Florida Gators

FLORIDA at TENNESSEE 

When: Saturday, 2 p.m. (EST)
Where: Thompson-Boling Arena, Knoxville, Tenn.   
Records: Florida (18-10, 10-5); Tennessee (15-13, 7-8) 
TV: ESPN2 (Mike Corey and Jimmy Dykes) 
Radio: Gator IMG Sports Network (Mick Hubert and Bill Koss) 



THE BASICS Florida and Tennessee face off in a Southeastern Conference game between two teams, at least for now, headed in different directions. The Gators have won four of five, including a one-sided 81-66 home beating Wednesday night of LSU. The Volunteers have dropped three of four, with all three of those defeats on the road, including Wednesday's 86-69 outcome at Arkansas. ... UF sits in a tie for third place in the league standings, one game behind second-place Auburn and two behind front-running Kentucky, with three games to play. The Gators have positioned themselves nicely for a double bye in the SEC Tournament, but their advantage is just one game on South Carolina and Mississippi State, who sit in a two-way lock for fifth place. The Volunteers, who fell below .500 in league play, are tied with Alabama for eighth place in the conference standings... Tennessee leads the all-time series 76-57, including a two-game sweep in 2019, and has pretty much had its way in recent years, especially at home. The Vols have won three straight in the series, four of the previous five, plus five of the previous six at home. Want to go back further? UF is 3-9 at Knoxville since 2003 and that includes five straight losses from 2006-10. ... The Vols won the last meeting, handing the Gators a hefty 73-61 beating on Feb. 9, 2019 at Thompson-Boling behind 16 points and six rebounds from two-time SEC Player of the Year Grant Williams. Despite shooting just 30 percent in the first half, UF trailed by only six at the break, but UT fired at 59 percent after intermission, including 4-for-6 from the 3-point line. Forward Admiral Schofield had 14 points and six rebounds. Florida was led by freshman guard Noah Locke's 17 points (with five 3s). Senior swingman Jalen Hudson had 15 points, but was 0-for-5 from distance. ... UF is 1-4 vs. UT under Coach Mike White. 

PROBABLE STARTERS 

Florida	Pos.	Ht.	Wt.	Class	Per Game
Keyontae Johnson	F	6-5	225	Sophomore	14.3 pts / 7.2 reb
Kerry Blackshear Jr.	F	6-10	232	G-Transfer	13.1 pts / 7.5 reb
Scottie Lewis	G	6-5	187	Freshman	8.2 pts / 3.9 reb
Noah Locke	G	6-2	193	Sophomore	10.1 pts / 2.5 reb
Andrew Nembhard	PG	6-5	191	Sophomore	11.8 pts / 3.1 reb / 5.4 ast

Tennessee	Pos.	Ht.	Wt.	Class	Per Game
John Fulkerson	F	6-9	212	R-Junior	12.8 pts / 6.0 reb
Yves Pons	F	6-6	215	Junior	11.0 pts / 5.4 reb
Josiah-Jordan James	G	6-6	208	Freshman	7.0 pts / 5.5 reb
Jordan Bowden	G	6-5	193	Senior	13.8 pts / 4.0 reb
Santiago Vescovi	G	6-3	188	Freshman	11.0 pts / 3.4 reb

ONE TO WATCH  
TEAM BREAKDOWNS   ABOUT THE GATORS: The case can me made the win over LSU was the best all-around (as in both ends) performance of the season. Even more encouraging was the fact it was the fifth consecutive solid effort by the Gators, who despite losing last Saturday at Kentucky gave the 12th-ranked Wildcats a good fight before falling by six on the road. The ball movement and unselfishness is at a season high, evident by the combined 50.6-percent shooting over the last five games. ... UF

is 3-6 when playing on the road, but the last two trips (a win at Texas A&M, the loss at Kentucky) looked nothing like some of those previous roadies. ... Florida is averaging 72.6 points per game on 45.5-percent shooting and 34.5 from the 3-point line. Defensively, the Gators give up 66.4 points, 41.6 percent and 31.6 from the arc. ... By KenPom.com metrics, UF sits at No. 33 nationally, with the 30th-best offense and 62nd-best defense in terms of efficiency. ... Forward Keyontae Johnson has blossomed into a player who is likely to garner All-SEC consideration (especially on the eight-man coaches team). Johnson is now the Florida leader in both scoring (14.7 ppg) and rebounding (7.2 rpg) in conference play, where he making 56.3 percent of his field goals, 38.5 percent of his 3s and 81.8 percent of his free throws. He's averaging 22.6 points over the last three games. ... Forward Scottie Lewis's efficiency on offense is getting very close to matching his high-mph play on defense. Forget that Lewis had a career-high 18 points against the Tigers. What he did on defense, plus his athleticism and decision-making against the press and in the halfcourt is on a different level than a month ago. ... Shooting guard and SEC 3-point leader Noah Locke (49.4 percent) is just one of his last 10 in the previous two games, but he buried his final attempt against LSU. Don't worry about his confidence, either. He started the season 5-for-22 through four games and figured stuff out back then. ... Forward Kerry Blackshear Jr. had eight points and eight rebounds last game, while getting to the foul line just twice. He doesn't seem to be getting some of the calls he got working in the low post earlier in the season and has hit double-figure scoring just twice over the previous five games. ... Point guard Andrew Nembhard scored all but three of his 17 points in the second half against LSU. After starting 1-for-5 from the floor, he finished six of 12, with a trio of 3s. Nembhard's offensive game, particularly his pace and change of speeds, are really keeping defenders off balance. That's how he's getting to the basket (through traffic) for layups. ... Shoutout to freshman backup center Jason Jitoboh. The 6-11, 300-pounder was called on in the first half against LSU and hit all three of his field goals and mixed things up in the post. He's far from a finished product, especially on defense, but tries to do his job and be where he's supposed to be. For now, Jitoboh has overtaken classmate Omar Payne, (1 point, 2 rebounds, 2 blocked shots in a combined 22 minutes spanning the last three games) as the first backup option in the post. ... Reserve guard Ques Glover is going home. Glover scored 24 points and was named tournament MVP in leading Knoxville Bearden High to the Class 3A state championship last spring. He was not recruited by the Vols, but it'll be up to him not to make this first homecoming personal. This is about the team. ...  ABOUT THE VOLUNTEERS: It's their fifth season under Coach Rick Barnes, who can boast a 103-61 record during that time, with a 49-36 SEC mark that includes a share of the 2018 regular-season league title. Barnes, with past stops at George Mason, Providence, Clemson and Texas won his 700th career game earlier this season, but the Vols have been pretty much in a rebuild mode after losing a trio of standout players (Williams, Schofield and Jordan Bone) to the 2019 NBA Draft. ... Tennessee is scoring 66.9 points per game, shooting 42.9 percent overall and 30.3 from the 3-point line. Defensively, the Vols give up a league-low 63.4 points, 39.5-percent shooting (second

