Florida’s Olivier Rioux, who stands 7-foot-9, sets college basketball record with first career dunk

Olivier Rioux made even more history on Wednesday night during No. 23 Florida’s 102-61 win over Saint Francis.

The 7-foot-9 center threw down an incredibly easy dunk in the final minute of the blowout win at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center in Gainesville on Wednesday, which made him the tallest player in college basketball history to ever make a field goal. Naturally, the Gators’ bench lost it.

Rioux, who actually has a spot in the Guinness as the world’s tallest teenager, redshirted last season with the Gators. He played his first minutes last month against North Florida, which set a different record for the tallest person to ever play in a college basketball game, and then went 1-of-2 from the free throw line against Merrimack.

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Finally, on Wednesday night, he hit his first field goal — which looked like it didn’t take any effort to get up to the rim at all.

Xavian Lee led the defending national champions with 18 points in the win after he shot 7-of-9 from the field. Alex Condon finished with 14 points and seven rebounds, and Reuben Chinyelu added 12 points and 11 rebounds. The Gators now sit at 7-4 on the season, and have won back-to-back games after a rough stretch where they dropped two of three games, including one to unranked TCU.

Florida will host both Colgate and Dartmouth before the end of the year, and will then open SEC play at Missouri on Jan. 3.

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While Rioux has only played a handful of minutes so far in the nonconference slate, and he likely won’t see much the rest of the way, he’s already off to a historic start to his playing career in Gainesville.