Florida Gators

FLORIDA at GEORGIA  

When: Saturday, 2 p.m. (EST)
Where: Stegeman Coliseum, Athens, Ga.  
Records: Florida (7-4, 4-3); Georgia (9-4, 2-4)  
TV: ESPN2 (Jon Sciambi and Dan Dakich) 
Radio: Gator IMG Sports Network (Mick Hubert and Lee Humphrey) 



THE BASICS 
 
A matchup of two teams coming off two extreme feel-good victories. Which one will handle the prosperity better? ... Florida, minus its three best players, overwhelmed No. 6 Tennessee 75-49 at Gainesville Tuesday night in one of the most stunning upsets of the 2020-21 college basketball season. Georgia, after opening the Southeastern Conference season with four losses, won its second straight league game on a buzzer-beating layup Wednesday night that stunned Kentucky 63-62 and halted an 11-game losing streak against the Wildcats. ... UF and UGA are permanent annual home-and-home opponents in league play. The Gators lead the all-time series 115-103 and swept the two games a year ago. They won at Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center on Feb. 5, 2020 by erasing a 22-point second-half deficit (thanks to a 37-5 run) to win 81-75, behind a career-high 26 points from sophomore point guard Andrew Nembhard that undercut a stellar 32-point performance from Bulldogs freshman guard Anthony Edwards, who went on to become the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NBA Draft by Minnesota. The comeback was the biggest in program history, eclipsing the 21-point rally a month earlier in the SEC opener against Alabama. A month later, Florida defeated Georgia 68-54 at Athens on March 4, again in come-from-behind fashion. The Gators fell behind by 13 barely five minutes into the game, as the Bulldogs rained four 3-pointers and hit their first seven shots. Sophomore forward Keyontae Johnson led the comeback with 18 points and 11 rebounds, while classmate shooting guard Noah Locke scored 11 of his 17 in the second half with a trio of 3-pointers in what turned out to be the penultimate game of the season, courtesy of COVID. ... UF owns a 6-3 edge in the series under Coach Mike White, including a 3-2 record on the road.  
 

Florida	Pos.	Ht.	Wt.	Class	Per Game
Anthony Duruji	F	6-7	220	R-Junior	6.1 pts / 3.9 reb
Omar Payne	F	6-11	231	Sophomore	3.9 pts / 3.4 reb
Tyree Appleby	G	6-5	189	R-Junior	10.0 pts / 2.9 reb / 2.9 ast
Noah Locke	G	6-3	203	Junior	10.1 pts / 2.2 reb
Tre Mann	G	6-5	190	Sophomore	13.8 pts / 5.4 reb / 4.1 ast

Georgia	Pos.	Ht.	Wt.	Class	Per Game
Toumani Camara	F	6-8	220	Sophomore	13.3 pts / 7.4 reb
P.J. Horne	F	6-6	230	G-Transfer	9.5 pts / 3.8 reb
Justin Kier	G	6-4	190	G-Transfer	10.5 pts / 3.9 reb
Sahvir Wheeler	G	5-10	180	Sophomore	14.2 pts / 3.4 reb / 7.4 ast
Tye Fagan	G	6-3	195	Junior	9.9 pts / 4.9 reb

ONE TO WATCH  
 

TEAM BREAKDOWNS  
 
ABOUT THE GATORS: Yes, there's plenty of work remaining, but beating Tennessee did wonders for their NCAA Tournament resume by rocketing them a whopping 19 spots up the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) rankings to No. 28. That's fourth among SEC teams, behind Tennessee (6), Alabama (10) and LSU (23), with UF holding a 2-1 record against those teams. Florida's strength of schedule is ranked 35th nationally. ... As far as KenPom.com advance metrics, the Gators sit at No. 23 overall, along with 32nd in offense, 30th in defense and 82nd in tempo. ... UF is scoring 72.6 points per game, shooting 44.8 percent overall and 37.0 from deep. On defense, the

