Pregame Stuff: Florida vs Arkansas (Thursday, 1 pm ET)
Wednesday, March 13, 2019 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
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By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE TOURNAMENT
FLORIDA vs ARKANSAS
When: Thursday, 1 p.m. (ET) Where: Bridgestone Arena, Nashville, Tenn. Records: Florida (17-14); Arkansas (17-14) TV: SEC Network (Karl Ravech, Jimmy Dykes and Laura Rutledge) Radio: Gator IMG Sports Network (Mick Hubert and Mark Wise)
STAKES (The Setup)
Bridgestone Arena, which is home to the NHL Nashville Predators, has a capacity of 19,395 for basketball and will be hosting the SEC Tournament for the 13th time, dating to 2001, when it was known as the Gaylord Entertainment Center.
Florida is the No. 8 seed and Arkansas the No. 9 in the Southeastern Conference Tournament, which is back in Nashville, Tenn., after its one-year shot in St. Louis in 2018. The Gators and Razorbacks earned their seeds based on 9-9 and 8-10 league records, respectively. ... UF lost its last three games to end the regular season, thus putting itself in a precarious situation (that's probably putting it diplomatically) relative to NCAA Tournament hopes. True, the Gators boast high marks in the NET metrics (No. 33 overall) that ultimately will seed the 68-team NCAA field, but they don't have a lot of quality victories to show for it. Two wins in this tournament may very well be enough to push them in. There's even speculation one win could be enough, but who knows? As for the Hogs, whose NET sits at 55, they probably need an extended run to catch the eye of the selection committee. ... Florida leads the all-time series 24-12, including a 4-2 edge in SEC Tournament play. ... UF and Arkansas met on Jan. 9 at Fayetteville, where the Gators won 57-51, with four free throws in the final 12 seconds from homegrown KeVaughn Allenhelping seal the second SEC game of the season. UF built a 15-point cushion, only to let the Razorbacks roll back into the game with a late surge. The Gators, up two, needed a defensive stop with 30 seconds left, plus the free throws from Allen, who finished with 18 points, five rebounds and 11-for-12 from the free-throw line. ... For what it's worth, Florida won the regular-season meeting last year in Gainesville, then was beaten 80-72 by Arkansas in the tournament quarterfinals a year ago. ... UF is 43-49 all-time in the SEC Tournament. ... This will mark the third in Coach Mike White's four seasons at Florida that he has faced Arkansas in the SEC Tournament. White is 1-3 overall in the tournament, with his lone win coming in a 68-61 win over the Hogs in the 2016 second round, though the Gators are on a current three-game losing skid in the tournament since.
The box score indicated Florida held talented freshman guard Isaiah Joe to just six points over 34 minutes in the first minutes, but he had way too many open looks to please the UF coaching staff. Joe connected on only two of his 10 field-goal attempts, all but one coming from the 3-point line. That's the line that defenses need concern themselves with when game-planning for the lithe 6-5, 167-pound rookie. His 3.4 treys per game lead the SEC. Early in the season, he made 10 on his way to a career-high 34 points in a win over Florida International. Joe was a hotshot homegrown recruit out of Fort Smith, Ark., where he led Northside High to back-to-back Class 7A state titles and was named 2018 Arkansas Gatorade Player of the Year. The defense the Gators slapped on him in the first game was a big reason the usually high-scoring Hogs managed a season-low 51 in that game. Safe bet they'll score more this time. Joe will, too.
STUFF (Need-to-Know Info)
Fifth-year senior swingman Jalen Hudson went 4-for-14 and one of five 3-point attempts when the Gators played the Razorbacks in January. He's a more confident player now.
