Florida vs Stetson (Sunday, 2 pm)

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Florida vs Stetson (Sunday, 2 pm)

Saturday, December 3, 2022 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

Florida vs. Stetson

* When: Sunday, 2 p.m. (ET)
* Where: Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center, Gainesville, Fla.
* Records: Florida (5-3); Stetson (4-2)
* TV: SEC Network (Mike Morgan and Pat Bradley)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD (Sean Kelley and Lee Humphrey)

Projected Starters

Junior guard Trey Bonham (left), UF's scoring leader three of the last four games, gets an attaboy from teammate **Kyle Lofton** during Wednesday's win over FAMU.

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
CJ Felder	F	6-7 / 240	Senior	3.0 pts / 4.3 reb
Colin Castleton	F	6-11 / 231	R-Senior	17.3 pts / 4.3 reb
Will Richard	G	6-5 / 206	Sophomore	13.6 pts / 4.7 reb
Trey Bonham	G	6-0 / 170	Junior	10.3 pts / 2.8 reb
Kyle Lofton	G	6-3 / 188	Graduate	9.6 pts / 3.4 reb / 4.1 ast

Stetson	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Alvin Tumblin	F	6-7 / 205	Sophomore	8.3 pts / 3.0 reb
Mahamadou Diawara	F	6-10 / 250	Senior	5.4 pts / 3.8 reb
Wheza Panzo	F	6-7 / 200	Senior	7.7 pts / 5.3 reb
Jalen Blackmon	G	6-3 / 180	Sophomore	10.5 pts / 2.0 reb
Stephan Swanson	G	6-2 / 190	Junior	12.0 pts / 2.2 reb / 5.3 ast

The Breakdown

Stetson coach Donnie Jones was on **Billy Donovan's** staff for two years at Marshall and 11 at Florida, including the back-to-back NCAA championship seasons.

Setup / Series / Last Meeting

Florida and Stetson, out of the Atlantic Sun Conference, played two seasons ago, but that was just the first meeting between the two programs since 2011. ... The Gators are coming off Wednesday's 102-62 defeat of Florida A&M, a game that helped further the healing process (if only a little) from its 84-55 blowout loss three nights earlier in the final game of the Phil Knight Legacy at Portland, Ore. The Hatters' last game was a laugher of a victory over Johnson & Wales, an NAIA program in Charlotte, N.C. The final score of that one was 125-51. Their last game against a Division I opponent was an 87-85 overtime loss at Campbell on Nov. 27. ... Florida leads the all-time series 53-14, with the last meeting an 86-40 win at the O'Dome on Dec. 6, 2020. Junior forward Keyontae Johnson led all scorers with 19 points in what turned out to be his last home game for the Gators. Junior shooting guard Noah Locke added 15 on five 3-pointers. Sophomore guard Scottie Lewis posted 10 points, 10 rebounds and six assists, with classmate point guard Tre Mann hitting his third straight double-figure game with 10 points. Florida's point total, though, wasn't as eye-popping as the lack of points — lack of made baskets, actually — by the Hatters, who shot a dismal 19.5 percent for the afternoon, including a 3-for-25 first half (12 percent) that had the home team up 18 at intermission. ... Florida is 101-19 all-time against teams currently in the A-Sun, with the last loss coming in 2010 against Jacksonville. ... UF coach Todd Golden has not faced an A-Sun opponent.

Tale of the Tape

Florida	Statistics	Stetson
80.0	Scoring	83.5
.470	Field-goal percentage	.495
.368	3-point percentage	.400
71.3	Scoring defense	68.8
.423	Field-goal percentage defense	.425
.379	3-point percentage defense	.365
58th	KenPom.com overall ranking	245th
46th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	133rd
64th	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	327th
26th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	348th
61st	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	305th
298th	Overall strength of schedule ranking	348th

Team Snapshots

The Gators

It was good to move on from the WVU demolishing with a demolishing of their own, at FAMU's expense, but Golden and the Gators know not to read too much into that outcome. The Hatters are better than the Rattlers, so the improvements in shooting (both inside and out) and transition defense need

