Pregame Stuff: LSU at Florida (Wednesday, 6:30 pm)
Tuesday, February 6, 2018 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
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A nuts and bolts look at the Gators' next game.
By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
LSU at FLORIDA
When: Wednesday, 6:30 p.m. (EST) Where: Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center, Gainesville, Fla. Records: Florida (15-8, 6-4); LSU (13-9, 4-6) TV: SEC Network (Mike Morgan and Pat Bradley) Radio: Gator IMG Sports Network (Mick Hubert and Bill Koss)
STAKES (The Setup)
The LSU game will be the first of just four more home dates for the Gators.
Florida returns to the court approaching dire circumstances, having lost three straight Southeastern Conference games, including the last two by double digits, when the Gators couldn't hit a shot after halftime, played next to no defense and seemed both dispirited and lacking in confidence, especially in the 68-50 low-point loss Saturday at home against Alabama. LSU, meanwhile, is coming off a 94-86 home victory against Arkansas that stopped a two-game losing skid of double-digit defeats. ... UF rests in a three-way tie for third place in the SEC standings alongside Kentucky and Alabama, one game behind second-place Tennessee, and three behind front-running Auburn. The goal is always to finish in the top four and secure a double-bye for the SEC Tournament, but the Gators have lost all margin for error on that front, what with two teams (Mississippi State and Missouri) lurking just one game back in a tie for sixth place. ... LSU leads the all-time series 63-45, having won three of the previous five after Florida won six straight from 2010-14. ... The two teams last met Jan. 25, 2017 at Baton Rouge, where the Gators put an historical 106-71 whooping on the Tigers by bombing in a school-record 19 shots from 3-point range. The game marked the highest point total for UF in a conference game in 42 years, as well as the worst home loss by LSU since the year before Pete Maravich arrived on campus in 1964. Forward Devin Robinso scored a career-high 24 points, making five of eight treys, to go with eight rebounds. Reserve guard Eric Hester came off the bench to make his all five of his 3-point attempts for a career-high 16 points. ... Florida is 2-1 vs. LSU under Coach Mike White.
A freshman point guard billed as an NBA lottery pick in the upcoming draft, Alabama's Collin Sexton, just whisked through the O'Dome over the weekend and left with a stuffed stat line and lopsided victory. Now comes LSU's Tremont Waters, also a heralded freshman playmaker and the best player on his team. This time last year, Waters was one of the hottest prep prospects in the northeast, out of New Haven, Conn., where he averaged 25.3 points, 4.6 assists, 4.6 steals and was named Connecticut's Gatorade Player of the Year. As a SEC rookie, Waters has been unfazed by the spotlight. Not only does he lead the team in scoring, but he's doing so at a 43-percent clip overall and 37 percent from the 3-point line, 82 percent on free throws, while ranking second in the SEC to his UF counterpart in assists with 129. Waters has also shown a flair for the dramatic. Just ask Texas A&M, which he bombed for a pair of 3-point baskets in the final 12 seconds -- the second an off-balance, closely guarded prayer with 0.3 seconds remaining -- to steal a 69-68 road win. In Saturday's home defeat of Arkansas, Waters had career highs of 27 points and 11 assists. In a loss to Kentucky early in the SEC slate, he pulled 11 rebounds at just 5-foot-11. He does it all.
