{"id":213901,"date":"2026-04-01T01:33:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T01:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/213901\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T01:33:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T01:33:29","slug":"florida-center-olivier-rioux-the-tallest-college-basketball-player-ever-enters-transfer-portal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/213901\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida center Olivier Rioux, the tallest college basketball player ever, enters transfer portal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Yahoo<\/a>Tue, March 31, 2026 at 1:32 PM UTC\"\"<\/p>\n

The tallest basketball player in NCAA history is looking for a new team in the offseason. Florida center Olivier Rioux is entering the transfer portal after a middling sophomore season with the Gators.<\/p>\n

Rioux, 20, confirmed the news on Instagram, thanking the team and fans for their support.<\/p>\n

Rioux is making the move after seeing limited time in just 11 games as a sophomore. He averaged 0.6 points and 0.5 rebounds in just 1.5 minutes per game.<\/p>\n

Rioux originally joined Florida as a preferred walk-on during the 2024-25 season. It wound up being a red-shirt year for the center, however, and he did not appear in a game.<\/p>\n

His second season at Florida didn\u2019t result in many significant moments, but he did break a record the instant he stepped on the court. During a November game against North Florida, Rioux became the tallest college basketball player to see action in a game, as he tallied two minutes of play during the contest. The 7-foot-9 center did not record any stats in the game, however.<\/p>\n

He was used in a reverse\/mop-up role the rest of the way, seeing one or two minutes sparingly with Florida throughout the season. His best performance came in a 114-55 blowout win over Prairie View A&M, when he scored two points and recorded two rebounds and an assist in two minutes of play.<\/p>\n

Rioux does have a history of strong play prior to joining Florida. He\u2019s played prominent roles for Canada\u2019s FIBA teams as an amateur and has two bronze medals for his efforts there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tue, March 31, 2026 at 1:32 PM UTC The tallest basketball player in NCAA history is looking for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[28,116,118,117,510,25387,97650],"class_list":{"0":"post-213901","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-jacksonville","10":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","11":"tag-jacksonville-news","12":"tag-north-florida","13":"tag-olivier-rioux","14":"tag-sophomore-season"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}