to continue because the competition is about to go next level along the likes of what the Gators faced in Portland. ... Florida's 102 points against Florida A&M was the program's first 100-point game since beating Alabama in double-overtime 104-98 on Jan. 4, 2020 and the first 100-point regulation game since six days before that win over the Crimson Tide, a 102-63 beating of Long Beach State. ... The status of both off-guard Will Richard, the team's No. 2 scorer, and point guard Kyle Lofton, likely will be game-day decisions, but Golden was optimistic about their availability after missing the FAMU game. Richard, who leads the team in field-goal percentage (.571), 3-point percentage (.520) and free-throw percentage (.947), was held out with a sore knee. Lofton, who was coming off a season-high 17 points against WVU, was a game-day scratch with back soreness ... Ten days ago, forward Colin Castleton ranked third in the nation in scoring at 25.3 points per game, but averaged just 8.3 points and shot just 38.5 percent in the third Phil Knight Legacy games. He had 11 points, six rebounds, five assists and four blocks against FAMU. He's at 51.5 percent from the floor on the season. ... Guard Trey Bonham stepped up his game with two of the team's top perimeter players out. All he did was go 7-for-7 from the 3-point line en route to a game-high 23 points. He's hit double figures in four of the previous five games, with at least 19 points in three of the previous four. ... Freshman guard Riley Kugel (5.6 ppg, 1.9 rpg) and sophomore guard/forward Kowacie Reeves (9.2 ppg, 2.5 rpg) replaced Richard and Lofton in the starting lineup last game and responded well, especially Reeves, who played only eight minutes over the previous 3 1/2 games. He scored a season-high 17 points and hit six of his first seven shots, including all three 3s. He also had four rebounds, three assists and no turnovers over 29 minutes. Kugel had six points in 27 minutes. ... Sophomore backup forward Alex Fudge (7.6 ppg, 4.5 rpg), the transfer from LSU, had the first double-double of his career against the Rattlers with 16 points, equaling his career high, and 10 rebounds, with nine coming after halftime. Golden challenged Fudge after a lackluster first half to make an impact on the game. His length and athleticism could be true difference-makers, if Fudge can find consistency. ... Backup center Jason Jitoboh (3.6 ppg, 1.8 rpg) made three of his four shots against FAMU, with his lone miss the first 3-point attempt of his career. The 6-11, 300-pounder is now at 80.0 percent from the floor on the season (12-for-15, but 12-14 from 2). ... Fifth-year guard Myreon Jones (3.1 ppg), after starting the season just three of 19 shooting, went 4-for-5 last game, hitting both his long balls, for a season-high 10 points.

The Hatters

They started the season with a stunning road upset of Florida State that, given the Seminoles' woes, doesn't seem so stunning right now. Nonetheless, it was a signature win for Coach Donnie Jones, who did 13 seasons alongside Billy Donovan at Marshall and Florida, then had two head-coaching

stints at Marshall (2008-2010), his alma mater, and UCF (2011-16). Jones is in his fourth season with the Hatters and has a 43-53 record to show for it. ... Stetson's 74-point victory over J&W last week set a program record for the largest margin of victory in school history, eclipsing an 85-17 defeat of Tampa on Jan. 26, 1942. The Hatters put a record eight players in double-figure scoring and with 30 assists fell one short of a team single-game record. ... Just what sort of game Stetson can put it will have a lot to do with the availability of guard 6-1, 175-pound sophomore guard Luke Brown, the former Indiana prep prodigy whose career has been, to say the least, interesting. Brown, the No. 4 scorer in state history, shocked the Hoosier State when he signed with Stetson in 2021, but left the program before the season started the following fall and transferred to Ball State, where he scored 60 points over 18 games. After the '21-22 season, he entered the transfer portal and went back to Stetson, this time recruiting another former Indiana prep star, Jalen Blackmon, to come with him. Blackmon scored 61 points in 23 games as a freshman last season at Grand Canyon. Brown announced himself in the upset of FSU by coming off the bench and making seven of 11 3-pointers on his way to a career-high 27 points to go with four rebounds and three assists. Brown is averaging 15.5 points and shooting 52 percent from distance (14 of 27), but has not played since a 66-62 loss to Niagara on Nov. 19 reportedly due to illness. Blackmon, meanwhile, has bounced back after going scoreless in the FSU game and is second on the team in scoring, with a team-high 63 percent from the floor despite going 0-for-7 against the Seminoles. Blackmon had 19 points and three steals against J&W. ... Point guard Stephen Swenson is shooting 47 percent from the floor and 38.9 from the arc. ... Backup guard Cyncier Harrison is scoring 12.0 points and dishing six assists per game (11 against J&W) off the bench in his three games.

Numbers of Note

Stetson guard Luke Brown (0) during his iconic Indiana high school days.

* .493 — Career coaching percentage over 13 seasons for Jones, based on his 177-182 record. Jones went 55-41 at Marshall and 79-88 at UCF and is the only former Donovan assistant to defeat Donovan in a college game. The Knights upset the 17th-ranked Gators 57-54 in a semi-neutral site game at Orlando on Dec. 1, 2010.

* 0 — Southeastern Conference teams playing at a faster pace than Florida, which at 72.2 possessions per game ranks 26th in the country and just ahead of Alabama's 72.1.

* 4 — Combined points against FAMU from a pair of UF reserves and dedicated freshmen scout-team members, point guard Denzel Aberdeen and forward Aleks Szymczyk, who checked in with 3:24 to go and each hit a field goal. For Aberdeen, it was his second game. For Szymczyk, his third.

* 7 — 3-point attempts by Castleton this season. He's made one (14.3 percent). It came in the home loss to Florida Atlantic.

* 3,011 — Points scored by Brown during his legendary prep career at Hartford City (Ind.) Blackford High. Only three players in Indiana state history totaled more: Damon Bailey (Bedford North Lawrence) 3,134; Marion Pierce (Lewisville) 3,019; Deshaun Thomas (Fort Wayne Bishop Luers) 3,018.

Bottom Line

The last tuneup before No. 8 and unbeaten Connecticut, on a big-time roll after winning the PKI in Portland and dominating Oklahoma State at home Wednesday, comes to town for the long-awaited O'Dome end of a home-and-home contract agreed to back in 2018.