FLORIDA at No. 20 FLORIDA STATE
When: Saturday, 11 a.m. (EST)
Where: Tucker Center, Tallahassee, Fla.
Records: Florida (3-0); Florida State (2-0)
TV: ESPNU (
Sam Gore and
Chris Spatola)
Radio: Gator IMG Sports Network (
Mick Hubert and
Lee Humphrey)
THE BASICS
Florida State is playing the first six games of its 2020-21 season on the home floor at Tucker Center in Tallahassee.
Florida and Florida State, both unbeaten, will renew their rivalry of nearly 60 years, with the Seminoles on a commanding six-game winning streak that marks the second-longest in a series that dates to 1951. ... The Gators have opened the season with three straight victories for the first time in three years, starting last week with wins over Army and Boston College in the "Bubbleville" setting at Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn. UF added a lopsided 86-40 defeat of Stetson in its home opener Sunday. The Seminoles debuted last week by crushing North Florida 86-58, then added a nice win Wednesday over Indiana, beating the Hoosiers, 69-67 in overtime, as part of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. Both victories were in Tallahassee. In fact, FSU's first six games will all be at home. The Seminoles won't leave town until their Dec. 29 Atlantic Coast Conference road opener at Clemson. ... The Gators lead the all-time series 43-28, but obviously the Seminoles are chipping away and, after winning the ACC regular-season title in 2020, for now hold the distinction of being the top basketball program in the state, what with deep runs in the last two NCAA Tournaments (Elite Eight in '18 and Sweet 16 in '19). The last three meetings have been lopsided affairs, including an 81-60 blowout at Tallahassee in the season opener for both teams two years ago. In the most recent game, FSU came to Gainesville on Nov. 10, 2019 and left with a 63-51 victory after holding UF to just 28-percent shooting from the floor, including 4-for-22 from 3-point range (18 percent). The Seminoles got eight points, eight rebounds and seven assists from senior point guard
Trent Forrest, while guard
Devin Vassell, a 2020 first-round pick by the San Antonio Spurs, had 13 points and six rebounds. Florida was led by forward
Kerry Blackshear's 10 points and 13 rebounds, but FSU's defense smothered the grad-transfer into 0-for-5 shooting. ... UF is 18-13 all-time in Tallahassee, with Coach
Mike White 0-5 vs. the Seminoles, including 0-2 on the road. White is actually 1-6 all-time vs. FSU, splitting a pair of games in the NIT, with a win in 2013.
STARTERS (Probable Lineups)
| Florida State |
Pos. |
Ht. |
Wt. |
Class |
Per Game |
| RaiQuan Gray |
F |
6-8 |
260 |
R-Junior |
10.0 pts / 7.0 reb |
| Balsa Koprivica |
C |
7-1 |
240 |
Sophomore |
12.5 pts / 6.5 reb |
| Anthony Polite |
G |
6-6 |
215 |
R-Senior |
8.5 pts / 5.5 reb |
| Scottie Barnes |
G |
6-9 |
227 |
Freshman |
8.5 pts / 5.0 reb / 5.0 ast |
| MJ Walker |
G |
6-5 |
213 |
Senior |
18.0 pts / 2.5 reb |
ONE TO WATCH
Scottie Barnes (middle) may be just a freshman, but he's not just a freshman. Far from it. One of the state's most coveted recruiting prospects in a generation, Barnes played his freshman high school season at Palm Beach Cardinal Newman, then transferred to University School and led that program to back-to-back Class 5A state titles, receiving offers from the likes of Kansas and Kentucky along the way. Barnes opted to finish his prep career at the Monteverde (Fla.) Academy basketball boutique and was part of a 25-0 mythical national championship squad and was named a 2020 McDonald's All-America, as well as one of the nation's top-10 prospects. The 6-foot-9, 227-pounder debuted against North Florida with eight points, six rebounds and six assists, while showing up on every highlight show with a run-out, behind-the-back slam dunk. He followed that with Wednesday's show-stopping finish in the win over the Hoosiers. After starting the game just one for six from the floor, Barnes hit a huge go-ahead 3-pointer with three minutes left in OT to give FSU a two-point lead. After IU tied it with a couple late free throws, Barnes went one-on-one and threw in a driving-left bank shot high off the glass with 1.8 seconds left for the win. He finished with nine points, four rebounds, five assists and four steals. The dude is a gamer and destined for stardom -- both this year an beyond (as in the NBA next season).
TEAM BREAKDOWNS
Fourth-year junior guard Tyree Appleby in a stance and defending against Stetson during Sunday's 86-40 victory.
ABOUT THE GATORS: They've not followed through on their plans to play at a far more accelerated pace than previous teams (Army showed UF it needed some fine-tuning on defensive transition), but the Gators also aren't flirting with tempo numbers near the bottom of Division I, as they have the last two seasons. It's early, of course, but Florida ranks 134th in pace (up more than 200 spots from last season), according to
KenPom.com advanced metrics, as well as No. 22 overall in offensive efficiency and 18th in
Keyontae Johnson
defense. ... Forward
Keyontae Johnson has done nothing to quell his status as preseason Southeastern Conference Player of the Year. While leading the team in scoring and rebounding, Johnson is shooting 63.9 percent from the floor, has knocked down three of six 3-point shots, and 76.9 percent of his free throws. ...
