Florida at Texas A&M (Tuesday, 7 pm)

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Florida at Texas A&M (Tuesday, 7 pm)

Monday, February 14, 2022 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

Florida at Texas A&M

* When: Tuesday, 7 p.m.
* Where: Reed Arena, College Station, Texas
* Records: Florida (16-9, 6-6); Texas A&M (15-10, 4-8)
* TV: SEC Network (Dave Neal and Daymeon Fishback)
* 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	9.3 pts / 4.4 reb
Colin Castleton	F	6-11 / 231	Senior	15.5 pts / 8.8 reb
Phlandrous Fleming Jr.	G	6-5 / 205	Graduate	10.3 pts / 4.0 reb
Niels Lane	G	6-5 / 205	Sophomore	1.1 pts / 1.2 reb
Tyree Appleby	G	6-1 / 163	R-Senior	10.4 pts / 2.2 reb

Texas A&M	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Henry Coleman III	F	6-8 / 243	Sophomore	10.9 pts / 6.2 reb
Aaron Cash	G	6-6 / 201	Junior	2.7 pts / 3.7 reb
Quentin Jackson	G	6-5 / 173	Senior	13.4 pts / 3.4 reb
Marcus Williams	G	6-2 / 197	Sophomore	8.4 pts / 2.3 reb
Tyrece Radford	G	6-2 / 200	Junior	9.7 pts / 5.5 reb

The Breakdown

Setup / Series / Last Meeting

Florida, teetering on the wrong side of most "bracketology" projections, looks to get back on the winning track after having a streak of four straight victories emphatically snapped by a 78-57 blowout defeat at No. 5 Kentucky. Texas A&M, meanwhile, has lost eight straight after starting the Southeastern Conference schedule with four consecutive wins. Of the eight losses, four have been at home, where the Aggies have kept things close, with all of the defeats in single digits. Their last outing was Saturday's 75-58 rout at top-ranked Auburn. ... UF leads the all-time series 9-4, including four straight wins. The Gators and Aggies did not play last season because of COVID pauses in the A&M program that limited the team to just 18 games and only 10 in league play. The last meeting came Feb. 12, 2020 when sophomore point guard Andrew Nembhard scored 24 points and dished five assists in UF's 78-61 road win, Sophomore guard Noah Locke added 17 points on 5-for-10 shooting from the 3-point line, while sophomore forward Keyontae Johnson posted 10 points and 10 rebounds. It was quite the "sophomore show," with the UF trio combining to make 21 of 37 field-goal tries, plus eight of 15 from long-distance against one of the league's top defenses. ... Florida is 4-2 against Texas A&M under Coach Mike White, including 2-1 on the road.

Tale of the Tape

Florida	2021-22 Stats	Texas A&M
70.6	Scoring	72.9
.429	Field-goal percentage	.438
.304	3-point percentage	.332
64.4	Scoring defense	66.6
.434	Field-goal percentage defense	.419
.311	3-point percentage defense	.331
54th	KenPom.com overall ranking	73rd
60th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	86th
64th	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	72nd
267th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	219th
50th	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	73rd
82nd	Overall strength of schedule ranking	81st

Team Snapshots

The Gators

The loss Saturday was UF's most lopsided defeat against Kentucky since a 93-58 wipeout there on Jan. 2, 1999 in the SEC opener for both teams. The Gators shot a respectable 45 percent for the game, but made just five of 22 from the 3-point line, got smashed 41-25 in the rebounding column, including 18-5 on the offensive glass, and while they committed just 10 turnovers

those miscues led to 17 points for the Wildcats. UF only took five free throws in the game. Kentucky only took nine. ... The status of fifth-year senior point guard Tyree Appleby figures to be a game-day decision. Against Kentucky, Appleby aggravated a deep thigh bruise that he sustained three nights earlier in a win over Georgia. He tried to play, but managed less than four minutes before being shut down for the game. He's been limited the last couple days at practice. ... Once again, forward Colin Castleton led the way for the Gators, posting 18 points and seven rebounds, but he (like so many players this season) could do little to keep UK's Oscar Tshiebwe from dominating on his way to 27 points and 19 rebounds. Castleton hit eight of his 12 shots, including three from at least 15 feet, as his floor game and range continues to expand. Against the undersized Aggies, though, UF will be best served by Castleton planting himself on the block and getting a bunch of touches in the post. ... Forward Anthony Duruji made a 3-pointer against the Wildcats, just his seventh in 31 attempts in SEC play (.223), but missed all six of his other field-goal attempts on his way to three points and four rebounds over 27 minutes. ... Guard/Forward Phlandrous Fleming Jr. had eight points and four rebounds last game, but is back under 30 percent from the 3-point line for the season (.297). ... Backup guard Brandon McKissic's nine points were his most in seven games and followed a scoreless outing against Georgia. McKissic's stuggles from the 3-point line continue. He was a career 38.5-percent shooter from 3 at Missouri-Kansas City, including nearly 43 percent last season, but is just 22-for-92 as a Gator (.239), including 7-for-38 in league play (.184). ... Reserve senior guard Myreon Jones (9.3 ppg, 2.3 rpg) made two more 3-pointers against UK, on only three attempts, taking his hot streak to 16-for-26 over the last four games (.615). ... Backup junior forward CJ Felder hit a couple 3s in 19 minutes off the bench and finished plus-5 in participation, making he and freshman wing Kowacie Reeves (2 points in 15 minutes) the only UF player with a positive plus/minus numbers in Lexington.

The Aggies
They're in the third season under Coach Buzz Williams, with a 39-34 record that includes a 16-24 mark in SEC play. It's the fourth stop for Williams, who did one season at New Orleans, six at

Marquette, then five at Virginia Tech before bolting for A&M. His first five teams at Marquette made the NCAA Tournament, as well as his last three at Tech, with four Sweet 16s and one Elite Eight along the way. Williams is still looking for his first NCAA berth with the Aggies, who started 4-0 in SEC play, including a win over Arkansas at home, but have since dropped those eight in a row, with all but five of them single-digit defeats. ... A&M, which plays mostly from a four-guard alignment, ranks eighth in the conference in offensive efficiency and 10th in defensive efficiency, but rate second in the country in steals per possession. ... Forward Henry Coleman III is the Aggies' lone big in the starting lineup. The A&M counts on him almost exclusively inside (he has two 3-point attempts on the season), where the Duke transfer shoots 54.8 percent and has gotten to the free-throw line a team-high 113 times. ... Guard Quentin Jackson is 44.5 percent overall and 33 from distance, but also is adept at drawing fouls. He's gone to the line 100 times and has shot 83 percent. ... Backup guard Wade Taylor IV leads the team in makes from 3 with 32, but on 101 attempts. He only averages just 16 minutes per game, so he's getting his money's worth when it comes to jacking up shots. ... Guard Tyrece Radford transferred from Virginia Tech. He never played for Williams there, but was recruited by him to go there. Radford scored 18 points and grabbed four rebounds in Tech's loss to the Gators in first-round play of the 2021 NCAA Tournament at Indianapolis. ... Marcus Williams (90 assists, 69 turnovers) will do the bulk of the ball-handing for the Aggies. He transferred from Wyoming, where he wad the 2021 Mountain West Conference Freshman of the Year after averaging 14.8 points and 4.3 rebounds in 24 starts for the Cowboys.

Numbers of Note

Gators freshman **Bradley Beal** (23) hit eight of his 10 shots on the way to 21 points, six rebounds, four assists, two steals and two blocks in UF's 68-58 upset of Coach Buzz Williams and third-seeded Marquette in the 2012 NCAA West Region semifinals at Phoenix.

* .700 — UF's winning percentage against A&M since the Aggies joined the SEC for the 2012-13 season, based on a 7-3 record.

* 0 — Active players on the Florida roster who have played at Reed Arena.

* 1 — Games on the A&M schedule that do no count in the eyes of the NCAA. On Dec. 22, the Aggies played Dallas Christian, a Division II-classified program, and won 102-52. As for as the.

* 8 — Points needed by Castleton, who arrived two springs ago by way of Michigan, to become the fifth transfer player in UF history to reach 600 points in his UF career, joining Dorian Finney-Smith (Virginia Tech), Jalen Hudson (Virginia Tech), Vernon Macklin (Georgetown) and Mike Rosario (Rutgers).

* 2012 — The year Florida, coached by Billy Donovan, defeated Williams' Marquette team twice. First, the seventh-seeded Gators upset the third-seeded Golden Eagles 68-58 in the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA Tournament 68-58 at Phoenix on March 23. Eight months later, on Nov. 29 (and in a different season), the two teams were matched in the SEC/Big East Challenge, with seventh-ranked UF obliterating Marquette 82-49 at the O'Connell Center.