Florida Gators

FLORIDA at ARKANSAS 

When: Wednesday, 8:30 p.m. (EST)
Where: Bud Walton Arena, Fayetteville, Ark.
Records: Florida (8-5, 0-1); Arkansas (10-3, 1-0) 
TV: SEC Network (Taylor Zarzour and Barry Booker) 
Radio: Gator IMG Sports Network (Mick Hubert and Lee Humphrey) 


STAKES (The Setup)  A couple teams that had very different Southeastern Conference opening-day experiences. Florida lost 71-69 on a practically unfathomable 90-foot pass and buzzer-beating dunk at home to South Carolina, the only team in the league with a losing record. It was UF's first loss in a SEC debut since 2012. Arkansas went to Texas A&M and used a late offensive surge to take the lead and hold on for a 73-71 road victory, the likes of which are precious over the course of a league season. ... The Gators will try to avoid their first 0-2 start in conference play in nine years. ... Florida leads the all-time series against Arkansas, 23-12, but had an eight-game winning streak snapped in the last outing, March 9, 2018, when senior guard Jaylen Barford scored 27 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in an 80-72 win in quarterfinal play of the SEC Tournament at St. Louis. The Hogs shot 54 percent and scored 50 points in the second half of that one. ... Before the 2018 tournament game, the Gators had won 13 of the previous 14 in the series, dating to 2009, with the lone loss coming on the road in 2013. ... Florida is 5-1 against Arkansas under Coach Mike White. 

STARTERS (Probable Lineups)

Florida	Pos.	Ht.	Wt.	Class	Per Game
Keith Stone	F	6-8	253	R-Junior	7.0 pts / 4.6 reb
Kevarrius Hayes	F	6-9	227	Senior	6.9 pts / 6.2 reb / 2.1 blk
Noah Locke	G	6-3	205	Freshman	10.0 pts / 2.0 reb
KeVaughn Allen	G	6-2	193	Senior	10.3 pts / 2.6 reb
Andrew Nembhard	PG	6-5	191	Freshman	7.5 pts / 2.5 reb / 5.8 ast

Arkansas	Pos.	Ht.	Wt.	Class	Per Game
Daniel Gafford	F	6-11	233	Sophomore	17.0 pts / 9.5 reb / 2.4 blk
Adrio Bailey	F	6-6	222	Junior	6.8 pts / 3.8 reb
Isaiah Joe	G	6-5	167	Freshman	15.5 pts / 2.3 reb
Mason Jones	G	6-5	207	Sophomore	13.1 pts / 5.1 reb
Jalen Harris	PG	6-2	166	R-Sophomore	9.5 pts / 2.8 reb / 6.8 ast

STANDING OUT (One to Watch)
STUFF (Need-to-Know Info)  ABOUT THE GATORS: The Razorbacks can score the ball, so it'll be imperative that center Kevarrius Hayes and power forward Keith Stone don't default back into the foul-trouble issues like the dealt with against South Carolina, where the duo combined for just 21 minutes, two points, five rebounds and five turnovers. ... For the first time this season, Florida has two players averaging in double figures, with guards KeVaughn Allen and Noah Locke each just barely past the threshold at 10.3 and

10.0, respectively. Allen had one of those games against the Gamecocks when he was good, but not assertive enough. In 27 minutes, he took only six shots and made four, including 2-for-2 from the 3-point line, and only attempted one field goal in the second half. Locke, on the other hand, fought to get open and when he got the ball he let it fly. He took 16 shots, hit five (all 3s), but missed his last five. In an ideal world, the UF coaches would like to see Allen getting five or six of those attempts. ... Locke's five 3s against USC marked the third time in four games he'd dropped five, making him just the third freshman since 1996 -- joining Anthony Roberson (2001-05) and Kenny Boynton (2009-13) -- to hit at least five in three different games. ... Point guard Andrew Nembhard, now fourth in the league in assists per game, dished seven assists against South Carolina, but was just 3-for-10 from the floor and missed all five 3-point attempts. ... UF's bench contributed 29 points in the USC game, but went a combined 10-for-26 (including 2 of 8 from the arc), grabbed 17 rebounds, committed 15 fouls, with two assists and seven turnovers. Power forward Dontay Bassett (2.9 ppg, 2.6 rpg) had six points, five rebounds and three blocks in 18 minutes. Freshman forward Keyontae Johnson (6.5 ppg, 4.7 rpg) was 0-for-6 from the floor, scored

one point, grabbed six rebounds and turned the ball over twice. ... ABOUT THE RAZORBACKS: They're now in the eighth season under Mike Anderson, with a 161-89 mark and three NCAA Tournament bids, including each of the last two years, to show for it. ... Arkansas is scoring 81.2 points per game, having three teams reached at least 90 points, with its season high a 121-point outburst in a blowout of Florida International. The Razorbacks have lost at home to Western Kentucky (by one) and Georgia Tech (by four), while also struggling to a three-point defeat of Texas State. That said, any kind of a opponents' comparison should mean little after the Gators just lost to a team beaten by Stony Brook and that needed a Division II win to snap a four-game losing streak before coming to Gainesville. ... Guard Isaiah Joe has emerged as one of the top freshman players in the league and has made his mark as a deadly 3-point shooter (45.4 percent). Not only does he make them, but Joe shoots a bunch of 3s. He already has taken 108, which is 28 more than Locke's team-high 80 attempts for the Gators. ... Guard Jalen Harris is a transfer from New Mexico, where he averaged 4.5 points and 2.3 assists over 31 games as a freshman two seasons ago. Now he's tied for the league assists lead at nearly seven a game with Auburn's Jared Harper. ... Forward Mason Jones is a Texas kid and one-year junior-college transfer who is the team's No. 3 scorer. He's been good for nearly 41 percent overall, 38 from 3, 79 percent from the free-throw line and is an excellent rebounder at his position. ... The Hogs are playing a very high-paced game, as the program has been known to do since the "40 Minutes of Hell" days of Nolan Richardson (when Anderson was his top assistant). They've forced nearly 70 more turnovers (more than 16 per game) than committed for a plus-3.2 margin. They will come hard after Nembhard in what figures to be a very tough environment for the rookie point guard in his first SEC road test.


STATS (Some Numbers of Note)   * .652 — UF's free-throw percentage, which ranks next-to-last in the league. The only team worse? Arkansas at 64.8. 

* 1 — College basketball teams without a 20-point scorer in a game this season. The one team, of course, is Florida, and that is truly incredible (and telling) statistic.

* 10 —Consecutive made free throws by Nembhard, who at one point was seven of 13 the season (53.8 percent), but is now 17-for-23 (up to 73.9 percent).

* 15.5 — Average points for Allen, a native of Arkansas, in six career games against his home-state Hogs. 

* 21 — Points scored by Allen in the only Ozark State homecoming game of his career to date. In UF's 81-72 SEC-opening victory of Dec. 12, 2016, Allen hit seven of 16 shots (yes, he launched 16), including five of nine from long distance over 34 minutes. 

* 1992 — The year Arkansas entered the SEC (along with South Carolina) as part of conference expansion. The Gators and Razorbacks played for the first time, Jan. 22, that year, in Fayetteville, where the home team won 75-62, the first of five straight wins for the Hogs in the series. UF broke the string in 1997, in Coach Billy Donovan's first season game (first league game, actually), and the Gators are 23-7 in the series since.  


STATEMENT (Random thought) 

Tough venue to go into after what happened Saturday night, but given the unpredictability of this Florida team, the same probably could be said of just about any place the SEC could send the Gators right now.