STUFF (Need-to-Know Info)
Keith StoneABOUT THE GATORS: Since winning at Kentucky on Jan. 20, they've lost three of four, with the lone win over Baylor in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge, and the three losses plummeting UF from atop the league standings. They've been ugly losses, too, especially the last two; and especially the last two second halves, when the Gators made just 31 percent at Georgia and 22.6 percent against Alabama. Defensively, UF allowed nearly 56-percent shooting against the Crimson Tide and got smashed for 46 points in the paint. ... The UAA marketing department has tabbed the game as "Cheez Head Night," in honor of Chris Chiozza. The Rowdy Reptiles will be donning foam cheese heads, as the senior point guard looks to bounce back from a tough night against Bama when he scored just four points, went 2-for-9 from the floor and missed all three of his 3-point attempts. On Monday, Chiozza was named one of 10 semifinals for the Bob Cousy Award, given annually to the nation's top point guard. ... After scoring double figures in eight straight games, guard/forward and leading scorer Jalen Hudson(15.7 ppg) has gone for nine and six, respectively, the last two, a big reason why UF has just 55 points in those outings. Against the Tide, he also had a season-high five turnovers. A third straight game without Hudson's scoring punch would hurt, obviously, but also be out of character. ... Forward Egor Koulechov went 5-for-10 against Bama, but only hit one 3-pointer and had a season-low two rebounds. His fewest boards in a game this season had been four. ... White praised shooting guard KeVaughn Allen as the team's only player who put a solid start-to-finish game together last time out. Allen had 16 points and hit two very timely 3s in the second half, but that was pretty much it as far as highlights for UF offensively after intermission. ... Power forward Keith Stonegot off to a great start Saturday, scoring 12 points in the first half. He had none in the second, sort of microcosm for his team. ... Little-used redshirt freshman center/forwardDontay Bassett, averaging 5.3 minutes in just 15 appearances, may start getting some more reps, as the UF coaches look for answers in the post. ... Speaking of Bassett and the
Duop Reath
Florida bench, five reserves totaled one point against Alabama. ... ABOUT THE TIGERS: They're in the first year under Coach Will Wade, who came to Baton Rouge by way of two seasons at Virginia Commonwealth and, before that, two seasons at Tennessee-Chattanooga. ... The Tigers rank first in the SEC in steals per game (7.6), second in field-goal percentage (.483) and third in scoring (78.6 ppg). They rank dead-last in four of the major rebounding statistics, including offensive rebounds (10.0 pg) and defensive rebounding percentage (.669), and next-to-last in field-goal percentage defense (.449). ... LSU checks in at No. 73 in the Ratings Percentage Index. By RPI standards, the Tigers' best wins came by sweeping A&M (No. 25), with their best non-conference win a neutral site defeat of Michigan (32nd) in the Maui Invitational. The day after beating the Wolverines, they lost by 39 to Notre Dame. ... After Waters, LSU's next-best player is center/forward Duop Reath, a 6-11 Australian who represented his native country -- playing alongside UF backup center Gorjok Gak -- in the 2017 World University Games last summer. Reath is converting shots at 56 percent and occasionally will step outside and hit the 3-pointer if allowed (12 of 26 on the season). ... Guard Skylar Mayes, a decent 3-point shooter at 34.1 percent, is the third of three Tigers averaging in double figures, but forward Aaron Epps is basically right there (9.9 ppg) and is better from deep (.387) than Mayes. Backup guard Daryl Edwards is more accurate than both (.394) from distance and is a 94-percent free-throw shooter. ... Backup guard Randy Onwuasor is a grad-transfer from Southern Utah, where as a redshirt junior last season he led the Big Sky Conference and was fifth in the nation in scoring at 23.6 points per game. He's found nowhere near that kind of offensive success in the SEC, but obviously he's capable of a night night. In the league tournament last year he scored 43 points in a game.
STATS (Some Numbers of Note)
Will the Gators rebound from Saturday's listless loss?
* 1 — Double-figure scoring games for junior center Kevarrius Hayes this season. He had 10 points at Missouri on Jan. 6. Against Alabama, he went scoreless for the first time this season.
* 9 — LSU players who average at least 15 minutes per game. Florida has just six, so the Gators' depth (and a bench struggling for productivity) might be challenged.
* 19 — Combined 3-pointers for the Gators in the previous three SEC games. For the season, they average 9.4 per game.
* 78.5 — Average points per game for Florida, yet the Gators have averaged just 62.0 over their last four SEC outings, and have hit that season average only four times the previous 17 games.
* 1947 — First time Florida and LSU met in basketball. It was in the SEC Tournament and the Tigers prevailed 60-45, starting a run of nine Tigers wins in the first 10 meetings.
STATEMENT (Random thought)
Not a lot to say, really. A fourth straight SEC loss and things will start looking dire as far as where this team will be in a month.
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