 1 seed. As a lifelong Gator fan from New Oxford, Pennsylvania, Haugh was swept up by “Tebowmania” at a young age.
Haugh was a quarterback as a kid and in high school, hoping he’d commit to UF’s football program in his future when Tebow was playing at a Heisman and championship-winning level.
Instead, he made it as a basketball player. But he still loved Tebow, just as many kids in Haugh’s generation did.
But how did he get to Florida as a three-star recruit from a region the Gators don’t typically recruit in?
Florida assistant basketball coach Kevin Hovde brought Cooper Flagg over from Richmond
As the Athletic’s Brian Hamilton notes, Kevin Hovde, who brought Haugh to the Spiders before taking him to Gainesville after Todd Golden hired him, was the man who made the forward’s dream of playing for Florida come true.
“Haugh was, in the words of Florida assistant coach Kevin Hovde, ‘an insane late bloomer.’ Six feet 7 going into his senior year of high school, maybe not as comprehensively serious about basketball as Division I coaches would prefer until a couple of years before that. He was on the radar when Hovde worked at Richmond. He was not, however, a must-sign no-brainer,” Hamilton wrote.
“But Haugh did bloom, even if he needed a prep school stopover to do so. And once Hovde joined Todd Golden’s new coaching staff at Florida, the pair doubled back. Their re-evaluation recommended Haugh as a player worth adding, even if the particulars of the picture remained fuzzy.”
Hovde won’t be back with the Gators in 2025-26. He’s been hired as Columbia’s next head basketball coach. Don’t expect Haugh to follow, though.
After UF’s 84-79 Elite Eight win over Texas Tech, Haugh is a household name. 20 points and 11 rebounds off the bench will do that for you.
Gator fans have Hovde to thank for unearthing a gem.