Olivier Rioux no longer plays for the Florida Gators.
That hasn't changed how good Florida is on the basketball court, and it wasn't expected to — the Gators played on the opening night of the college basketball season on Monday and took on a ranked Miami team. Florida won by 10 points to open the campaign successfully while being the preseason No. 1 team in the country.
Rioux, the 7-foot-9 center, spent two seasons with Florida. His first was a redshirt year, not playing a single second as the Gators won the national title and Rioux went viral for cutting down nets while standing on the ground.
Last year, Rioux did get time for Florida, but it wasn't much more than garbage time. The Gators didn't feel he could help them in competitive situations.
So in the offseason, Rioux transferred. He now plays for UC-Irvine, known as the Anteaters, and they had their first game on Tuesday against Chapman University. Chapman is a Division III school, but this does count as an official regular season game for UC-Irvine — a tune-up, to be sure, but officially Rioux's regular season debut.
Here's how he did.
Olivier Rioux was comfortably dominant in his debut for the Anteaters.
They gave him the start, the first start of his college career.
Rioux played just 18 minutes in the blowout victory for UC-Irvine.
He shot 6-for-9 from the floor and 1-for-4 from the foul line to give him 13 points.
Rioux grabbed 12 rebounds — eight on the defensive end of the floor, four on the offensive side.
The big fella also blocked one shot, turned the ball over twice and committed one foul.
The post below shows some of what Rioux achieved on the floor in a highlight clip — you may have to click this link to see it:
Florida isn't necessarily missing Rioux, because he wasn't a difference maker for the Gators to begin with.
But it does seem like he'll be a quality addition to the Anteaters of UC-Irvine.
This article was originally published on HEAVY
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