Stuffing: Georgia at Florida (Saturday, 3:30 pm)

GEORGIA at FLORIDA

When: 3:30 p.m. (EST)
Where: Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center, Gainesville, Fla.
Records: Florida (10-6, 6-5); Georgia (13-8, 6-8)
TV: SEC Network (Paul Sunderland and Joe Kleine)
Radio: Gator IMG Sports Network (Mick Hubert and Lee Humphrey)

THE BASICS

The Gators haven't won a game at the O'Dome since Jan. 27 (one loss, one postponement) and will be out to recapture the confidence and swag they had in winning four straight games to end the month.

It's the second rematch of the season for Florida, but the version of Georgia coming to the O'Dome this weekend figures will be riding something of a high versus a different vibe for the home team. ... The Gators' last outing was Tuesday's 75-64 loss at No. 24 Arkansas, a game they led by one inside four minutes remaining (their only lead of the game) but failed to score a field goal the rest of the way and became the Razorbacks' seventh straight Southeastern Conference victim. That script (disturbingly) followed the team's previous game -- albeit nearly two weeks earlier, due to three COVID-19 postponements -- when UF blew a six-point lead at home against South Carolina with six-plus minutes to go and managed just one field goal in a 72-66 defeat. The Bulldogs, meanwhile, had lost two straight, including a 115-82 pummeling at the hands of SEC front-running Alabama, but then erased a 13-point second-half deficit against 20th-ranked Missouri at home Tuesday for an 80-70 win. The Bulldogs have won four of the previous six. ... UF leads the all-time series 116-103, including a 92-84 victory at Athens on Jan. 23. In that one, sophomore guard Tre Mann went for a career-high 24 points and grabbed six rebounds over 39 minutes to lead five Gators into double-figure scoring. Junior shooting guard Noah Locke added 16 points, hitting four 3-pointers, as the Gators shot nearly 57 percent for the game and out-rebounded the Bulldogs 41-27. ... UF owns a 7-3 edge in the series under Coach Mike White, including a 3-2 record at home.

STARTERS (Probable Lineups)

Florida	Pos.	Ht.	Wt.	Class	Per Game
Omar Payne	F	6-7	220	R-Junior	4.3 pts / 3.7 reb
Colin Castleton	F	6-11	231	Junior	13.2 pts / 5.7 reb
Tyree Appleby	G	6-5	189	Sophomore	10.6 pts / 2.9 reb
Noah Locke	G	6-3	203	Junior	11.1 pts / 2.6 reb
Tre Mann	G	6-5	190	Sophomore	14.1 pts / 5.4 reb / 3.6 ast

Georgia	Pos.	Ht.	Wt.	Class	Per Game
P.J. Horne	F	6-6	230	G-Transfer	8.5 pts / 3.3 reb
Toumani Camara	F	6-8	220	Sophomore	12.7 pts / 7.6 reb
Justin Kier	G	6-4	190	G-Transfer	9.9 pts / 3.6 reb
Sahvir Wheeler	G	5-10	180	Sophomore	13.5 pts / 3.6 reb / 7.0 ast
Tye Fagan	G	6-3	195	Junior	9.2 pts / 4.3 reb

ONE TO WATCH

**K.D. Johnson** (0) has still not started a game since having his eligibility cleared by the NCAA 10 games into the season. Johnson also still leads the team in scoring at 13.7 points per game. The 6-1, 190-pounder turned eligible Jan. 12 and made his debut the next day in a home loss against Auburn, but scored 21 points (on 9-for-19 shooting) and grabbed seven rebounds. Through 11 games, the former Hargrave (Va.) Military Academy star and two-time Class 5A Georgia Player of the Year is shooting 43.4 percent overall, including 40.5 from the 3-point line, and grabbing three rebounds per game. In back-to-back losses at Tennessee and Alabama, he scored 22 and 24 points, respectively, and got to the free-throw line 23 times. The kid is aggressive. Four times this season, Johnson has taken at least 14 field-goal attempts. Against the Gators last time out, he scored 16 points on 5-for-11 shooting, though went just one of five from the arc snd 5-for-10 from the free-throw line.

TEAM BREAKDOWNS

In the four SEC losses that sophomore guard Scottie Lewis (23) has played for the Gators, he has totaled a combined nine points, with his lack of productivity mostly due to early foul trouble.

ABOUT THE GATORS: It's been three weeks since they played twice in the same week. Imagine how frustrated the coaches and players would have been if those back-to-back meltdowns against South Carolina and Arkansas would have come within days of each other; as if they weren't bad enough as is. Oh well. All they can do is start trying to distance themselves from those outcomes and the Bulldogs present the first opportunity. ... Despite the two-game skid, UF remains solidly in the NCAA Tournament field (30th in NCAA Evaluation Took ratings), but needs to get back to stacking up some wins. ... Florida ranks 30th overall in KenPom.com metrics, 23rd in offense, 47th in defense and 135th in tempo. Those last two numbers are not where White wants this team to be (especially on defense). The Gators average 76.7

