NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Let’s start with the lunch box. 

When he was 8 years old, Thomas Haugh carried the Florida Gators with him to school every day in New Oxford, Pennsylvania. Haugh can’t recall why he adopted a team and college so far away – all his family and friends were Penn State fans – but thinks it had something to do with the “cool” team colors. 

 

Then came Tim Tebow and it was all over. In time, his parents were painting their son’s bedroom orange and blue.

“I loved Tebow,” Haugh said. “I just remember the Gators were always a thing for me. Always.”

To assume it was Haugh’s destiny to be an athlete at the University of Florida skips over the really hard of part of his story. The tall, lanky and wildly athletic Keystone State kid had to be good enough to be a Gator. 

So, predetermined? No. 

Through sheer determination? Absolutely. 

“Thomas could never get enough of the work,” mother Jenn Haugh said. “It was all day, every day trying to be the best he could be.”

A case can be made that Florida entering the picture was mostly serendipitous, but anyone wearing Haugh’s favorite colors these days is ecstatic how things turned about. That goes especially for the coaches and players of the fourth-ranked and second-seeded Gators (27-4), who will face 7-seed Missouri (22-10) in Friday night’s Southeastern Conference quarterfinal at Bridgestone Arena as they steam toward a potential No. 1 seed in next week’s NCAA Tournament. 

Watch how the 6-foot-9, 215-pound sophomore forward runs the floor, crashes the glass, sells out on every possession and it all makes sense. Haugh not only made himself into the player he wanted to be, but his passion to be great got him to a place he once only daydreamed about. 

“It’s true. I can actually say I made it to my dream school, and that’s wild to me,” Haugh said. “Some days I’ll think, ‘Oh man, I got to go to practice today.’ Then I’m like, ‘But I’m going to practice for the Florida Gators,’ and it’s different. I’m just very thankful.” 

[Read senior writer Chris Harry‘s “Pregame Stuff” breakdown here]

To say the feeling is mutual would do a disservice to how Coach Todd Golden and his staff feel about Haugh.

Assistant Kevin Hovde, the UF coach who first happened upon Haugh while scouting a prep tournament in Pennsylvania, put it best. 

“Tommy never lets you down,” Hovde said. 

That was the case last year, when Haugh arrived as an unheralded freshman and played himself into the back end of the rotation on a team that won 24 games and went to the NCAA Tournament. As a sophomore, Haugh has mostly come off the bench again, but basically doubled his numbers, scoring 9.1 points (nearly 49% from the floor; 35 from the 3-point; 81.0 from the free-throw line) and grabbing 6.0 rebounds, while ranking among the team’s top four in assists, steals and blocks in 24 minutes a game. 

The box scores, however, only account for so much. Neither the winning plays nor the appreciation of his teammates show up in the stat sheet. 

“There are so many things you can say about him, but overall, just a great human being first,” said first-team All-America point guard Walter Clayton Jr. “The first thing that comes to mind with Thomas is how hard he plays. I’ve been saying that since he got here. Last year, he was kind of just running around, didn’t know what to do. But he was going 110%, so I was fine with it and I always thought that once he got it down, knowing everything how he has this year, he was going be a great player. And he has been.”

While Missouri’s sixth-year guard Caleb Grill was named the SEC’s 2025 Sixth Man of the Year earlier this week, there’s isn’t a coach in the league that doesn’t account for the impact Haugh makes when he checks into the game. 

“What a luxury to have a kid come in and play his tail off like that,” Oklahoma coach Porter Moser said. “How do you say his name?” 

That would be “howk.” It’s Scottish-Irish, but everything about the makeup of Thomas Haugh is rooted in his southern Pennsylvania upbringing. 

KEYSTONE KID

New Oxford is a town of 18,000, about 10 miles east of Gettysburg. The closest big cities are Philadelphia and Baltimore. 

Thomas was the oldest of three kids, all of whom inherited athletic genes. Mom was a volleyball player at Shippensburg (Pa.) University when she met linebacker and future husband, Ryan Haugh, on campus. He went into the hospitality business. She became an elementary school teacher and, eventually, the designated driver to all youth sports. And with three athletic children, there were a lot of them. 

For Thomas, the oldest, it was football, basketball and volleyball. He excelled at each, but it was his competitiveness that stood out. Like the time in middle-school gym class when the teacher had a kicking contest. Thomas bribed a kid to let him take a second turn so he would win. 

“It’s the only time he ever got in trouble in school,” Jenn said. “Ryan and I were both really competitive too, so it was kind of like, ‘Sorry, not sorry.’ But Thomas just always wanted to be the best, and if he couldn’t be the best he would move on to something else.”

He had options. Haugh was a pretty good quarterback and was recruited to play volleyball at Penn State and Ohio State. Eventually he settled on basketball, with a couple growth spurts helping make the decision. All those late-night shots in the driveway and trips to his uncle’s farm (the one with the barn and full basketball court) did not go to waste.

The home-grown work ethic was in his DNA.

“Being in that environment kind of shaped who I am now; that rough, go-do-whatever-you-need-me-to-do kind of kid,” Haugh said. “We were all just a bunch of farm-country kids. All really scrappy, probably because no one knew who we were, so when we played other teams, better teams, we had to go out and really battle.” 

 

Haugh was a role player as a freshman on his New Oxford High School team, but eventually enrolled at Perkiomen School, a 150-year-old college prep academy in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, tucked away in the Lehigh Valley. They were scrappy at Perkiomen too, only with college-prospect pedigrees. Haugh couldn’t crack the starting lineup there either, which bothered his parents after sending him away from home. Thomas, though, was undeterred. 

