Florida Gators

FLORIDA vs PROVIDENCE  

When: Tuesday, 7 p.m. (EST)
Where: Barclays Center, Brooklyn, N.Y.   
Records: Florida (6-3), Providence (6-5)  
TV: ESPN2 (Tom Hart and Andy Kennedy) 
Radio: Gator IMG Sports Network (Mick Hubert and Mark Wise) 


THE BASICS  It's the Gators and Friars in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Tip-off Classic, a triple-header event that also will feature Princeton and Iona playing at 4:30 p.m. and Miami and Temple in the 9:30 nightcap. ... Florida is back in action for the first time in 10 days, after getting a break last week from games for fall semester exams. The Gators' last outing was a disappointing 76-62 loss at 24th-ranked Butler, which was undefeated at the time. The disappointment was rooted in the return of UF's shooting woes (6-for-26 from the 3-point line) and some frustrations with defensive fundamentals. Providence, meanwhile, also is not pleased with its start to date. The Friars began the season as a pick to contend for the Big East title -- and still may do so -- but dropped four of five, including a one-sided 75-61 defeat against cross-state rival Rhode Island on the road, before Saturday's 82-78 win over Stony Brook. ... UF leads the all-time series, 4-0, but the two programs have not played since the Gators racked up an 85-67 victory on Dec. 6, 2006, in the second game of a home-and-home series that pitted former Coach Billy Donovan against his alma matter. In that one, the seventh-ranked and reigning national-champion Gators, playing without forward Corey Brewer (mononucleosis), got a career-high 21 points along with 13 rebounds from forward Al Horford. Center Joakim Noah hit all but one of his seven field-goal attempts to finish with 17 points, six rebounds, five steals and four assists. ... Florida is 3-2 against Big East Conference opponents during Coach Mike White's five seasons, including 1-1 this season (win over Xavier, loss at Butler). 

PROBABLE STARTING LINEUPS 

Florida	Pos.	Ht.	Wt.	Class	Per Game
Keyontae Johnson	F	6-5	225	Sophomore	12.6 pts / 6.0 reb
Kerry Blackshear Jr.	F	6-10	232	G-Transfer	13.3 pts / 8.4 reb
Scottie Lewis	G	6-5	188	Freshman	7.9 pts / 4.0 reb
Noah Locke	G	6-2	193	Sophomore	8.7 pts / 2.0 reb
Andrew Nembhard	PG	6-5	191	Sophomore	10.1 pts / 3.2 reb / 5.2 ast

Providence	Pos.	Ht.	Wt.	Class	Per Game
Kalif Young	F	6-9	250	Senior	5.4 pts / 4.9 reb
Emmitt Holt	F	6-7	230	G-Senior	7.7 pts / 4.7 reb
David Duke	G	6-5	200	Sophomore	13.5 pts / 4.6 reb
Alpha Diallo	G	6-7	210	Senior	13.5 pts / 8.7 reb
Luwane Pipkins	G	5-11	180	G-Transfer	9.1 pts / 2.8 reb / 5.1 ast

ONE TO WATCH  
TEAM BREAKDOWNS    ABOUT THE GATORS: A four-game win streak was snapped with the loss at Butler on Dec. 7. In that one, UF led by six with less than eight minutes to go in the first half when the Bulldogs went on a 22-6 tear to end the half, a run that included 6-for-6 shooting, 11 straight points and ended with a Butler 3-pointer at the buzzer to fall behind by nine at the break. The Gators never got closer than six in the second half, falling victim to that poor 3-point shooting (23 percent). All nine players that checked into the

game for the Gators registered a negative plus-minus score. ... UF currently checks in 55th in offensive efficiency and 33rd in defense, according to KenPom.com. The Gators score 67.0 points per game and give up 67.6. They shoot 43.5 percent overall and just 29.1 from the arc, while yielding 41.5 and 33.0, respectively. ... Forward Kerry Blackshear Jr. tallied 17 points and 5-for-10 shooting at Butler, but was 1-for-6 from distance versus 4-for-4 inside the arc. Like several other players on this team, opponents are giving Blackshear the long ball. At just six of 26 (26.1 percent), why not? But also like several other players on this team, Blackshear is a much better long-range shooter than his numbers have yielded. The Gators, both coaches and players, believe they will fall in time. ... Shooting guard Noah Locke (33.3 percent from distance) made three treys on nine attempts last game. After starting the season just 3-for-16 through three games, Locke has gone 15-for-38 over the last six. That's 39.5 percent. ... Forward Keyontae Johnson had just three rebounds in 34 minutes at Butler. Gators need more than that from him. Johnson, though, also has been plagued by a nagging abdominal soreness that has kept him out of contact in practice the last week. ... Point guard Andrew Nembhard has shot 47 percent from the floor over the previous four games (compared to 36 for the season). His 88 field-goal attempts is a team high. UF probably doesn't want its playmaker leading the team in shots, but since basically no one is shooting the ball very well Nembhard becomes an option. ... Freshmen wing Scottie Lewis, backup guard Tre Mann (5.4 ppg) and reserve point guard Ques Glover (4.7 ppg) really struggled on defense against Butler's cutters and shooters. Mann fouled a 3-pointer shooter, not once, but twice. Glover had no assists and two turnovers, taking his season's numbers to four assists and 12 turnovers. ... Freshman forward Omar Payne (3.7 ppg, 3.6 rpg) has his moments, both good and not so good. His length and size allow him to do so many things, but his court time is going to be limited as long as he continues to make both physical and mental mistakes. His six minutes at Butler included two offensive fouls and fouling a 3-point shooter in a late-clock situation. ... ABOUT THE FRIARS: They're in the seventh season under Ed Cooley, one of the most admired and respected coaches in the country. Cooley came to PC by way of Fairfield, which he guided to CIT and NIT berths before the Friars came calling in 2011. He got Providence to the NIT in his second season, then went to five straight NCAA tournaments (2014-18) and fell back into the NIT last season with an 18-16 record and first-round loss to Arkansas. His seven-year record of 168-114 includes a 1-4