points per game, shooting 46.8 percent from the floor (now second in the SEC) and 36.2 percent from the 3-point line (third in the league), despite a dismal 4-for-21 at Arkansas. ... Forward Colin Castleton, who following the team's COVID pause was not cleared for full-go work at practice until the day before the Arkansas game, should be closer to full strength for this game. Castleton made just eight of 22 shot the previous two games, far below his field-goal percentage for the season (see below). ... The starting three-game combination of Tre Mann, Noah Locke and Tyree Appleby combined to go just 11 of 34 from the floor and 3-for-18 from distance against Arkansas. Mann and Appleby, the primary ball-handlers, combined for 15 turnovers in those two games, with Appleby guilty of seven giveaways at Arkansas alone, including a couple that turned into run-outs. Georgia plays to a pace that is among the fastest in the country, so another high-turnover affair (UF had 16 against the Hogs) will play right into the visitors' hands. ... Locke needs to hit two 3-pointers to became the 10th player in program history to make 200 for his career. ... Reserve sophomore guard Scottie Lewis (9.2 ppg, 3.8 rpg) was limited to just 15 minutes last game before fouling out. In the four SEC losses that Lewis has played (at Alabama, Kentucky and South Carolina at home, and at Arkansas), he's combined to score nine points (on 4-for-16 shooting) and committed 14 fouls. Lewis has to find a consistent way to keep himself in the game, especially in first halves. White does not play guys after two first-half fouls (see below), so when Lewis, the Gators' best on-ball defender, gets in foul trouble it severely impacts an average defensive team's ability to guard on the perimeter. ... Backup forward Anthony Duruji (5.9 ppg, 3.8 rpg) has gone eight straight games without reaching double-figure scoring. ... Sophomore forward Omar Payne had three blocks in just 17 minutes last game. ... Florida's bench outscored Arkansas 25-6, but against South Carolina was bested 21-7.

ABOUT THE BULLDOGS: Their record in Tom Crean's three seasons is 40-45 overall, just 13-37 in SEC play, with 1-4 mark against the Gators. ... Georgia currently sits alone in ninth place in the SEC standings. The Bulldogs have the same number of wins as the Gators, but four more losses due to the schedule imbalance of Florida's

COVID postponements. ... Georgia will come in rated No. 86 overall by KenPom, with the No. 61 offense, No. 134 defense and a rapid-fire 15th in tempo. ... The Gators may have beaten them last time, but the Bulldogs shot 61 percent in the second half and had 50 points in the paint, as they got way, way too many straight-line drives and close finishes around the basket. ... Point guard Sahvir Wheeler leads the SEC in assists and is one of the better all-around facilitators in the league (if not the country). Though only 5-10, he's still able to penetrate and is a threat to finish against bigger players. Wheeler, the team's No. 2 scorer, rarely comes off the floor (34.4 mpg), shoots 39.9 percent overall, just 25.8 from 3 and 71.6 from the free-throw line. ... Georgia is not a big team, with 6-8 Toumani Camara its top front court player. Camara is making 47 percent from the floor and is not a major threat from the 3-point line (25.5 percent), but he will bang on the block, as his team-high rebounding numbers attest. ... Guard Justin Kier, the grad-transfer from George Mason, is coming off a 16-point performance in the upset of Missouri when he made six of his seven shots, both 3 attempts, and also cleared five rebounds. ... Forward P.J. Horne, grad-transfer from Virginia Tech, only scores 8.5 points per game (that's seventh on the team), but he is the Bulldogs' top outside threat. He's 35 of 99 from the arc (35.4 percent), with both his makes and attempts team highs. And though he's only at 3.3 rebounds per game, his 35 on the offensive end match his 35 on the defense end. don't see that very often. ... Reserve forward Andrew Garcia, a 6-6, 225-pound transfer from Stony Brook, killed the Gators last game by making six of seven shots off the bench and grabbing five rebounds. His offensive-to-defensive rebounding ratio is even better than Horne's, with a plus-6 (47-41) on the offensive end. You see that even less. ... Junior guard Tye Fagan went scoreless against Missouri, but he had eight points and six boards off the bench against UF and has four double-figure games in SEC play.

NUMBERS WORTH NOTING

* .367 — Castleton's combined shooting percentage the last two games, based on his 8-for-22 showing from the floor.

* .639 — Castleton's combined shooting percentage through his first 13 games (before the South Carolina and Arkansas losses), based on 69-for-108 from the floor.

* 8 — Wins over Georgia under White, which is tied for the most against a SEC opponent (along with eight over Arkansas) during his six seasons.

* 346 — Where Florida ranks (out of 347 teams in Division I) in 2-foul participation, according to KenPom, a metric that measures the percentage of minutes left in the first half that players with two fouls are kept in the game. For UF, that percentage is 0.7. Only Davidson (0.5) is lower. Translation: White does not let his guys play the balance of the first half with two fouls.

* 2003 — The last year the Gators had a shooting night from the free-throw line as perfect as what they did Tuesday at Arkansas in going 14-for-14. UF also went 14-for-14 in a 75-56 home defeat of Alabama on Feb. 8, 2003. The program record for converted free throws without a miss was set Jan. 8, 1994 when the Gators went 27-for-27 in a 86-71 road win at Tennessee on the way to the program's first Final Four.

LAST WORD

Gators did a good job closing out games in January. They need to remember how that's done.

Gators Calendar

Stuffing: Georgia at Florida (Saturday, 3:30 pm)

Players Mentioned

Tyree Appleby

Colin Castleton

Anthony Duruji

Scottie Lewis

Noah Locke

Tre Mann

Omar Payne

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Stuffing: Georgia at Florida (Saturday, 3:30 pm)

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Players Mentioned

Tyree Appleby

Colin Castleton

Anthony Duruji

Scottie Lewis

Noah Locke

Tre Mann

Omar Payne

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