“He’d say, ‘It’s a process, Mom,’ ” Jenn said. 

Haugh started his senior year – alongside forward and future first-round NBA pick Ryan Dunn (Virginia) and guard Xavian Lee (Princeton) – on a team that was really good and got a lot of attention. At the time, though, the interest in Haugh was with mid-major programs like Bucknell, Lehigh and Colgate. The Perkiomen coach suggested a post-grad year to get Haugh more development and exposure. 

His parents were hesitant. Their son was not. 

“Thomas always bets on himself,” Ryan said.

Haugh blew up that offseason on the Under Armour circuit, with Maryland, Illinois and Northwestern soon in the recruiting picture. Virginia Commonwealth wanted in, also. The Haugh’s were en route to an official visit there when, on a stop for gas, one of Thomas’ AAU contacts called with some news. 

“He said Florida had called and wanted to know if we were interested,” Ryan said. 

Umm … they were. 

Hovde, who was an assistant at Richmond when he first saw Haugh play, got a visit arranged. The family was picked up at the airport, met the UF coaches, got a tour of the practice facility and sat for the recruiting presentation before being taken back to their hotel to get cleaned up for dinner. 

In the elevator – before even getting to their room – Haugh told his parents he’d made up his mind. 

“I want to be a Gator,” he said. 

A trip to Virginia Tech the next weekend was canceled. Haugh announced his commitment two days later. The date was June 29, 2022. Golden, the 37-year-old virtual no-name from the University of San Francisco, had yet to coach a game at Florida. No matter. Haugh again bet on himself (and Golden).

“I liked the analytics stuff they showed. They explained to me the offense and how I would fit into the system,” Haugh said, recalling how impressed he was by the staff’s preparation. “They had a vision for me. They had a vision for everybody on the team.”

Haugh was even given a player comp: Chandler Parsons, the do-it-all former Gator and 2011 SEC Player of the Year. 

Clearly, these guys had done their homework.

INSTANT IMPACT

Haugh arrived at UF in May ’22, in time for the summer A session and much earlier than most freshmen. So did fellow freshman and 6-foot-11 forward Alex Condon, by way of Perth, Australia. They were roommates. The two hit it off immediately, something UF associate head coach Carlin Hartman, who tutors the big men, predicted would happen with words Haugh’s parents will never forget. 

“Coach Hartman told us Thomas and Alex would be in each other’s weddings,” Jenn said.

They’ve been besties going on three years now, as both roommates and fishing buddies (Haugh has a boat). With Condon’s parents on the other side of the globe, the Haughs became his extended family, with trips to Pennsylvania and excursions to the Delaware beaches for some deep-sea fishing (in between basketball workouts, of course).

The two of waged many one-on-one wars at the barn. 

 

“We just have a lot in common, with what we like and how we interact, but really with our work ethic,” Condon said. “On Day 1, we started playing straight-away one-on-one. We were both just going really hard and figured out pretty quickly that we were both high-energy, hustling players. My respect for him has been sky-high ever since, and he’s been playing amazing basketball this year.”

Some of Haugh’s best 2024-25 moments came during the five-game stretch when either leading scorer Walter Clayton Jr. (ankle), top perimeter defender Alijah Martin (hip pointer) or leading rebounder Condon (ankle) were out with injuries. In those five games, Haugh averaged 16.6 points, 9.8 rebounds and 4.6 assists. When Condon went down 30 seconds into the Feb. 11 game at No. 22 Mississippi State, Haugh flirted with the fourth triple-double in UF history, finishing with 16 points, nine boards and eight dimes in a huge road victory.

“The more he’s on the floor, the more the winning plays show up,” Golden said. 

Haugh’s winning also shows up in the gym, often when no one is watching. How’s this for testaments to Haugh’s work ethic? Last year, Haugh shot 25.5% from the 3-point line. This year, he’s at 35% (his 27 makes tops UF’s front-court players). Last year, Haugh shot 45.7% from the free-throw line, which ranked next-to-last among rotational players. This year, he’s at 81.0% (second on the team) with the second-most attempts. 

At the conclusion of the ’24-25 regular season last weekend, some of the most-utilized advanced metrics in college basketball rated Haugh’s all-around efficiency value – the combination of his offense and defense – on a short list behind only Cooper Flagg (Duke), Johni Broome (Auburn), Joseph Tugler (Houston), Kon Knueppel (Duke) and Kam Jones (Marquette). All five of those players will show up on All-America teams.

Haugh doesn’t even start on his team. 

He also doesn’t care.

“That’s our whole team this year. We have a different person scoring a career high or a new person coming in and doing something special every game,” Haugh said. “Everybody steps up. If it’s not your night, someone has your back. I just have that attitude going into every game; that it’s not about me. It’s about the team. I don’t care about stats. If we win, we all win. That’s what we’re all trying to do here, right? And it’s fun when we do it.” 

The Gators have had 27 games worth of fun so far, the second-most regular-season wins in the program’s 118-year history. Haugh’s parents would love to have been at more games during this magnificent season, but they can sense their son’s joy from afar. His body language says it all. 

But there are also the mother-melting times. 

“He told me once, ‘Mom, when I say my prayers, I always ask that I don’t get hurt, and I don’t wake up and find out being a Gator is all a dream,’ ” Jenn Haugh said. “He’s fallen in love with his life at Florida.” 

It’s definitely not a dream. 

Just his dream school. 

 

Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu