Stuffing: No. 6 Tennessee at Florida (Tuesday, 7 pm)
Monday, January 18, 2021 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
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By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
No. 6 TENNESSEE at FLORIDA
When: Tuesday, 7 p.m. (EST) Where: Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center, Gainesville, Fla. Records: Florida (6-4, 3-3); Tennessee (10-1, 4-1) TV: ESPN (Karl Ravech and Dick Vitale) Radio: Gator IMG Sports Network (Mick Hubert and Lee Humphrey)
THE BASICS
Florida has lost three of four and sits alone in sixth place in the Southeastern Conference standings. Sixth-ranked Tennessee, the preseason favorite to win the league and currently ranked 10th in the country, has won three straight since getting stomped at home Jan. 2 by Alabama (currently the only unbeaten team in the league) and occupies the No. 3 spot, a half-game behind second-place LSU and one and a half behind the front-running Crimson Tide. The Gators are coming off Saturday's 72-69 loss at Mississippi State when they utterly dominated inside. That's a not a good sign, given that the Volunteers are annually one of the most physical and best defensive teams, not just in the league, but in the country. UT's last outing was an 81-61 rout of Vanderbilt at home. ... Tennessee leads the all-time series 77-57, including four straight wins dating to the 2017-18 season. The Gators and Vols last met Feb. 29, 2020 at Knoxville. In that one, UT held UF to just 17 first-half points and led by 19 with under 12 minutes remaining before the visitors staged a relentless rally, using a 25-7 tear to pull within one point until, well, read on. The Vols eventually held off the Gators for a 63-58 victory. ... UF is 1-5 against Tennessee under Coach Mike White, with the lone win coming by an 83-70 count on Jan. 5, 2017, early on in what became an Elite Eight season.
Talk about the classic developmental college player. John Fulkerson was a tall, skinny kid from Kingsport in East Tennessee, who crossed the state line to play at Christ School in North Carolina, where he averaged 14.5 points and 10 rebounds per game. Fulkerson signed with Tennessee in the fall of 2015 and played sparingly the next two years due to injuries, receiving a medical redshirt season along the way. As a third-year sophomore, he became a sturdy sub for the Vols, but then erupted onto the SEC scene last season by averaging 13.7 points on 61-percent shooting (second in the the league), plus 5.9 rebounds per game on his way to second-team all-conference honors. No one on the floor will out-work him, which is a huge calling card of Rick Barnes-coached teams. Going into last season, he had never scored 20 points in a game, but did it four times in UT's last 10 games, including a career-high 27 in a big upset road win at Kentucky. He finished with 426 points during 2019-20 (compared to 112 his first three seasons combined), and some UF fans may remember three of his points in particular. The Gators trailed Tennessee by just a point, 55-54, and were playing fabulous defense when Fulkerson, with two seconds on the short clock, caught an inbound pass at the top of the key and let fly a 3-point shot with 6-11 Kerry Blackshear Jr. in his face. Swish. The 6-9, 215-pound Fulkerson had attempted just one 3 in his previous 104 career games. So, of course, he made it, turning a one-point game with 2:20 remaining into a two-possession game.
TEAM BREAKDOWNS
Guard Tre Mann (right) and forward Anthony Duruji (left) hug it up after UF's win over Ole Miss last week at the O'Dome.
ABOUT THE GATORS: For the third consecutive game, they'll be without guard Scottie Lewis (11.0 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 43.4 percent from 3) due to health and safety protocols. The absence of Lewis, who can be excellent at rebounding down from the perimeter, was sorely evident in the loss Saturday at Mississippi State, which blasted Florida on the interior. UF was out-rebounded by 21 (including 15-6 on the offense glass) and out-pointed in the paint by an astonishing 52-30. The Bulldogs only scored 72 points, so they didn't have to stray too far from the basket to get them. Expect Tennessee to take a similar approach. ... Florida is averaging 76.7 points,
Tyree Appleby
shooting 46.7 overall and 34.7 from deep, but those numbers are skewed by the three-plus games the team played with Keyontae Johnson. ... KenPom.com rates UF at No. 38 overall, 38th on offense, 47th on defense and 91st in pace. The Gators are currently 47th in the NET rankings that ultimately will seed the NCAA Tournament. That number needs work and the best way to improve it is by winning games against teams with higher NET ratings. Well, the Vols are way up there at No. 4, so here's a golden opportunity, albeit much easier said than done. ... Junior forward Colin Castleton, the transfer from Michigan, had another solid performance (16 points, 7 rebounds, 6 blocks) against Mississippi State, but he can't do it alone down there. Castleton needs some help and it might be time to simply put more on the plate for 6-10 sophomore Omar Payne (3.4 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 14.1 minutes per). That would call for Payne to be much more assertive, aggressive, physical and sure-handed in the post, all traits that he has struggled to do with any consistency when given the opportunity. ... Point guard Tre Mannhad 14 points and six assists last game, but also four turnovers. He also