Florida Gators

No. 6 FLORIDA vs NORTH FLORIDA 

When: Tuesday , 7 p.m. (EST)
Where: Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center, Gainesville, Fla.   
Records: Florida (0-0), North Florida (0-0)  
TV: SEC Network (Dave Neal and Jon Sundvold) 
Radio: Gator Sports Network (Mick Hubert and Lee Humphrey) 



THE BASICS  The 2019-20 season opener for both teams, with the game marking just the second of UF coach Mike White's five seasons that the Gators have opened at home. ... Florida's preseason ranking of No. 6 is the program's highest since returning all five starters from the 2006 NCAA championship team and debuting in the '06-07 poll at No. 1. ... UF is coming off a fourth straight 20-win season, as the Gators went 20-16, finished eighth in the Southeastern Conference with a 9-9 mark, and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament as a No. 10 seed before falling to No. 2-seed Michigan, 64-49, in the West Region at Des Moines, Iowa. ... UNF returns four starters from a team that went 16-17, and placed third in the Atlantic Sun Conference. ... Florida leads the all-time series, 8-0, including a 90-66 win on Nov. 27, 2018 when the Gators put five players in double-figures, led by freshman guard Noah Locke's 18 points, plus 13 from senior guard KeVaughn Allen. UF went 16-for-28 from the 3-point line (57.1 percent), smashed UNF on the boards, 42-25, and led by 20 at halftime.   
 

Florida	Pos.	Ht.	Wt.	Class	Per Game (2018-19)
Keyontae Johnson	F	6-5	225	Sophomore	8.1 pts / 6.4 reb
Kerry Blackshear Jr.	C/F	6-10	232	G-Transfer	14.9 pts / 7.5 reb (Virginia Tech)
Tre Mann	G	6-4	172	Freshman	N/A
Noah Locke	G	6-2	193	Sophomore	9.4 pts / 2.3 reb
Andrew Nembhard	G	6-5	191	Sophomore	8.0 pts / 2.9 reb / 5.4 ast

North Florida	Pos.	Ht.	Wt.	Class	Per Game (2018-19)
Wajid Aminu	F	6-7	197	Senior	11.7 pts / 6.5 reb / 2.1 blk
Garrett Sams	F	6-7	209	Senior	12.5 pts / 4.9 reb
Carter Hendrickson	F	6-7	217	Sophomore	4.3 pts / 3.9 reb
JT Escobar	G	6-2	186	R-Senior	9.9 pts / 2.0 reb
Ivan Gandia-Rosa	G	6-1	193	Senior	10.5 pts / 3.2 reb

ONE TO WATCH  
TEAM BREAKDOWNS   ABOUT THE GATORS: This starts Year 5 under White, who will bring in a record of 89-53, with four 20-win campaigns and three NCAA Tournaments to show for it. Among SEC programs, only Kentucky can claim such numbers. ... UF defeated Division-II Lynn University, 89-71, in an exhibition game last Tuesday. In that one, the Gators shot 51 percent as a team, 48 percent from the 3-point line (14 of 29), and held the Fighting Knights to 39 percent from the floor. But they also allowed one of Lynn's players,

guard and D-1 Rider transfer Jordan Allen, to go completely off (13-23 overall, 9-17 from deep) on his way to 35 points. If nothing else, Allen's performance, which included 22 second-half points, made for an excellent point of reference with regard to defensive accountability and awareness heading into the season. ... The sophomore trio of point guard Andrew Nembhard, shooting guard Noah Locke and forward Keyontae Johnson are back and figure to be the heart the team, with the help of center/forward Kerry Blackshear Jr., the marquee graduate transfer from Virginia Tech. Against Lynn, Locke was the only one of those three who did not reach double-figure scoring (and he had nine with three 3s), with Nembhard hitting a team-high 17 points and Blackshear going for double-double (16 points, 10 rebounds) in his Florida debut. ... Fourth-year junior forward Dontay Bassett, who averaged 2.7 points and 2.3 rebounds in playing all 35 games last season, returned to practice over the weekend and is cleared to play. Bassett had been sidelined for nearly two weeks with a knee bruise. ... Fourth-year center Gorjok Gak (dislocated shoulder), who missed all last season rehabbing from knee surgery, will not play against UNF, but returned to practice last week in a limited capacity. His next step will be getting cleared for contact, but it's possible that could be by week's end. ... Minus Bassett, none of the nine rotation players logged less than 12 minutes against Lynn. That figures to change with the start of the regular season, with the minutes distribution to be further streamlined when the Florida face Florida State on Sunday. ... Of UF's five freshmen, guard Tre Mann (13 points vs Lynn), swingman Scottie Lewis (5 points, 5 rebounds, 3 steals, 5 turnovers) and center/forward Omar Payne (9 points, 7 rebounds, 3 blocks in 19 minutes) will get the most run. ... ABOUT THE OSPREYS: They're in the 11th season under Scott Driscoll, who is 163-167 during that time, including one postseason berth each in the NCAA (2015) and NIT (2016). ... Last season, UNF went 16-17 and was on a seven-game winning streak when it lost to Liberty in the A-Sun Tournament title game, one victory shy of the NCAA field. ... North Florida, which has seven of its eight top six scorers back, was voted to finish second in the A-Sun this season behind defending league champion Liberty. ... UNF said goodbye to its leading scorer and rebounder of a year ago in forward Nate Horchler, a grad-transfer that bolted for Providence, a team the Gators face in December). But in Sams, along with forwards Wajid Aminu, the A-Sun preseason Defensive Player of the Year, and JT Escobar, plus guard Ivan Gandia-Rosa, the Ospreys return four starters who combined to average 44.6 points per game -- that's nearly 74 percent of their front-line offense. The Ospreys don't shoot 3s like they did in those "Birds of Trey" days of a few years ago, or at least they didn't last year. Ideally, that's how Driscoll would like to play, so we'll have to see what tact this bunch takes after hitting 44.8 percent from the floor and just 34.3 percent from deep as a team a season ago. ... Gandia led the team in both assists (192) and made 3s (76) last season. ... Freshman point guard Emmanuel Adedoyin helped lead Orlando Oak Ridge to the Class 9A state championship as a junior in 2018, and was one of just nine players in the state of Florida to receive McDonald's All-American nomination honors. 


NUMBERS WORTH NOTING   * 4 — Players on the '19-20 UF team that suited up for the Gators last season (Bassett, Johnson, Locke and Nembhard). 

* 5 — Freshmen who figure into the UF rotation this season (Lewis, Mann, Payne, plus point guard Ques Glover and center Jason Jitoboh).

* 35.5 — UF's average margin of victory in the UNF series that dates to 2006, with the closest game coming by a 77-69 count on Nov. 8, 2013, the season opener for the Gators' last Final Four team.

* 62 — Career-high scoring game by Escobar, the UNF guard, during his one prep-school season at Elev8 Prep, a boutique academy in Delray Beach, Fla. And he did it against Mouth of Wilson (Va.) Oak Hill Academy, one of the top-three basketball prep school programs in the country. 

* 212 — Combined career games logged by current Florida players in UF uniforms. That's the fewest on an opening day roster since the 2007-08 season, the year after the Gators said so long to a quartet of underclassmen in Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Corey Brewer and Taurean Green. 

* 2017 — The only other year a White-coached UF team has opened at home. The Gators defeated Gardner-Webb, 116-74, to tip off the '17-18 season. White's other three openers came at Navy (2015), against Florida Gulf Coast in Jacksonville during the O'Dome renovation (2016), and at Florida State (2018).  


LAST WORD

The time for hype is past. Time to start telling this team's story, come what may.