Florida Gators

Florida vs. Oklahoma

* What: 2022 Jumpman Invitational 
* When: Tuesday, 9:30 p.m. (ET)
* Where: Spectrum Center / Charlotte, N.C.
* Records: Florida (7-4) / Oklahoma (8-3)
* TV: ESPN2 (Jon Sciambi, Jay Bilas and Angel Gray)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD (Sean Kelley and Lee Humphrey)

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Projected Starters

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Alex Fudge	F	6-7 / 240	Senior	8.9 pts / 5.4 reb
Colin Castleton	F	6-11 / 231	R-Senior	15.2 pts / 7.5 reb / 2.6 blk
Will Richard	G	6-5 / 206	Sophomore	11.2 pts / 4.1 reb
Trey Bonham	G	6-0 / 170	Junior	9.8 pts / 2.7 reb
Kyle Lofton	G	6-3 / 188	Graduate	9.1 pts / 2.8 reb / 4.1 ast

Oklahoma	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Jacob Groves	F	6-9 / 216	Senior	10.1 pts / 2.7 reb
Tanner Groves	F	6-10 / 240	R-Senior	10.9 pts / 2.6 reb
Jalen Hill	G	6-6 / 232	Senior	7.7 pts / 4.6 reb
Milos Uzan	G	6-4 / 183	Freshman	4.9 pts / 1.4 reb
Grant Sherfield	G	6-2 / 201	Senior	17.6 pts . 2.8 reb / 4.2 ast

The Breakdown

Setup / Series / Last Meeting

Florida and Oklahoma meet in the second game of the inaugural Jumpman Classic, a men's and women's two-night double-header that brings four of the original Michael Jordan-brand schools to MJ's home state and the arena of his NBA team, the Charlotte Hornets, for whom he serves as team president. The Gators and Sooners will play after a 7 p.m. date between North Carolina and Michigan women. ... The Gators' last outing was Wednesday night's 82-48 semi-home victory over Ohio at Tampa, one of the better all-around performances by the team this season, but also against a severely overmatched opponent (unlike the 21-point home loss a week earlier to fifth-ranked Connecticut). The Sooners defeated Central Arkansas 87-66 at home Saturday, but that one came a week after a 10-point semi-home loss to No. 9 Arkansas at Tulsa. ... ... The Gators will play their first game in Charlotte since the 1994 Final Four, a 70-65 loss to Duke in the NCAA semifinals. ... UF and OU have met four times (the series stands at 2-2), with three of those games coming since 2017 and the most recent barely a year ago, when the Gators, unbeaten and ranked 14th in the country, went to Norman, Okla., and lost 74-67 in the road end of a home-and-home series that may or may not be returned, given Oklahoma's pending entry into the Southeastern Conference. That last meeting, Dec. 1, 2021, featured several players who will figure prominently in this matchup, including forward Tanner Groves, who had a game-high 20 points and seven rebounds, and forward Jalen Hill, who had 18 points, including a late, old-time three-point play to help put the game away. The Sooners shot 49 percent for the game versus 42 for the Gators, who went just 4-for-24 from the 3-point line and turned the ball over 16 times, including six from forward Colin Castleton (14 points, 11 rebounds), who was double-teamed all game. ... Florida is 26-20 all-time against teams from the Big 12 Conference, including 0-1 under Coach Todd Golden. 

Tale of the Tape

Florida	Statistics	Oklahoma
88.6	Scoring	69.6
.465	Field-goal percentage	.515
.383	3-point percentage	.399
67.6	Scoring defense	60.1
.415	Field-goal percentage defense	.436
.355	3-point percentage defense	.285
48th	KenPom.com overall ranking	37th
50th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	30th
44th	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	59th
26th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	336th
53rd	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	56th
122nd	Overall strength of schedule ranking	68th

Team Snapshots

The Gators

In their biggest games of the season, the four Q-1 opportunities went like this: loss by 2 (NET No. 13 Florida Atlantic at home), loss by 7 (No. 37 Xavier on neutral court), loss by 29 (No. 9 West Virginia on neutral) and loss by 21 (No. 3 UConn at home). The Gators not only need to stockpile wins, but some quality wins. And while the OU game, for now, does not represent a Q-1 chance, it

