Florida Gators go global again with Slovenian guard Urban Klavzar
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — For the second time in four days, the Florida Gators have added an international player to the team. The latest addition for UF coach Todd Golden is Urban Klavzar from Slovenia, Gators Online has confirmed.
The 6-foot-1 guard has played the last few years in Spain (Real Madrid, UCAM Murcia CB and CD Estela Cantabria) and competed for the Slovenian National Team at the U20 European Championship this year.
Klavzar made nine starts in 33 games played last season with CD Estela Cantabria. He averaged 8.9 points, 1.5 assists, 0.8 rebounds, 0.3 steals and 18.3 minutes, shooting 42.7% from 3 and 47.7% from the floor.
The addition of Klavzar, 20, completes the Florida Gators’ 2024-25 roster with 13 scholarship players. He becomes the sixth member of UF’s 2024 recruiting class and will enroll for the fall semester.
Klavzar joins Serbian center Viktor Mikic, four-star guard Isaiah Brown and transfers Alijah Martin, Sam Alexis and Rueben Chinyelu. The Gators also brought in 7-foot-9 center Olivier Rioux — who will be the tallest college basketball player ever — as a preferred walk-on.
Klavzar is the fifth international player for Golden at UF. He signed center Aleks Szymczyk from Germany in his first recruiting class and landed a pair of players in the 2023 class in Lithuanian guard Kajus Kublickas and Australian forward Alex Condon, who earned SEC All-Freshman Team honors.
Golden said in his introductory press conference that he and his staff would recruit internationally.
“It’s something that at the University of San Francisco was a really, really good piece for us, and we were able to build relationships all through Europe, Australia, and there’s a lot of talented kids over there, and transparently, not a lot of them have come to the SEC yet. You see them in different leagues across the country. Some on the West Coast. I think it’s an area that we can go and attack and bring some really talented kids over here,” Golden said.
“Just my time as a player, I played with a ton of international kids. Obviously, playing overseas over there, building a lot of great relationships. Even at Columbia we had international guys. Over the past 20 years I feel pretty fortunate to have been able to build a lot of relationships and one of the most important guys in regards to evaluating some of the young student athletes is University of Florida alum, Jonathan Givony, one of the NBA guys that does all the draft stuff for ESPN. There’s a lot of great ties that we have here that’s going to be an area that we can draw to.”