Gators give up 66.6 points, 40.9-percent shooting (after allowing UT just 29 percent) and 31.0 from the arc. ... Florida is expected to have forward Colin Castleton, the 6-11 Michigan transfer, while sophomore guard/forward Scottie Lewis is likely to miss a fourth straight game. Castleton (16.7 ppg, 6.5 rpg in SEC play) had a sore ankle and missed the Tennessee game, as did Lewis (11.0 ppg, 4.4 rpg overall), who has been held out due health and safety protocols. Whether Castleton starts likely will be a game-time decision, as well as a difficult decision, given how his backup performed last time out. Castleton was replaced in the lineup by Omar Payne, whose inconsistency gave way to his finest performance in nearly a year with nine points, nine rebounds and five blocked shots. As far as Lewis, the Gators have won two of the previous three games without him, using a smaller starting lineup, with Tyree Appleby, the fourth-year junior and Cleveland State transfer, coming off maybe his most complete floor game in a UF uniform. Appleby scored 14 points, grabbed four rebounds, dished seven assists (to three turnovers) and had three steals against the Volunteers. His ability to penetrate and get into the teeth of a UT defense that came in ranked No. 2 in the country helped the Gators to their most complete and balanced offensive performance of the season. ... Shooting guard Noah Locke led UF with 14 points and is hanging steady with his 3-point shooting at 40.5 on the season (though just 36.1 in SEC play). ... Guard Tre Mann also had a solid performance in making six of his 11 shots (without attempting a 3) on his way to 12 points, four rebounds and three assists. ... Just how White and his staff manage minutes (especially with Castleton back) after spreading them out across the entire roster against the Vols will bear watching; as will the players' reactions to those minutes. Will forward Anthony Duruji's minutes be scaled back for Niels Lane (1.4 ppg, 1.2 rpg), who had career highs of six points and five rebounds last time? What about sophomore guard Ques Glover (3.5 ppg), who is coming off the best all-around game of his career in scoring 10 points, grabbing three steals and just one turnover. Backup 6-11 center Jason Jitoboh (2 pts, 3 rebounds, season-high 13 minutes) and forward Osayi Osifo (4 points, 6 rebounds in 12 minutes), also.

ABOUT THE BULLDOGS: Their record in Tom Crean's three seasons is 36-41 and just 9-33 in SEC play. He's 1-3 against the Gators. The team went 16-16 last season with the starpower of Edwards, the one-and-done who averaged 19.1 points, 5.2 rebounds and 2.8 assists on his way to being named the league's freshman of the year. UGA doesn't have anyone on the roster like Edwards, but the Bulldogs will be scrappy, especially with a full roster available. ... Georgia started the season with seven straight

wins, with all but one (Cincinnati) coming against low majors. After that, though, they hit a buzz saw in SEC play by losing to Mississippi State, at LSU and Arkansas, and against Auburn by an average defeat margin of 15 points before winning at Ole Miss last weekend. The Bulldogs chased that victory with Wednesday's home win against Kentucky when, after being down six with less than two minutes remaining, Wheeler (above), with just three seconds on the clock, threw a baseline out-of-bounds bounce pass to forward P.J. Horne for a layup with 1.3 to go for the program's first win over the Wildcats since 2013. ... Georgia will come in rated No. 90 overall by KenPom, with the No. 95 offense and No. 100 defense. The Bulldogs, though, rate 12th in tempo, just one place behind break-neck Alabama, which puts them third in pace of play among the nation's high-major teams. ... Freshman guard K.D. Johnson sat out the team's first 10 games due to NCAA eligibility issues. The 6-1, 190-pound Johnson was cleared Jan. 12 and made his debut the next day in a home loss against Auburn, but scored 21 points (on 9-for-19 shooting) and grabbed seven rebounds. After three games, the former Hargrave (Va.) Military Academy star and two-time Class 5A Georgia Player of the Year leads the Dogs in scoring at 15.0 points per game. He's shooting 47 percent from the floor and 57 from the 3-point line (8 of 14). ... Georgia is not a big team, with 6-8 Toumani Camara its top front court player. Camara is making 48 percent from the floor and is not a threat from the 3-point line (7 of 32), but he will mix it up in side. Of his 89 rebounds, nearly a third are on the offensive end. ... Horne's layup made him the hero against Kentucky, but the Virginia Tech transfer actually is the team's best outside shooter with a team-high 24 makes from the arc (37.5 percent). ... Guard Justin Kier, a transfer from George Mason, is second on the team in minutes (32.2), second in 3-point makes (37.3 percent) and is the Dogs' best wing defender (27 steals). ... Tye Fagan is just 6-3, but he's at nearly five rebounds a game and, like Camara, crashes hard on the offensive end. ... Forward Andrew Garcia, a 6-6, 225-pound transfer from Stony Brook, is the fifth Bulldog who averages in double figures, and does it off the bench. Though he plays just 18.6 minutes a game, he's averaging 10.0 points and 4.7 rebounds. He went for 16 points and six against Kentucky. 


NUMBERS WORTH NOTING  
 
* 15 — Spots in the overall KenPom ratings the Gators moved up following their performance against Tennessee. The Gators moved up 17 on defense, as well.  

* 19 — Combined blocked shots by UF's starting post men over the previous three games. Castleton had eight blocks against Ole Miss and six at Mississippi State, followed by the five by Payne against UT. 

* 35.1 — Combined average per-game minutes from the reserve unit of Samson Ruzhentez, Glover, Lane, Osifo, Jitoboh through the Gators' first six SEC games, a figure that includes a combined 10 DNPs (Did Not Play)

* 65 — Combined minutes of that quartet in the Tennessee game. 

* 1,009 — Career points for Appleby, who came to UF with 899 points from his two seasons at Cleveland State and passed the 1,000-point milestone in the second half Tuesday.


LAST WORD

The collective effort and energy (oh yeah, and the result) Florida mustered against Tennessee will be tarnished if it can't be duplicated on the road against an improving Georgia team that is much better and gaining confidence with the addition of Johnson.