could down the line, pending how the Sooners, currently at No. 56 (six spots from a Q-1 neutral-court shot), fare the rest of the season. ... The return (presumably) to full strength/health from fifth-year point guard Kyle Lofton was the biggest storyline to come out of UF's win over Ohio. Lofton, who missed two games with a sore back following the Phil Legacy Invitational and suffered the first scoreless game of his career in coming off the bench in his return against Connecticut, scored 15 points and dished seven assists to just two turnovers over 21 minutes in Tampa last week. If Lofton is rounding into his St. Bonaventure form, the Gators could be on the move upward. ... Second-leading scorer Will Richard, who came back from Portland with a sore knee, has scored just thee points the last two games while going 1-for-6 from the floor. That's after a 5-for-5 shooting performance (4-for-4 from 3) and 14 points against Stetson. Richard, though, had four rebounds and two blocked shots in his 21 minutes against Ohio, so he was doing other stuff to help his team. Richard's all-around floor game, including scoring the ball, will be needed against the Sooners. ... Forward Colin Castleton had six points, eight rebounds and a pair of blocks in 27 minutes last game. He's gone seven straight games of scoring 12 points or less, but he's been a focus of opposing defenses and is playing pretty well on the defensive end. ... Forward Alex Fudge moved into the starting lineup four games ago and already has the only two double-doubles of his career. He's averaged 13.3 points on 53-percent shooting (including 3-for-6 from deep and 14 of 15 from the free-throw line) to go with 8.3 rebounds as a starter. ... Golden and his staff opted to pair Trey Bonham alongside Lofton in the starting backcourt, giving the Gators a second ball-handler but also a sticky defensive presence in the halfcourt. Bonham got the nod over sophomore wing Kowacie Reeves (10.4 ppg, 2.7 rpg), who handled the development quite well. Reeves scored a season-high 20 points in just 18 minutes against Ohio, hit seven of his 11 shots and four of his seven 3s. He's at 49 percent overall and second on the team from deep at 45 percent. ... The wait for a definitive breakout game from freshman guard Riley Kugel (6.2 ppg) continues. But it's coming. ... UF associate head coach Carlin Hartman was an assistant at Oklahoma for five seasons (2015-21). 

The Sooners

It's their second season with Porter Moser on the sidelines, with a 26-19 record to show for it, including a 7-11 mark in his first go-around in Big 12 play. The '21-22 team went 19-16 and reached the second round of the NIT (like the Gators of last year), with Moser now looking to build up a program that for 10 seasons under Lon Kruger (7 NCAA tournaments, 1 Final Four) was

one of the most formidable in the league. Kruger retired after the '20-21 season. ... Oklahoma's resume looks similar to Florida in that it's absent of any Q-1 wins, as the Sooners, who opened the season with a home loss against Sam Houston State, dropped games at Villanova on the road and at Arkansas 10 days ago. They do have three Top 100 wins (UF has none), having beaten Nebraska, Seton Hall and Ole Miss to win the ESPN Events Invitational at Disney World last month. ... The Sooners may not score a lot of points, but they're efficient in what they do on offense, what with that 51.5-percent team field-goal percentage, with their top six scorers all at 46.7 percent or better. They're also one of the best 3-point shooting teams in the nation, led by one of the best shooters in point guard and leading scorer Grant Sherfield, the transfer from Nevada (by way of Wichita State). Sherfield has attempted 56 shots more than the next-closest Sooner. He's at 46.7 overall and 55.4 from deep, courtesy of 31 of 56 marksmanship beyond the arc. He also tops the team in free throws (35 of 39) and percentage (.897). He's in the nation's top 150 in usage percentage, so Sherfield will have the ball on his hands probably a third of the game. ... Tanner Groves transferred to OU with his younger brother, Jacob, from Eastern Washington and was an instant impact player last season, as the Gators found out first hand. He's big, burly and can step out and make 3s, which he did twice against UF in the '21 meeting, in addition to making eight of his 11 shots overall. He's 10-for-32 (.313) from the arc on the season. Jacob Groves is a different kind of player (not nearly as thick), but has more than doubled his productivity since last season. He's at nearly 56 percent from the floor and second on the team in 3s with 16 at a 44.4-percent clip. ... Jalen Hill hurt UF inside and out last season, making six of eight shots and six of seven free throws, including his big three-point play late after the Gators, scoring 10 straight points, cut a 12-point OU lead to just two. ... Backup post man Sam Godwin, a transfer from Wofford, has put in 31 of his 41 shots this season (without attempting a 3). That's 75.6 percent. ... 

Numbers of Note

* 0 — Losses by Florida when the Gators went to the Sooner State last year. UF was 6-0 and ranked 14th after winning the Fort Myers Tip-Off with victories over California and Ohio State. Five days after the loss at Oklahoma, UF was smashed at home by winless Texas Southern, then a month later opened the SEC schedule with three straight losses, thus putting the wheels for Coach Mike White's eventual departure (on his own, to Georgia) in motion. 

* 1.000 — Mosher's winning percentage against the Gators, based on a 2-0 record that includes last year's win in his first OU season and the 65-59 defeat of then No. 5 UF as coach at Loyola-Chicago early in its magical '17-18 season that ended in the Final Four. 

* 5 — Neutral-site games for Florida in its 12-game pre-SEC slate. That's tied for the most in the SEC. 

* 1995 — The first year Florida played Oklahoma. The Gators, with Kruger on the sidelines (in his final season) and led by senior center Dametri Hill, defeated the Sooners, 76-72, in overtime of the championship game of the All-College Tournament at Oklahoma City. 

* 2017 — The next year the UF played OU, this time in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge at Noble Center in Norman, Okla., when the Gators absolutely eviscerating the Sooners 84-52 in what stands as the worst loss in OU's 101 years of men's basketball. Sophomore forward Kevarrius Hayes scored a career-high 20 points and grabbed nine rebounds to lead UF that day, while senior point guard Kasey Hill had 12 points, eight assists and a pair of steals for a team that eventually went to the Elite Eight. 
 

Bottom Line

A tremendous opportunity, as well as a springboard of momentum, heading into the SEC schedule next week. Keep an eye on Lofton. As they go, the Gators may very well go.