Florida vs Mississippi State (Wednesday, 6:30 pm)

Florida vs. Mississippi State

* When: Wednesday, 6:30 p.m.
* Where: Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center, Gainesville, Fla.
* Records: Florida (10-6, 1-3); Mississippi State (12-4, 3-1)
* TV: SEC Network (Roy Philpot and Mark Wise)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD (Mick Hubert and Lee Humphrey)

Projected Starters

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Anthony Duruji	F	6-7 / 220	R-Senior	8.8 pts / 4.3 reb
Colin Castleton	F	6-11 / 231	Senior	15.4 pts / 9.1 reb / 2.8 blk
Kowacie Reeves	G	6-6 / 182	Freshman	3.8 pts / 1.2 reb
Phlandrous Fleming Jr.	G	6-5 / 205	Graduate	10.9 pts / 3.5 reb
Brandon McKissic	G	6-3 / 185	Graduate	6.4 pts / 3.3 reb

Mississippi State	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Garrison Brooks	F	6-9 / 230	Graduate	11.1 pts / 6.9 reb
Tulu Smith	C	6-11 / 245	Senior	12.8 pts / 7.2 reb
D.J. Jeffries	G	6-7 / 215	Senior	10.4 pts / 4.9 reb
Iverson Molinar	G	6-3 / 190	Junior	17.9 pts / 3.6 reb / 4.4 ast
Shakeel Moore	G	6-1 / 185	Sophomore	10.8 pts / 3.2 reb

The Breakdown

Mississippi State center **Tulu Smith** (35) was too much inside for the Gators last season and is back again this season.

Setup / Series / Last Meeting

Florida seeks it first winning streak in Southeastern Conference play. The Gators, after dropping their first three league games (all against ranked opponents), got in the winning column Saturday with a 71-63 victory at South Carolina. Mississippi State, meanwhile, will try to ride the momentum of its biggest win of the season. The Bulldogs came from behind in the second half Saturday night to defeat No. 25 Alabama in Starkville and will be playing just their second true road game of the season. ... UF leads the all-time series 65-52, but has lost the last three. The last meeting came Jan. 16, 2021, when the Bulldogs prevailed 72-69 at Humphrey Coliseum by completely dominating the Gators inside. MSU outscored UF 52-30 in the paint, out-rebounded the Gators 47-26 (including a plus-9 advantage on the offensive end) and had 18 second-chance points to Florida's four. The Bulldogs were led by their twin towers of 6-10 sophomore center Tulu Smith (27 points, 14 rebounds) and 6-11 forward Abdul Ado (11 points, 9 rebounds). Mississippi State used a 10-for-12 shooting stretch that bridged the two halves to build an 11-point lead before Florida, which was playing with sophomore guard Scottie Lewis (COVID), began cutting into the margin. The lead was still 11 with just over two minutes left when UF full-court defensive pressure -- and MSU's carelessness with the ball -- keyed a rapid-fire 11-3 run that included an ill-advised, unnecessary and errant shot by the home team that gave the Gators one last chance. Guard Tre Mann's 3-pointer as time expired was short. ... Florida is 3-3 against Mississippi State under Coach Mike White, including 2-1 at home.

Tale of the Tape

Florida	2021-22 Stats	Mississippi State
72.9	Scoring	75.6
.431	Field-goal percentage	.473
.306	3-point percentage	.329
63.4	Scoring defense	64.7
.432	Field-goal percentage defense	.415
.305	3-point percentage defense	.336
37th	KenPom.com overall ranking	40th
49th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	25th
41st	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	87th
175th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	310th
46th	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	48th
60th	Overall strength of schedule ranking	89th

Team Snapshots

The Gators

By winning at South Carolina, they avoided the first 0-4 start to league play since 1950 and put themselves in position to redirect the season after a difficult start to the SEC campaign. ... UF

will need to shore up its boxing out, especially against the talent in the MSU front court, after the Gamecocks crushed the Gators for a season-worst 21 offensive rebounds in that game. Forward Colin Castleton had another excellent all-around performance against the Gamecocks, scoring 10 points, grabbing seven rebounds and equaling his career high with eight blocked shots. As good as Castleton was, though, it was the lift provided by Kowacie Reeves, the freshman making just his third start, that seemed to ignite the Gators from the get go. Reeves scored five points in the first few minutes, nailing the team's first 3-point attempt, and went on to finish with a career-best 14 points on 4-for-6 shooting, 2-for-5 from the arc, with two rebounds and two steals. ... Reeves was part of a reconfigured starting UF lineup -- the team's sixth different starting combination this season -- that had both fifth-year senior point guard Tyree Appleby (9.1 ppg, 2.1 rpg, team-high 58 assists) and senior guard Myreon Jones (9.7 ppg, 3.5 rpg, team-high 29 3-pointers) coming off the bench. Instead, the Gators' first-unit on the perimeter had Brandon McKissic on the ball, Phlandrous Fleming Jr. at the "2" and Reeves at the "3." UF got off to a good start and things flowed from there. McKissic only scored two points, but had six rebounds and four assists. Fleming made six of his 11 shots, including a couple 3s. Appleby and Jones made like vets with their roles off the bench. Appleby went for six assists and a couple turnovers, while Jones added eight points and hit a couple 3s. Jones now has four straight games of making multiple 3s after going five straight without making more than one. ... Forward Anthony Duruji was limited to just four points, but made both his field goal tries, was active on defense, grabbed six rebounds and dished a couple assists. ... Florida had 27 bench points in the game, with junior center Jason Jitoboh (6 points, 3-for-3 from the floor, 4 rebounds), junior forward CJ Felder (4 points) and freshman guard Elijah Kennedy (5 points in the first half) pitching in with good minutes, as all 10 UF players that got in the game found the scoring column. ... UF moved up a spot in the SEC statistics in field-goal percentage and now sits 10th. The Gators still are near the bottom (12th) in 3-point percentage.