mark in NCAA play. ... The Friars have not played a particularly challenging schedule (the nation's 258th toughest, out of 353, according to KenPom). They opened the season by beating Sacred Heart and New Jersey Institute of Technology by a combined 67 points, then lost by nine at Northwestern. Then came two wins over St. Peter's and Merrimack, then a loss to Penn at home. PC dropped its first two games at the Wooden Classic in Anaheim, Calif., falling to Long Beach State (which UF will face later this month) and College of Charleston, then beat Pepperdine in the last-place game. Then came the Rhode Island loss and Stony Brook win. ... PC is scoring 74.9 and giving up 65.6 per game, while shooting 42.4 overall and 34.1 versus allowing 41.8 and 33.3. KenPom rates the Friars at 112th in offense and 53rd on defense. ... Providence returned six of its top seven scorers, plus added Luwane Pipkins, a grad-transfer by way of Massachusetts, where he played two seasons for former UF assistant Matt McCall. Pipkins, though averaging just shy of eight points a game, is a wild card. At UMass he went for 16 points, 4.9 rebounds and 5.2 assists last season, with outbursts of 35 against Harvard and 44 against LaSalle. He took 15 shots, including 11 3s, in the team's loss to Northwestern, but he also tops the team in assists with a really solid 56-to-23 assist-to-turnover ratio. ... Guard David Duke, once a UF recruit, is shooting 53 percent from the 3-point line (18 of 34) and 85.4 from the free-throw line (305 of 41). ... Forward Emmitt Holt scored a total of just four points the last two years after suffering season-ending injuries as both a junior and senior. He got a medical redshirt and already has 85 points in 10 games in '19-20. ... Reserve center Nate Watson (8.9 points, 3.3 rebounds per game) is only averaging 16 minutes per game, but he's scored at a 8.9 per-game clip and shooting 56 percent. At 6-10 and 250 pounds he'll be the biggest man on the floor Tuesday. ... They have six regular rotation players that average between 9.1 and 5.4 points. The Friars don't care who scores. 


NUMBERS WORTH NOTING   * .185 — Combined 3-point shooting percentage of UF's three freshman perimeter players (Mann, Lewis and Glover), based on 10-for-54 to date. Lewis' 4-for-17 (that's 23.5 percent) is the best among the trio.  

* 1 — Florida's non-league strength of schedule ranking among Southeastern Conference teams. Nationally, the Gators check in 34th, Alabama at 76th, and the next-closest league team is Auburn at 87th. 

* 4 — Consecutive seasons the Gators have gone to the NYC area for a game. UF played Duke in Madison Square Garden for the Jimmy V Classic in December 2017, then was back for the NCAA East Regional semifinal against Wisconsin (see Chiozza, Chris) and final against South Carolina three months later. The following fall, UF stayed in a Big Apple hotel for its game against Cincinnati in the Never Forget Tribute Classic, which was played at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. And, last December, it was back to the Garden and the Jimmy V event to take on West Virginia. Florida went 3-2 over those five games, with a current two-game winning streak based on victories over Cincinnati and WVU. 

* 27.5 — Pipkins' scoring average in two games against the Friars while at UMass, with 26 last season and 30 the year before, both in losses.  

* 1978 — The first year Florida and Providence played, with the Friars winning 79-61 at home. That was five years before Donovan, a freshman point guard from Rockville Centre, N.Y., arrived to play for Coach Joe Mullaney, then, ultimately, for Rick Pitino, who with Donovan as the catalyst guided the program to the Final Four in 1987.


LAST WORD
Forget Providence's middling record. This is a neutral-site game against a high-major opponent that will be heard from in Big East play down the line (just like UF will be heard from). This will be a quality (and likely Quad-1) win on one of these teams' postseason resumes.