bypassed a couple open shots. Ditto shooting guard Noah Locke (41.2 percent from 3). If they're open, they need to launch. If they're not (or if an extra pass is warranted), get the ball moving around the perimeter. ... Guard Tyree Appleby's 20 points at Starkville were his high as a Gator since transferring from Cleveland State. He got most of them at the free-throw line, where he went 11-for-11 and is now 86.1 percent on the season. ... Speaking of UF's guards, they need to do a much better job of getting bodies on opponents for rebounds; even against bigs. It's going to take a proverbial village to get it down down there. ... Forward Anthony Durujionly played 16 minutes at MSU due to early foul trouble in both halves, a development that certainly factored into the bigger Bulldogs having their way down low. Duruji finished with just four points after averaging 10.6 through the first five SEC games. ... Backup freshman guard Samson Ruzhentsez (3.4 ppg) is earning a bit more confidence, with is minutes increasing each of the last three games, during he's made five of nine from the 3-point line and scored 16 points. He still needs to work on his defensive awareness and ball security, both of which have a ways to go. ... ABOUT THE VOLUNTEERS: It's their sixth season under Rick Barnes and the Vols, who took something of a step back last season, are rolling again behind their coach's trademark defense. UT opened the season by playing eight of its first nine at home, winning all of them, including victories over Colorado and Cincinnati. The Vols opened conference play by bludgeoning a really good Missouri team by 20 on the road, then got back-handed at home by Bama, which likely got their attention. Home wins over
Santiago Vescovi (right)
Arkansas and Vanderbilt, sandwiched around a road win at Vandy, have followed and it's been the UT defense that has stood out. ... The Volunteers are allowing just 57.2 points per game, 38.5 percent from the floor and 30.3 from the 3-point line. KenPom rates them as No. 6 overall but No. 2 defense in the country on defense, behind only Baylor. On offense (31st in KenPom, including 309 in tempo), the Vols are scoring 72.2 points per game on nearly 47-percent shooting and 34.7 from distance. ... UT has seven players averaging at least 7.5 points per game. UF has four. UT has six players averaging at least three rebounds per game (and a seventh at 2.9). UF has two such players available. ... The Vols' leading scorer is 6-4 junior guard Victor Bailey, Jr., at 12.3 points per game, and he doesn't even start. Bailey, who averages 25.2 minutes per game, is shooting 46.5 percent from the floor, is second on the team with 17 made 3-balls (34.7 percent) and is near-automatic at the free-throw line (24 of 27). ... Point guard Santiago Vescovi showed up by way of Uruguay last December, was granted eligibility on Jan. 3 and started UT's 19 remaining games. He averaged 10.7 points, 3.3 rebounds and 3.7 assists the rest of the way and is much better as a sophomore. Vescovi's 36/16 assist/turnover ratio is the best in the SEC and his 2.4 made 3s a game rank third. ... Two years ago, Josiah-Jordan James (44.3 percent from the floor) became the first McDonald's All-American to sign with Tennessee since Tobias Harris in 2010 and the eighth in program history. Last year, Jaden Springer became the ninth, thus a testament to what Barnes has going. Springer, fourth on the team is scoring, is shooting 53 percent from the floor and 56 from the 3-point line. ... Forward Yves Pons is as long and athletic as any player in the country, though he'll never been confused as a highly skilled player. Doesn't matter. Case in point: As a sophomore two seasons ago, he had 32 field goals and 15 of them were dunks. Last year, though, Pons' feel for the game, especially on the defensive end, caught up with his physical tools on the way to being named 2020 SEC Defensive Player of the Year, At 6-6, he can guard all five positions, evidenced by the fact he leads the SEC in blocked shots. He could very well be drafted in the NBA's first round next summer on his defensive skill set alone.
NUMBERS WORTH NOTING
Tennessee coach Rick Barnes (above), with previous in stops at George Mason, Providence, Clemson and Texas over the his 34 seasons, is tied with Kansas coach Bill Self for the seventh-most wins in Division I college basketball with 719.
* .746 — UF's free-throw percentage on the season.
* .857 — UF's free-throw percentage the last two games, based on 36 of 42 from the line.
* 6 — Active coaches with more career victories than Barnes' 719. They are: Duke's Mike Krzyzewski (1,162), Syracuse's Jim Boeheim (971), North Carolina's Roy Williams (893), West Virginia's Bobby Huggins (888), Coastal Carolina's Cliff Ellis (867) and Kentucky's John Calipari (737).
* 41 (out of a possible 400) — Combined minutes from UF reserves Ques Glover (18), Payne (15), Osayi Osifo (6), Jason Jitoboh (2) and Niels Lane (0) the last two games. Minus Lewis, the Gators basically have played five guys the last two games. The five starters (three of them guards) have averaged nearly 33 minutes per game each.
* 2015 — The last year a SEC player (LSU's Jordan Mickey) blocked at least six shots in consecutive games, like Castleton has done with his team SEC-record eight against Ole Miss, followed by the six at Mississippi State.
LAST WORD
The timing to play a team like the Vols could not be much worse, but exactly no one on the other bench is feeling sorry for the Gators.
