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Florida small forward DeVon Walker will transfer from the program, the school announced via GatorZone on Monday.
These are the requisite quotes from Billy Donovan and Walker:
"DeVon has a bright future, and we hope for the best for him wherever he chooses to go," Donovan said.
"I’ve grown a lot this year, and I’m grateful to Coach Donovan, the staff and my teammates at Florida for everything," Walker said.
Walker, who was the final member of Florida's four-man 2012 recruiting class, committed very late in the 2012 cycle, and was seen as a bit of a reach, despite being No. 142 in the Rivals150 for 2012. His slight build and lack of SEC-caliber offensive game made him a little-used reserve in 2012-13, when he played 99 minutes over 25 games and made just four of 22 field goals.
Walker might have gotten even less playing time in 2013-14, though, with Dorian Finney-Smith, Casey Prather, Will Yeguete, and Chris Walker likely to receive the lion's share of time at the forward positions for the Gators. And while a player like Walker can be helpful to a team as an extra body even when buried on a depth chart, being buried is rarely helpful to a college basketball player — or fun.
As with fellow freshman-turned-transfer Braxton Ogbueze, I think Walker's a really good kid who will have success somewhere, but this is mostly a case of a player reading the writing on the wall and figuring out that his best move involved a physical move. I wish Walker (and Ogbueze) the best in their basketball and academic futures.