Florida at Ole Miss (Monday, 7 pm)

Chris Harry - Pregame Stuff Presented by Ticketmaster

Florida at Ole Miss (Monday, 7 pm)

Sunday, January 23, 2022 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

Florida at Ole Miss

* When: Monday, 7 p.m. (ET)
* Where: The Pavilion at Ole Miss
* Records: Florida (12-6, 3-3); Ole Miss (9-9, 1-5)
* TV: SEC+ / ESPN App (Seth Austin and John Stroud)
* 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	9.4 pts / 4.4 reb
Jason Jitoboh	C	6-11 / 285	Junior	3.7 pts / 2.3 reb
Kowacie Reeves	G	6-6 / 182	Freshman	4.8 pts / 1.8 reb
Phlandrous Fleming Jr.	G	6-5 / 205	Graduate	10.6 pts / 3.6 reb
Brandon McKissic	G	6-3 / 185	Graduate	6.3 pts / 3.3 reb

Opponent	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Jaemyn Brakefield	F	6-8 / 220	Sophomore	9.1 pts / 4.2 reb
Nysier Brooks	C	7-0 / 245	Graduate	9.5 pts / 8.1 reb
Matthew Murrell	G	6-4 / 200	Sophomore	9.8 pts / 2.8 reb
Tye Fagan	G	6-3 / 198	Senior	7.4 pts / 3.7 reb
Daeshun Ruffin	G	5-9 / 190	Freshman	11.0 pts / 3.6 ast

The Breakdown

The Pavilion at Ole Miss (capacity 9,500) opened in 2016.

Setup / Series / Last Meeting

Florida has won three straight to climb from the bottom of the Southeastern Conference standings to eighth place, and just a game out of third. The Gators, in a second consecutive game with scoring, rebound and blocked-shots leader Colin Castleton (shoulder) sidelined, defeated Vanderbilt 61-42 in Gainesville Saturday behind one of their best all-around defensive performances of the season. Mississippi, meanwhile, has lost four straight and is still smarting from a couple crippling injuries. The Rebels lost soundly Saturday in a rematch against rival Mississippi State. Two weeks after beating the Bulldogs by 10 in Oxford, they lost by 18 on the road and now sit 13th in the SEC standings, in front of only winless Georgia. ... UF leads the all-time series 68-47, with wins in three of the last four meetings, as well as six of the last eight. The Gators, however, have lost their last two trips to Oxford, where Coach Mike White was a starting point guard from 1995-99. ... Florida defeated Mississippi in their last meeting, 72-63, on Jan. 21, 2021 at Gainesville, where the Gators erased a nine-point deficit over the final six minutes behind a spectacular all-around game from Castleton, who tallied 21 points, 10 rebounds, eight blocks and three assists. Castleton's block of a driving layup attempt from Devontae Shuler started a fastbreak that ended with a transition 3-pointer from Noah Locke that gave UF the lead for good with 2:34 remaining. Guard Tre Mann added 17 points and wing Scottie Lewis returned to action after missing three games due to COVID protocols and scored 15, including a trio of 3-pointers. ... Florida is 6-2 against Ole Miss under White, including 1-2 on the road.

Tale of the Tape

Florida	2021-22 Stats	Opponent
72.3	Scoring	77.9
.432	Field-goal percentage	.428
.307	3-point percentage	.327
62.7	Scoring defense	66.8
.431	Field-goal percentage defense	.442
.295	3-point percentage defense	.296
30th	KenPom.com overall ranking	127th
44th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	196th
35th	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	86th
207th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	254th
39th	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	135th
45th	Overall strength of schedule ranking	102nd

Team Snapshots

The Gators

They're coming off their best week since winning the Fort Myers Tipoff tournament back in November. That's saying something, considering the developments involving Castleton, who remains out indefinitely with the shoulder injury suffered at practice Tuesday. On the positive side, Castleton's injury has seen the ascension of Jason Jitoboh, whose work to drop more than 50 pounds

since last offseason is now paying dividends. In the win over Mississippi State, Jitoboh played the best basketball of his career over the game's final nine minutes when, despite being saddled with four fouls, he scored eight points and helped the Gators stage a terrific comeback. He chased that game with another eight points, plus a career-high 10 rebounds over a career-high 27 minutes in the win against the Commodores. ... Jitoboh was a big subplot in the win, but the underlying theme of the game was the defense Florida unfolded on Vanderbilt and guard Scotty Pippen Jr., the SEC scoring leader. The Gators led by just three at halftime, but held the Commodores to just 3-for-23 shooting in the second half (.136) and 0-for-9 from the 3-point line. Pippen, who came in averaging 18.6 points, finished with just six points and went 1-for-10 from the floor while matched against an array of UF defenders, specifically Brandon McKissic, who was terrific on that end. McKissic also was making his third consecutive start at point guard, with fifth-year senior Tyree Appleby (9.6 ppg, 3.6 apg) coming off the bench and continuing his stretch of the best basketball he has played in two seasons at UF. Appleby led UF with 11 points, hit three of nine 3-point attempts, had three assists, one turnover and four steals. Appleby is 7-for-18 from distance the last two games (.369). ... Forward Anthony Duruji had another solid all-around effort, with seven points, eight rebounds and a couple steals to go with his energy and defense. ... Kowacie Reeves went just 2-for-9 from the floor, but hit a couple 3s (out of seven tries) and now has made a 3 in each of the last four games; and a minimum of two in the last three. ... Phlandrous Fleming Jr.'s five rebounds were his most in six games. He's gone two games without making a 3-pointer, so he's due. He's shooting nearly 81 percent at the free-throw line. ... Senior guard Myreon Jones (8.9 ppg, 3.2 rpg) came off the bench for the third straight game. After not attempting a field goal in 17 minutes against Mississippi State, he made a couple 3s in five attempts over nearly 20 minutes. ... Backup forward CJ Felder was 2-for-2 from the floor (with a 3) and grabbed a couple boards over 11 minutes and reserve center/forward Toungthach Gatkek, for the second consecutive game, gave his team a lift in spelling Jitoboh. Gatkek scored two points (with another nice dunk), grabbed three boards and dished two assists in close to 10 minutes.