ABOUT THE GATORS: They haven't advanced past the SEC Tournament quarterfinals since winning the event in 2014 on the way to going a perfect 21-0 against SEC teams. ... UF ranks first in the SEC in scoring defense (63.7 ppg) and 3-point field-goal percentage defense (.316), plus second in turnover margin (plus-3.6) and third in 3s made per game (8.2). The Gators, however, are 13th in scoring offense (68.3 ppg), 12th in field-goal percentage (.423) and 10th in 3-point percentage (.374). ... Over the previous three games (all losses), UF has gone just 17 of 64 from the 3-point line (.266), including just three makes in the loss Saturday at UK. Over the last two games, both against gigantic front court opponents in LSU
Keyontae Johnson (11)
and Kentucky, UF went minus-26 on the glass. ... What is going on with shooting guard KeVaughn Allen? Florida's leading scorer is just 9-for-41 from the floor (that's 21.9 percent) and 3-for-19 from the 3-point line (that's 15.8 percent) over the previous four games. In the loss at Kentucky, White tried bringing Allen off the bench (just the ninth time in 137 career games he had not started), but the result was three points on 1-for-6 shooting. Allen has been known to turn up against his home state Hogs, but that wasn't the case when they teams played last year in St. Louis, when he had just 11 points, went 4-for-11 overall and 2-for-7 from deep. Whether he starts or doesn't, the Gators need him in this one. Their postseason fate could depend on it. ... CenterKevarrius Hayes is coming off one of the best weeks of his UF career. Against the beastly front lines of LSU and UK, Hayes hit 10 of 16 shots (including eight of nine at Lexington), grabbed 20 rebounds (a career-high 15 vs the Tigers) and blocked four shots. ... Wing Jalen Hudson went off against LSU for a season-high 33 two games ago, at one point scoring 18 straight and 27 of 30 UF points during a stretch after halftime. He cooled off at Rupp, however, but maybe can do better than his 4-for-15 vs. the Hogs back in January. ... Andrew Nembhard's eight assists (and just one turnover) at Kentucky equaled his most over the previous 13 games. After a nice run of offensive numbers, though, Nembhard hit just one of eight shots. ... Noah Locke's76 makes from 3, a UF freshman record, rank second in the league among freshman behind Arkansas' Joe. ... Forward Keyontae Johnson played in foul trouble for most of the last game, finishing with just two points and five rebounds in 11 minutes. He had not yet been promoted to the starting line when the two teams played in January, so the Hogs will be getting their first look of this version of Johnson, as opposed to the one who went scoreless. ... Sophomore backup guard Mike Okauruput together far and away his 18 best minutes of the season at Kentucky on his way to a season-high six points and terrific defense in the halfcourt. Okauru didn't have the flash moment that fellow reserve Isaiah Stokes, the redshirt freshman, forward enjoyed with his head-fake, drive and slam. Stokes very likely played his best defense of the season against UK on his way to scoring six points in 13 minutes. ... ABOUT THE RAZORBACKS: They're in the eighth season under Mike Anderson, the lieutenant who was groomed for so many years under head coach and Arkansas legend Nolan Richardson. Anderson's teams in Fayetteville have gone a collective 168-100 and for years were known for dreadful play away from home. That has
Daniel Gaffford
not necessarily been the case this season. The Razorbacks went 4-7 on the road, including 3-6 in SEC play, and 1-1 in neutral-site games. The Hogs handed regular-season league champion LSU one of its two league losses at Baton Rouge, threw a scare into the Kentucky at Rupp Arena before falling 70-66, and last week annihilated Vanderbilt by 36 at Memorial Coliseum. ... Arkansas is sixth in the SEC in scoring offense (76.3), seventh in field-goal percentage (.449) and third in turnover margin (plus-3.5). Defensively, the Hogs give up 72.8 points per game, which is 12th in the conference, and 42.6-percent shooting overall (7th) and 34 percent from deep (8th). ... At a very sturdy 6-11, 233 pounds Daniel Gafford looks every bit the part of a forward, but he runs the floor like a guard, which is why he's being projected as first-round NBA draft pick in June. He was in foul trouble in the first