The Bulldogs

It's the seventh season under Coach Ben Howland, who has a 128-86 record over that span, with a 54-58 mark in SEC play. Along the way, the Bulldogs have been to one NCAA Tournament

(a one-and-out trip in 2019), as well as a pair of NITs, including a loss to Memphis in the 2021 title game. ... Of Mississippi State's 12 wins, two have come against opponents ranked in the KenPom Top 100: Arkansas (37th) and Alabama (17th), both at home. The team's four losses came against Louisville (Baha Mar Hoops Bahamas tournament), Minnesota (home), Colorado State (neutral site at Fort Worth) and at rival Mississippi. ... In beating the Crimson Tide, the Bulldogs defended at 39 percent for the game, allowed just eight of 28 makes from the arc (.276) and forced 15 turnovers. That was god enough (by two points) on a night they shot just 40.6 percent and went 2-for-16 from the 3-point line. ... As a team, MSU is shooting 47.3 percent from the floor, second only to Kentucky, in the SEC. ... Guard Iverson Molinar, the Panamanian by way of California, is one of the best in the league. He's shooting 47.6 percent from the floor and has a clean assist-to-turnover ratio (71 to 27). ... In destroying the Gators inside last season, Tolu Smith, the transfer from Western Kentucky, put down 11 of his 13 field-goal attempts and seven offensive rebounds. Smith is shooting nearly 62 percent for the season and has not attempted a 3-pointer. He'll park in the post and try to dominate again, which should make for some good theater against Castleton, who is a better defender and competitor than this time last season. ... Forward Garrison Brooks was one of the marquee prospects in the transfer portal last spring when he bolted North Carolina to be closer to his home in Alabama. In four seasons as a Tar Heel, Brooks tallied 1,276 points and 798 rebounds. He's at 46.7 percent overall this season, 31.6 from distance. ... Brooks was the big name in a group of four transfers who migrated to Starkville, joining forward D.J. Jeffries (Memphis), guard Shakeel Moore (North Carolina State) and Rocket Watts (Michigan State). Ironically, Jeffries scored 15 points, grabbed five rebounds and blocked a career-best five blocks against Mississippi State in the NIT championship game last year. Moore had a solid freshman season for the Wolfpack, with a 17-point performance in an upset of UNC. He's shooting 35.2 percent from the 3-point line this season. Watts totaled 460 points, 121 assists and 110 rebounds over his first two seasons as a part-time starter for the Spartans.

Numbers of Note

Forward **Egor Koulechov** (4) scored 23 points and led four UF players into double-figure scoring when the Gators last defeated the Bulldogs back on Jan. 14, 2018.

* .583 — Florida's winning percentage at the O'Dome in SEC play over the last five seasons, based on a 21-15 record, including 4-5 the last two seasons, with an 0-2 start to this season.

* .676 — Florida's winning percentage at the O'Dome in all games over the last five seasons, based on a 44-21 record, including identical 6-3 records the last two seasons.

* 7 — Career games for Castleton with at least five blocked shots, after his eight swats at South Carolina.

* 2013 — The only year, since the SEC expanded and split into two divisions, the Gators and Bulldogs have played twice in the same season. Florida swept those two on the way to winning the conference regular-season championshp.

* 2018 — The last year the Gators defeated the Bulldogs, as forward Egor Koulechov, the sharp-shooting grad-transfer from Rice, scored UF's first 13 points, including four 3-pointers, as Florida waxed MSU 71-54 and started the SEC season with four straight wins. Koulechov finished with 23 points that night. Senior point guard Chris Chiozza, who missed the previous two days of practice with strep throat, came off the bench to finish with 10 points, seven assists and three steals over 28 minutes.

Bottom Line

The Gators, with a pair of home games, have a chance this week to even their conference record, but that's easier said than done; not just because of the competition, but because they've not been great at capitalizing on home-court advantage situations the last few seasons.

Gators Calendar

Florida vs Mississippi State (Wednesday, 6:30 pm)