Florida vs Elon (Tuesday, 8 pm)

Florida vs. Elon

* When: 8 p.m.
* Where: Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center, Gainesville, Fla.
* Records: Florida (0-0); Elon (0-0)
* TV: SEC Network+ (Kyle Crooks and Mark Wise)
* Radio: Gator IMG Sports Network (Mick Hubert and Lee Humphrey)

Projected Starters

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	2020-21 stats
Anthony Duruji	F	6-7 / 220	R-Senior	6.1 ppg / 4.4 rpg
Colin Castleton	F	6-11 / 231	Senior	12.4 ppg / 6.4 ppg
Phlandrous Fleming Jr.	G	6-5 / 205	Graduate	20.1 ppg / 7.4 rpg (Charleston Southern)
Brandon McKissic	G	6-3 / 185	Graduate	17.2 ppg / 3.7 rpg (Missouri-KC)
Myreon Jones	G	6-3 / 175	Senior	15.3 ppg / 2.7 rpg (Penn State

Elon	Position	Height / Weight	Class	2020-21 stats
Hunter Woods	G/F	6-6 / 197	Junior	7.9 ppg / 6.8 rpg
Jerald Gillens-Butler	G/F	6-5 / 227	R-Senior	15.7 ppg / 5.3 rpg
Darius Burford	G	6-0 / 166	Sophomore	8.9 ppg / 3.3 rpg
Kris Wooten	G	6-2 / 194	Senior	5.8 ppg / 1.1 rpg
Hunter McIntosh	G	6-2 / 180	Junior	15.7 ppg / 3.2 rpg / 2.3 apg

The Breakdown

**Colin Castleton** (12) in last week's exhibition game vs. Embry-Riddle

Series / Last Meeting

Florida and Elon have never met. The Gators are 11-3 all-time against teams currently in the Colonial Athletic Association, with the last win a 66-60 defeat of Towson on Nov. 14, 2019 and the last loss an 88-78 setback against Delaware on Dec. 1, 1996 in the consolation game of the San Juan Shootout.

Tale of the Tape

Florida	2020-21 Stats	Opponent
74.2	Scoring	65.7
.471	Field-goal percentage	.415
.356	3-point percentage	.325
70.3	Scoring defense	65.0
.420	Field-goal percentage defense	.428
.356	3-point percentage defense	.319
41	KenPom.com overall ranking	211
44	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	217
41	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	202

Team Snapshots

The Gators

Coach Mike White enters his seventh season on the UF sidelines. His 123-75 record with the Gators includes four straight NCAA Tournament berths, with UF the only team in the Southeastern Conference able to make that claim. The program also has won at least one game in each of those tournaments, making it one of only six schools in the country to do so. ... The Gators return five players, including a trio of starters, from a team that went 15-10 last season and lost in the second-round of NCAA play. The '21-22 squad was picked by media to finish seventh in the 14-team SEC in the league's preseason poll. ... UF defeated Division-II Embry-Riddle 80-57 in an exhibition game last week behind 20 points and 5-for-8 shooting from the 3-point line from Brandon McKissic, the grad-transfer guard playing his first game in Florida uniform. The Gators also got 16 points on a perfect 5-for-5 shooting and seven rebounds from forward Anthony Duruji, who was one of the best players on the floor in UF's closed scrimmage against North Carolina late last month. Duruji struggled at times last season when the chore of replacing Keyontae Johnson fell on his shoulders, so his start to this one has been encouraging. ... Fifth-year senior point guard Tyree Appleby had 13 points, seven assists and just turnovers off the bench in that ERAU win, with that better-than-3-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio a very positive sign for a player who was just over 1-to-1 a year ago. ... After McKissic's splashy debut, it's time to see which of his fellow transfers has the next big game. Guard Myreon Jones, the team's best shooter, went 0-for-6 from the 3-point line, but he nailed 37.6 percent from deep in the Big Ten last year. Wing Phlandrous Fleming Jr. had a solid nine points, six rebounds and three assists, while forward CJ Felder, formerly of Boston College, came off the bench for four points, three rebounds and a blocked shot. ... Forward Colin Castleton, a preseason All-SEC selection, was held without a field goal in the first half of the exhibition, but finished with 10 points, nine rebounds and his first 3-point make as a Gator. Castleton will have a significant size advantage in this game. ... Freshman guard Kowacie Reeves, the team's top freshman, was just 1-for-6 from the floor and missed all three of his 3-point tries against ERAU.

The Phoenix

They're starting Year 3 under Coach Mike Schrage, a former Duke manager and Stanford, Butler and Ohio State assistant, with a 23-30 mark to show for the first two. They're picked to be a middle-of-the-pack team in the Colonial, but some preseason projections have the Phoenix as a sleeper. ... Elon was sacked by COVID last season, at one point losing eight straight games from December and into February, as quarantines racked the roster. The Phoenix went on to finish 10-9 overall, with a 4-7 mark in the CAA, but got hot late and from the No. 7 seed made a run to the conference tournament finals before falling to Drexel. ... They return their top scorer in guard Hunter McIntosh (15.7 points per game, 39.4 percent from 3) and will get back guard and Orlando product Jerald Gillens-Butler, a 6-5, 220-pound combo forward/guard who was scoring 15.7 points and 5.3 rebounds in just 24 minutes through the season's first three games in '20-21 before suffering a season-ending knee injury. Gillens-Butler is a transfer from, appropriately enough, Butler. ... Guard/Forward Zac Ervin is another back-from-injury guy. He missed all last season after scoring 8.4 points and shooting nearly 37 percent from distance as a freshman in '19-20. ... Those aforementioned injuries paved the way for Darius Burford to take some ball-handling duties last season. He shot 36 percent from the arc and turned the ball over just 15 times in 451 minutes on his way to CAA All-Freshman Team honors.

Numbers of Note

* .753 — UF's free-throw shooting percentage last season, which marked the program's best team-wide number in 45 years, as well as the fifth-best in UF history.

* .833 — White's winning percentage in his six season opener's at Florida, based on a 5-1 record. The lone loss came in 2018, with an 81-60 wipeout at 17th-ranked Florida State.

* 2 — Where Florida ranks in the SEC during White's six seasons in conference wins, top-25 wins, NCAA Tournament wins and road SEC wins.

* 9 — Games on the UF '21-22 schedule against teams ranked in the Associated Press preseason Top 25.

* 612 — Days gone by since the last UF regular-season game with no pandemic restrictions (March 7, 2020 against Kentucky at the O'Dome).

Bottom Line

Don't let the non-threatening name fool you. Elon, under its current staff, has a reputation for being a feisty squad and proved as much late last season. This is a decent, challenging opener for a UF team that will be searching for both chemistry and identity.

Gators Calendar

Florida vs Elon (Tuesday, 8 pm)