to Kentucky in SEC) and 31.9 from deep. ... KenPom ranks UT at 67th overall, with an offensive efficiency of 106th and defensive efficiency at 55th. ... The Vols took a big hit on the injury front when they lost standout senior guard Lamonte Turner in December due to a nerve disorder. Turner was averaging 12.3 points and 3.5 rebounds at the time, and had eclipsed 1,000 points for his career. He also was the team's best defender, which is evident by the fact that he still ranks fourth among Vols in steals with 21, despite missing the last 18 games. Tennessee was 8-3 with Turner, but 7-10 without him. ... UT was able to cover the loss of Turner by making, basically, a free-agency acquisition in midseason when the Vols signed flashy guard Santiago Vescovi, an international star from Uruguay who was playing for a club in Australia. In 16 games, Vescovi has shot 37.2 percent, including 32-for-90 from distance (.356), and leads the Vols in assists in SEC play at 3.9 per game. He also leads them in turnovers at 4.1 per game. He had nine giveaways in his collegiate debut against LSU, but none in 37 minutes Wednesday against Arkansas, which leads the SEC in steals and turnovers forced. ... Guard Jordan Bowden ranks 10th in school history in all-time 3-pointers with 429 and is a career 40.4-percenter from distance. In the loss at Auburn last week (when the Vols blew a 17-point lead with 14 minutes remaining by going nine minutes without a field goal), Bowden dropped a career-high 28 points on 9-for-12 from the floor and 3-for-4 from 3. Jordan, meet Scottie. ... Forward Yves Pons, the one-time UF recruit, is built like a soda machine and is an elite defender/rim-protector who leads the SEC with 2.5 blocked shots per game. Pons was overlooked on the offensive end his first couple years, mainly because the Vols didn't need him, but he's now scoring at 46.2 percent from the floor, can make 3s (12 this season) and will be crashing the glass with abandon when shots go up. ... Freshman guard Josiah-Jordan James was a 2019 McDonald's All-American out of Charleston, S.C., and prep teammate of Vanderbilt's Aaron Nesmith. He missed four games earlier this month with a groin injury and has gone scoreless in three of his previous six games. He had 15 points and five rebounds vs. LSU earlier this season. ... The top reserves are redshirt junior guard Jalen Johnson (4.1 ppg) and redshirt freshman 7-footer Uros Plavsic (3.5 ppg, 1.2 rpg), a transfer from Arizona State. ... Seldom-used backup freshman forward Drew Pember was a teammate of Glover's on their 2019 state championship team at Bearden. 


NUMBERS WORTH NOTING   * .653 — Barnes' all-time winning percentage, based on a 707-376 record over a 33-season career that includes guiding Texas to the 2003 Final Four. 

* 1.000 — Florida's winning percentage in combined Q-3 and Q-4 games, based on a 10-0 record. The Gators have no "bad" losses on their resume. The NCAA Selection Committee looks favorably at that. 

* plus-12 — UF's assist/turnover margin against LSU, based on 17 assists (a season-high in SEC play) against just five turnovers, which marked an overall season low and just the third time the Gators finished in single digits.

* 13 — Years since the Gators had two players on the same team to post at least seven double-double each in a season, ala Blackshear (8) and Johnson (7) this season. Probably not hard to guess those two players from 2006-07. Yes, Al Horford (16) and Joakim Noah (8) and en route to a second straight NCAA title.  

* 2014 — The last year (and only year since 2012) the Gators won at Knoxville. That, of course, was the season UF went 18-0 in SEC play. The date was Feb. 11 and senior point guard Scottie Wilbekin, on his way to SEC Player of the Year honors, scored 14 of his career-high 21 points after halftime, putting those numbers alongside six assists, four steals and zero turnovers to lead the third-ranked Gators to a rugged 67-58 come-from-behind beating of the Vols and 16th straight win. 


LAST WORD
Will this UF team be willing to match the physical nature (and anticipated desperation) of the Vols from the outset?