Tre Mann's evolution to point guard is off to a good start. He's got 12 assists to seven turnovers, which is solid, but Mann's ability as a scorer has been on display, also. He needed seven games to hit 30 points as a freshman. He did it in two this season, and through three games is making 50 percent of his field goals, five of his eight 3s, and is at 84.6 percent on 13 free throws versus 65.5 percent for his freshman campaign. ... Shooting guard
Noah Locke went 1-for-11 overall and 0-for-7 from 3 against FSU last season. Nothing remotely close to that can happen this time. Locke got off to a pseudo-slow start after two games, then righted himself from long distance against Stetson. After making just three of his first 10 long balls (seven of 20 overall), Locke ripped the Hatters by going 5-for-6 from deep. The Gators are not a great outside shooting team (12-for-39 from 3 minus Locke), so they need him to make some from long ones to keep the FSU defense honest. ... Wing
Scottie Lewis had an utterly complete game against Stetson (10 points, 10 rebounds, 6 assists) for the second scoring double-double of his career, and posted a plus-43 in the plus-minus column, despite taking just five shots. He's also second on the team in blocks and steals. ... The low-post combination of
Colin Castleton and backup
Omar Payne has combined to make 15 of 22 field goals for 11.6 points per game to go with 7.0 rebounds and 3.0 blocks. The Gators could use more from both guys, and will absolutely need more from at least one of them to have a shot against the ultra-physical and aggressive Seminoles. ... Backup guard
Tyree Appleby (7.7 ppg, 2.7 ast) has made good on his role as an instant-energy guy, but he needs to scale back the turnovers (8 so far, one more than his assist total). He shot nearly 39 percent from the 3-point line as a sophomore at Cleveland State, so his 1-for-6 start is a little out of character. ... Reserve forward
Anthony Duruji has made just two of his 11 field goals and gone 0-for-5 from the arc, but the Louisiana Tech transfer has missed a bunch of practice and conditioning time, including a 14-day quarantine, so he's playing catchup. Two years ago, he shot nearly 47 percent overall and 34 percent from the arc at La Tech.
ABOUT THE SEMINOLES: It's their 19th season under Coach
Leonard Hamilton (384-221), now a youthful-looking 72 years old, and few programs in the country have it going like
Leonard Hamilton
"Coach Ham." Florida State is 106-34 over the previous five seasons, including 29-9 in ACC play the last two (FSU would have been no worse than a No. 2 seed if the 2020 NCAA Tournament had not been canceled), and has three first-round draft picks (two of them lottery selections) over the last two years (and at least one more coming in 2021). The Seminoles have found an identity rooted in defense (currently No. 16 in
KenPom) and physicality under Hamilton and it's working for them, both on the court and the recruiting trail. ... FSU is shooting just 41 percent as a team, but opponents are at 37.4 and getting out-rebounded by 7.5 rebounds per game. ... Guard
M.J. Walker was a McDonald's All-American in 2017 and labeled a "one-and-done." Instead, he's been a steadying influence and consummate four-year player, and thus far leads the Seminoles in scoring. He's hitting 43.5 percent of his shots, 5-for-11 from the 3-point line and 11 of his 12 free throws. And, of course, he excels on defense and will haunt whichever Gator he draws. ...Forward
RaiQuan Gray leads the team in rebounding and at 6-8, 260, likely will be charged with banging Johnson around and making things miserable for UF's standout forward. ... Center
Balsa Koprivica, another Montverde product, is far more polished than during his '19-20 freshman season, when he averaged just 4.7 points and 2.3 rebounds. He's also got far more responsibility and, with his length and activity around the basket will be an issue for the UF bigs. He had 12 points and eight boards against Indiana. Ditto for
Anthony Polite, who is a forward but often is matched on defense against point guards. He is a 3-point threat (3-for-8 this season), but crashes the offensive glass hard. ... Top reserve
Malik Osborne (5.5 ppg, 6.0 rpg), a transfer from Rice, started against the Gators last season and scored 10 points to go with four rebounds.
NUMBERS WORTH NOTING
It doesn't seem fair, but Chris Chiozza (11), who became one of the most popular players in program history on his way to setting the UF all-time record for career assists, was the first Gator to play four seasons at UF and never beat the Seminoles.
* .143 — Combined 3-point shooting percentage of UF's reserves, based on 3-for-21 through three games (Duruji 0-5; Appleby and
Samson Ruzhentsev 1-6;
Ques Glover 1-3;
Alex Klatsky 0-1).
* 3 — Players in UF program history to go 0-4 against FSU:
Chris Chiozza (2014-17),
KeVaughn Allen ('15-18) and
Kevarrius Hayes ('15-18).
* 7 — Longest winning streak by either team in the series, with the Seminoles one win from equaling UF's run of consecutive victories that went from 1965-68, back when the teams played twice each season.
* 16.6 — Seminoles' average margin of victory in their last three wins over the Gators.
* plus-72 — Combined plus-minus ratio for Lewis the last two games.
* 1995 — The last year Florida and Florida State played twice in a season, with the Gators winning 71-65 in double-overtime at Orlando Arena (anyone remember the Milk Challenge?) on Dec. 17, 1994, then winning two months later at Tallahassee by a 75-62 score on Feb. 20.
* 2012 — The last year UF played a game that tipped off this early (11 a.m.). Florida and Tennessee led off a 12-hour run of six SEC games on ESPN to start the conference season. The Gators, ranked 17th, played like they were half asleep through the first half and eventually lost to the unranked Volunteers 67-56 at Knoxville.
LAST WORD
The Seminoles will be a tough out. The Gators could play well and it still not be enough to win a very difficult matchup on the road.