meeting between the two teams, but still finished with nine points and 12 rebounds. He had 16 points, 12 rebounds and shot 8-for-11 in the SEC tourney defeat of the Gators last season, finishing the game with a memorable (or forgettable, for those on the UF sideline) run-out, windmill dunk that was replayed on ESPN countless times. ... Point guard Jalen Harris ranks fourth in the SEC in assists, but first in assist-to-turnover ratio at plus-3.1. Harris does not make many mistakes and is a very good defender, but he's also not going to beat an offense by scoring (34.2 percent overall, just 8-for-65 from 3). He is a facilitator. ... A pair of reserves, 6-5 guard Mason Jones (13.8 ppg, 3.8 rpg) and 6-6 forward Adrio Bailey (5.6 ppg, 3.1 rpg), aren't really reserves, having only become backups of late. They have a combined 50 starts between them this season. Jones, a junior-college transfer who lit UF up for a career-high 30 last time, has 70 makes from 3 this season (four that night against the Gators), which is second-most on the team, and knocks them down at better than 36 percent, which is third on the team. ... The Hogs are not a good rebounding team, as they rank last in the SEC in rebounding margin (minus-4.5) and offensive rebounding percentage (.285). Beware forward Gabe Osabuobien on the former stat, however. Of his 91 rebounds, 41 have come on the offensive end (45 percent).
STATS (Some Numbers of Note)
Another one of his big games against the flagship school from his home state of Arkansas would do both KeVaughn Allen (5) and his Gators a world of good.
* .467 — Florida's all-time winning percentage in the SEC Tournament, based on that 43-46 mark.
* 1 — Florida's strength of schedule rank among SEC teams, according to KenPom.com, which also ranks UF's non-conference schedule as the most difficult in the league.
* 12 — Cities that have hosted the SEC Tournament in the event's history, which dates to 1933. Those cities: Atlanta, Knoxville, Tenn., Baton Rouge, La., Lexington, Ky., Nashville, Orlando, New Orleans, Memphis, Tenn., Tampa, Fla., and St. Louis. The tournament's official home is now Nashville, where it will be the next three seasons, before taking a one-year hiatus to Tampa in 2022, then going back to the Music City for 2023, '24 and '25 (and likely beyond).
* 15.9 — Average points per game for Allen against Arkansas, which is nearly four points better than his career average of 12.2 per game.
* 162 — Assists for Nembhard this season, which places among the 10-best season totals in UF history, as well as the second-most ever by a freshman behind the 221 from Nick Calathes in 2007-08.
STATEMENT (Random thought)
There's really nothing that needs to be said, right? The Gators need to show up and make some noise if they want their season to end in the tournament of choice.
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(No. 33 overall) that ultimately will seed the 68-team NCAA field, but they don't have a lot of quality victories to show for it. Two wins in this tournament may very well be enough to push them in. There's even speculation one win could be enough, but who knows? As for the Hogs, whose NET sits at 55, they probably need an extended run to catch the eye of the selection committee. ... Florida leads the all-time series 24-12, including a 4-2 edge in SEC Tournament play. ... UF and Arkansas met on Jan. 9 at Fayetteville, where the Gators won 57-51, with four free throws in the final 12 seconds from homegrown KeVaughn Allen helping seal the second SEC game of the season. UF built a 15-point cushion, only to let the Razorbacks roll back into the game with a late surge. The Gators, up two, needed a defensive stop with 30 seconds left, plus the free throws from Allen, who finished with 18 points, five rebounds and 11-for-12 from the free-throw line. ... For what it's worth, Florida won the regular-season meeting last year in Gainesville, then was beaten 80-72 by Arkansas in the tournament quarterfinals a year ago. ... UF is 43-49 all-time in the SEC Tournament. ... This will mark the third in Coach Mike White's four seasons at Florida that he has faced Arkansas in the SEC Tournament. White is 1-3 overall in the tournament, with his lone win coming in a 68-61 win over the Hogs in the 2016 second round, though the Gators are on a current three-game losing skid in the tournament since. 
