Florida vs North Florida (Wednesday, 7 pm)

No. 20 Florida vs. North Florida

* When: Wednesday, 7 p.m.
* Where: Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center, Gainesville, Fla.
* Records: Florida (6-2); North Florida (2-8)
* TV: SEC Network (Roy Philpott and Mark Wise)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD (Mick Hubert and Lee Humphrey)

Projected Starters

Fifth-year senior forward **Anthony Duruji** has been saddled by early second-half foul trouble in each of the last two games.

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Anthony Duruji	F	6-7 / 220	R-Senior	9.6 ppg / 4.5 rpg
Colin Castleton	F	6-11 / 231	Senior	14.4 ppg / 9.5 rpg
Phlandrous Fleming Jr.	G	6-5 / 205	Graduate	11.0 ppg / 3.4 rpg
Brandon McKissic	G	6-3 / 185	Graduate	8.5 ppg / 3.5 rpg
Myreon Jones	G	6-3 / 175	Senior	10.0 ppg / 3.0 rpg

Opponent	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Jayden Parker	F	6-10 / 180	Freshman	7.8 ppg / 4.5 rpg
Carter Hendricksen	F	6-7 / 217	Junior	11.6 ppg / 4.5 rpg
Dorian James	G	6-7 / 2-2	R-Sophomore	5.4 ppg / 3.6 rpg
Emmanuel Adedoyin	G	6-2 / 161	Sophomore	7.3 ppg / 1.7 rpg
Jose Placer	G	6-1 / 174	R-Sophomore	11.0 ppg / 3.4 rpg

The Breakdown

The Gators need to do some soul-searching in those huddles, after the last two games.

Setup / Series / Last Meeting

Florida, ranked 20th and falling fast, will have had roughly 48 hours to shake the funk (or whatever that was) the it was in during that Monday night debacle against previously winless Texas Southern. UF was completely overwhelmed by the Tigers of the Southeastern Athletic Conference, offering no answers on offense or defense, but now has a chance to do something about it with a visit from North Florida, the Atlantic Sun Conference foe from Jacksonville. The Ospreys have played a brutal schedule -- one ranked even tougher than TSU's -- with only a pair of NAIA wins to show for their 10 games. That shouldn't matter to the Gators, who badly need to hit reset and get back to doing all the fundamentally sound, team-first things that were doing during the six-game win streak that opened the 2021-22 season. .... UF leads the all-time series 9-0, with an average margin of victory at 32.0 points. The two teams last met to open the 2019-20 season, when the Gators came in ranked No. 6 in the country; their highest preseason ranking since opening the '06-07 season at No. 1. Florida won 74-59 behind 20 points and 10 rebounds in the UF debut of Virginia Tech grad-transfer forward Kerry Blackshear Jr. Sophomore guard Noah Locke chipped in 14 points, freshman guard Tre Mann had 11 and rookie classmate Scottie Lewis had nine points, five rebounds and two assists off the bench. After missing their first eight field-goal attempts, the Gators used runs of 16-0 and 27-7 to open a 15-point lead that grew to as many as 20 in the second half. ... Florida is 100-19 all-time against teams currently in the A-Sun, including 10-0 under Coach Mike White.

Tale of the Tape

Florida	2021-22 Stats	Opponent
72.8	Scoring	66.5
.426	Field-goal percentage	.412
.307	3-point percentage	.362
59.6	Scoring defense	73.4
.424	Field-goal percentage defense	.450
.274	3-point percentage defense	.330
47th	KenPom.com overall ranking	284th
25th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	229th
24th	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	322nd
155th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	143rd

Team Snapshots

The Gators

It was only last week they were vowing not to let prosperity go to their heads, as the Top 25 came calling and six straight wins piled up to start the season. Who knows if that had anything to do with what happened to the Gators the last two games? The loss last week at Oklahoma was no surprise. It was a tough road game against a Power 5 opponent and UF didn't handle the

