Florida TE Keon Zipperer suffers serious knee injury; Gators PG Trey Bonham fifth in transfer portal

By OnlyGators.com Staff
March 25, 2023
Florida TE Keon Zipperer suffers serious knee injury; Gators PG Trey Bonham fifth in transfer portal
Basketball

Image Credit: UAA

There seems to be no stop to the flow of news coming from the Florida Gators football and basketball programs. Over the last few days, key developments have occurred with important players from both teams.

Redshirt senior tight end Keon Zipperer suffered a significant knee injury in Florida’s sixth spring practice. It is believed that he tore his ACL, and based on comments he has made across his social media platforms, Zipperer will be out for the entire 2023 season.

“What’s hurts me the most is that I was looking forward to this year,” he tweeted with a frown emoji on Friday. He also posted a photo with new TE coach Russ Calloway while sporting a significant brace on a taped up right leg with a crutch under his left arm. “Fresh out of surgery and my coach pulled up on me,” he wrote. “… Y’all know my motto the turtle always wins the race keep pushing 9 we still got unfinished business.”

Zipperer started six of eight games he played last season, finishing with 13 receptions for 177 yards and a touchdown as the Gators struggled to utilize the tight end all year. The team has been thin at the position across the last couple of seasons. Redshirt senior TE Dante Zanders, who moved to offense for the first time last season after playing defensive end when initially joining the program, started seven of the 13 games in which he played. He caught just 10 passes for 75 yards in 2022.


On the hardwood, junior guard Trey Bonham Jr. became the fifth basketball player with intent to enter the transfer portal. Bonham, who joined Florida as a transfer from VMI last season, averaged 5.6 points, 1.1 assists and 1.8 rebounds in 13.4 minutes per game as he often struggled to play up to the advanced competition.

He had a few 20-point games on the season but was pulled from the starting five at the conclusion of a three-game losing streak. The Gators won five of their next six games, and his production completely dropped off as a reserve. Bonham hit 3 of 23 field goals (13%) and 2 of 15 3-pointers (13%) over the final 12 games he played this season.

Unless Bonham completes his undergraduate work, moves to a lower division or receives an NCAA waiver, he will have to sit out a year by transferring a second time.

He joins guards sophomore Kowacie Reeves and junior Niels Lane, senior forward CJ Felder and senior center Jason Jitoboh as Florida players looking for new homes after Year 1 of head coach Todd Golden.

Golden will now be forced to replace eight of his 13 scholarship players from his first season, and that’s before standout freshman G Riley Kugel decides whether to gauge his stock and/or ultimately enter the 2023 NBA Draft. While some draftniks project Kugel as a first-round pick, others do not have him listed as being selected in the two-round event.

Having previously stressed that recruiting will be focused on the transfer portal and not high school freshman — at least as he begins to build the program — Golden’s uphill climb this offseason will be significant.

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