The Rebels

It's their fourth season with Kermit Davis at the helm, with a 60-51 overall record that includes a 27-33 mark in SEC play and one NCAA Tournament appearance in 2019. The hallmark of Davis-coached teams is the effort with which they play, a reputation that was forged over 16 seasons at Middle Tennessee where he won 332 teams and posted six seasons of at least 24

victories, including a 31-win campaign. ... The Rebels are without Jarkel Joiner, the California-Bakersfield transfer who was averaging 13.6 points and 3.2 rebounds when he suffered a knee injury earlier this month that will keep him out of the lineup at least six weeks. They also lost 6-8, 230-pound backup forward Robert Allen (6.5 ppg, 5.4 rpg), out of Orlando, to a season-ending knee injury during non-conference play. ... Mississippi's best win was that defeat of Mississippi State in its second SEC game. The Rebels went 8-4 against a relatively light non-league slate. Two of their losses came in the Charleston Classic against Marquette and Boise State. Ole Miss also was beaten by 23 on a neutral court, courtesy of Western Kentucky, and, just before Christmas, was handed a two-point home loss by Samford, which got 21 points and five assists from former UF guard Ques Glover to lead the upset. ... With Joiner out, Ole Miss has one player averaging in double figures. That's point guard Daeshun Ruffin, who made history when he became the first McDonald's All-American to sign with Ole Miss out of high school. Ruffin, a Jackson, Miss., product, scored 2,337 points during high school and was Mississippi's 2021 Gatorade Player of the Year and a top-40 recruit. He's shooting 36 percent from the floor and struggling from the 3-point line at at just 8-for-38 in his rookie season (.211). ... Guard Matthew Murrell was a bit player last season (4.2 ppg), but is on an upward trajectory. His athleticism has never been questioned, but he busted out for a career-high 19 in the big win over Memphis and one-upped that with a near-perfect performance by going for a career-high 31 against Mississippi State on 10-for-11 from the floor, 5-for-5 from deep and 6-for-6 from the free-throw line. He needs to be a marked man on the perimeter. ... Massive 7-foot center Nysier Brooks, who played in 103 games over three seasons at Cincinnati, sat out the '19-20 season after transferring to Miami, started 25 of 27 games for the Hurricanes last season, and now is hitting better than 60 percent from the floor with his third team in his sixth collegiate season. He has 56 offensive rebounds on the year. ... Wing Luis Rodriguez, promoted to the starting lineup due to the injuries, is a solid perimeter player who can guard multiple positions. He's the lone Rebel who started every game in '20-21. ...Forward Jaemyn Brakefield transferred from Duke, where he averaged 3.5 points and 2.5 rebounds in his 25 appearances last season. The Jackson native was the state's three-time player of the year and a five-star prospect ranked the No. 4 power forward in the nation. He's home now and shooting 46 percent from the floor. His 37-percent eye from deep (and 20 makes) ranks second on the team among available players. ... Guard Tye Fagan, also a battlefield promotion starter, scored 450 points over the previous three seasons at Georgia.

Numbers of Note

**Mike White** was Ole Miss's starting point guard for four seasons during the 1990s.

* plus-9 — Appleby's assist-to-turnover differential over the last three games, each time coming off the bench, based on 14 assists and five turnovers.

* plus-12 — Appleby's assist-to-turnover differential through the season's first 15 games, with 12 of them starts, based on 52 assists and 40 turnovers.

* plus-14 — Gatkek's plus-minus on-floor differential the last two games, over his 25 minutes. He had logged just 35 total minutes for the season prior to last week.

* 5.1 — White's four-year scoring average as a point guard at Ole Miss, where he tallied 597 points, shot 37.0 percent from the 3-point line and dished 370 assists in 117 games, including 109 starts

* 2016 — The last year the Gators won at Oxford behind 27 points from freshman guard KeVaughn Allen, who in the 80-71 victory went 6-for-7 from the 3-point line just four days after going scoreless in a loss at Texas A&M. Senior forward Dorian Finney-Smith had 17 points and 10 rebounds, while backup point guard Chris Chiozza came off the bench to hand out a then-career best nine assists.

Bottom Line

Will the defense-first (offense secondary) mentality go on the road? If it doesn't, the Gators will be trouble. They win because of how well they're capable to play on that end of the floor.