environment very well, with a bunch of early turnovers that dug a hole. The Gators fought back, but couldn't overcome 4-for-24 shooting from the 3-point line and some poor defensive possessions. As for Monday night against Texas Southern, well, take your pick. Florida didn't shoot or pass the ball well on offense; didn't guard or box out on defense; missed too many free throws and lost all the hustle plays. What happened on the defensive end of the floor was most alarming because, just a week ago, the Gators claimed that side of the court was their identity. That and effort. Neither was there in the loss to the Tigers, who shot 57 percent, out-rebounded the Gators by an astounding 46-23 (including 14-8 on the offensive end), scored 42 of their 69 points in the paint (61 percent) and tallied 17 chances on second-chance points. ... Forward Colin Castleton totaled 12 points, five rebounds and three blocks, but as the centerpiece of the 5-high UF offense the Gators need more from him, and not necessarily when the ball is in his hands; more screens to initiate offense; more box-outs; more running the floor. Castleton will be the first to say so. On an undersized team, much is expected of their lone "big" in the rotation. TSU, though, really had its way in the paint and on the blocks and Castleton has to be the first guy to step into the low-post fray and give this team an attitude adjustment down low. ... In the back-to-back losses, forward Anthony Duruji has been in first-half foul trouble, and been hit with Foul No. 3 early in the second half, thus removing his athleticism, defense and want-to for pivotal stretches. ... Guard Myreon Jones, a career 37.7-percent shooter from distance, is 1-for-10 from the 3-point line, with just nine total points the last two games. Point guard Tyree Appleby is 3-for-19 overall and 2-for-16 from deep, with two assists and seven turnovers. ... Wing Phlandrous Fleming Jr. had a nice game at Oklahoma (17 points), but never seemed in rhythm against TSU; on offense (5 points) or defense. ... Guard Brandon McKissic scored a season-best 15 points and hit four 3s on six attempts, plus had three steals over nearly 35 minutes. ... After playing just seven guys at Oklahoma, Florida went a little deeper into its best against Texas Southern, with guard freshman Elijah Kennedy and sophomore forward Tuongthach Gatkek getting eight and four minutes, respectively. They combined for two points, two rebounds and a turnover. ... Florida will wear black jerseys for this game.

The Ospreys

This is the their 13th season under Coach Matt Driscoll, with a record of 194-202 to show for it, including one NCAA Tournament appearance. ... UNF can stack its schedule alongside the ambitious one

taken on annually by Texas Southern. The Ospreys have played at Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Arizona, UCLA and Kentucky thus far (along with some mid-major road dates), and have lost by double digits in all but one of them. Their lone victories came against Webber and Edward Waters, which don't even count in the NCAA Evaluation Tool ratings because they're NAIA opponents. ... UNF wants to make 3s. Lots of them. They're not the "Birds of Trey" like that 2016 team that led the nation in long-distance launches on the way to the NIT, but the Ospreys are making 10.3 from deep per game (that's three more than the Gators) while attempting 27.6 a game. UNF makes better than 36 percent from out there, which is six percentage points better than Florida (and a whopping 18 percent better than what the Gators have shot the last two games). ... Forward Carter Hendrickson leads the team in scoring, as well as 3-point attempts with 66. That's nearly seven launches per game at 36.4 percent, which is better than is his all-around shooting percentage of 36.0. His 24 makes from deep top the team. ... Point guard Jose Placer, a transfer from Maryland-Baltimore County, only shoots at 27.5 percent, but he'll fire away. His 51 attempts are second only to Hendrickson. As far as his play-making, Placer has 29 assists and 28 turnovers, so the Gators will be looking to capitalize on his ball-security issues. ... Jadyn Parker, a freshman from North Carolina, has been really good and figures to be a test for Castleton. Parker hasn't attempted a 3, meaning he knows his place: in the post. He's at 58.2 percent on the season and his length makes him equally adept at grabbing rebounds on the either end. He's got 22 boards on defense and 19 on offense). ... UF will need to account for guard Emmanuel Adedoyin, a freshman from Orlando. He's making 45.1 percent overall, but a sizzling 55.3 from the arc. Closing out the 3-point line and making UNF bounce the ball will be defensive priorities.

Numbers of Note

**Casey Prather** attacks on his way to a career-high 24 points against UNF in the 2013-14 season opener.

* minus-4 — Florida's assist-to-turnover discrepancy for the season, based on 97 assists and 101 turnovers. Through three games, the Gators stood at plus-10, but have gone five straight games without carding more assists than turnovers. They're minus-15 over that span. That's unsustainable.

* .438 — UF's free-throw percentage against TSU, based on seven of 16 from the line. The Gators went into the game shooting 74.3 percent as a team.

* 4 — Times the Gators have totaled at least 10 steals in their eight games this season. UF had 12 against Texas Southern, thanks to 22 forced turnovers, but the large deficit on the scoreboard and ability to convert those giveaways into more than 15 points rendered many of them moot.

* 6— Different players who have led the Gators in scoring over their first eight games: Castleton (2), Fleming (2), Jones, Castleton/Duruji, Appleby/Jones, McKissic.

* 2013 — The year, and only time, the Ospreys played the Gators inside a double-digit margin of defeat. The date was Nov. 8, with Florida winning 77-69 in what was the season opener for what turned out to be the program's last Final Four season. Senior forward Casey Prather scored a career-high 28 points and grabbed eight rebounds, while sophomore guard Michael Frazier, cleared to practice just two days earlier after fighting mononucleosis, came off the bench to score 19 points and grab nine rebounds. Freshman point guard Kasey Hill finished with 15 points and four assists in his collegiate debut.

Bottom Line

If you can lose to Texas Southern (and look like that doing it), you can lose to anybody. The Gators don't need to just win, they need to play better and harder. Much better, much harder.

Gators Calendar

Florida vs North Florida (Wednesday, 7 pm)