Florida vs Arkansas (Tuesday, 7 pm)

Florida vs. No. 18 Arkansas

* When: Tuesday, 7 p.m.
* Where: Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center, Gainesville, Fla.
* Records: Florida (17-10, 7-7); Arkansas (21-6, 10-4)
* TV: ESPN2 (Karl Ravech, Jimmy Dykes and Marty Smith)
* 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 / 4.1 reb
Colin Castleton	F	6-11 / 231	Senior	15.7 pts / 9.1 reb
Phlandrous Fleming Jr.	G	6-5 / 205	Graduate	10.1 pts / 4.1 reb
Tyree Appleby	G	6-1 / 163	R-Senior	10.7 pts / 2.7 reb / 3.7 ast
Myreon Jones	G	6-3 / 175	Senior	9.2 pts / 2.8 reb

Arkansas	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Jaylin Williams	F	6-10 / 240	Sophomore	10.3 pts / 9.3 reb
Trey Wade	F	6-6 / 220	Senior	3.7 pts / 2.4 reb
Au'Diese Toney	G	6-6 / 205	Senior	10.3 pts / 5.5 reb
Stanley Umude	G	6-6 / 210	Graduate	11.1 pts / 4.6 reb
JD Notae	G	6-2 / 190	Senior	18.5 pts / 4.4 reb

The Breakdown

Arkansas guard JD Notae is the second-leading scorer in the SEC.

Setup / Series / Last Meeting

Florida is coming off its biggest win of the season -- one of the biggest of Coach Mike White's seven seasons -- after upsetting second-ranked Auburn 63-62 Saturday at the O'Dome. The Tigers represented the highest-ranked opponent ever to fall on UF's home court. Enter Arkansas, which handed Auburn its only other Southeastern Conference loss 10 days earlier. The Razorbacks, who moved from 23rd to 18th in the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll, have won 11 of the last 12, including Saturday's 58-48 home defeat of 16th-ranked Tennessee. ... The Gators are in a four-team logjam (with Alabama, LSU and South Carolina) in fifth place at 7-7 in the SEC standings, with Mississippi State a half-game back at 6-7. The Hogs are tied with the Volunteers at 10-4 for third place. The last two weeks of conference play will be a fight for seeding for the SEC Tournament next month in Tampa. ... UF leads the all-time series 26-13, with wins in 11 of the previous 13 meetings, as well as 13 straight at home, dating to 1997. ... Arkansas won the last matchup, however, with a 75-64 victory at Fayetteville on Feb. 16, 2021. In that one, the Gators rallied from a 15-point deficit in the first half to take the lead with just over four minutes to go, only to fall apart down the stretch. Freshman guard Devonte Davis, who scored a game-high 18 points for the Razorbacks, had a pick-six steal off a Scottie Lewis pass and go-ahead layup with 3:25 to go, as the Gators missed their last six shots and turned it over three times in getting out-scored 15-3 to end the game. Tyree Appleby led UF with 16 points, but also had seven turnovers. He and sophomore guard Tre Mann (9 points, 8 rebounds) combined to go just 2-for-13 from the 3-point line, as the Gators went 4-for-21 as a team from deep. ... Florida is 8-2 against Arkansas under White, including 4-0 at home.

Tale of the Tape

Florida	2021-22 Stats	Arkansas
69.7	Scoring	77.3
.421	Field-goal percentage	.440
.305	3-point percentage	.310
64.0	Scoring defense	67.1
.429	Field-goal percentage defense	.406
.305	3-point percentage defense	.323
50th	KenPom.com overall ranking	19th
68th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	72nd
52nd	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	12th
286th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	25th
47th	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	23rd
73rd	Overall strength of schedule ranking	77th

Team Snapshots

The Gators

The last two games have produced the worst shooting-percentage game (.288 in the one-point loss at Texas A&M) and the third-worst (.365 in the one-point win over Auburn). To go 1-1 in those speaks to the team's defensive effort, but UF, now next-to-last in the league in shooting percentage, also awakened to make 48 percent in the second half against the Tigers, as well as seven of 13 3-point shots (.538). They needed every

one of those makes to beat Auburn, which came in ranked No. 8 nationally in defensive efficiency, according to KenPom.com. Well, guess what? Arkansas will come in ranked 12th in the same statistic (more on the Hogs below), so the Gators need be prepared for the grind. ... Appleby was spectacular in the last game, especially in the second half when he scored 20 of his UF career-best 26 points, including 4-for-6 from the 3-point line, all the while overcoming a team-high four turnovers. The homegrown Arkansas native figures to be a marked man against the Hogs, but UF will need something from their floor leader, be it play-making or drives to the bucket that lead to free throws, where Appleby has made 93 of 107 this season (.869). ... Not to be overshadowed Saturday, the performance by forward Colin Castleton, in thoroughly outplaying 7-foot-1 center and 2022 SEC Defensive Player of the Year favorite Walker Kessler, was impressive. Castleton played 35 minutes and finished with 19 points, eight rebounds, three blocked shots and two steals. He was seven of 13 from the floor, made five of his seven free throws and half of his rebounds were on the offensive end. ... After Appleby and Castleton, the Gators got an uneven performance from guard/forward Phlandrous Fleming Jr., who made his share of mistakes (3 turnovers), but hit some big shots, drew a charge on Kessler at pivotal moment, and was in on the game-winning defensive player as time expired. Fleming finished with seven points (2-for-4 from 3), three rebounds, five assists and a steal. ... Forward Anthony Duruji and Myreon Jones, both of whom have worked their way back into the starting lineup, combined for six points over 48 minutes. They each hit a 3-pointer (Duruji's was an important one during the UF comeback), but were a combined 2-for-8 from the floor, with just five rebounds. Duruji, though, was a team-best plus-16 in participation, the only starter to finish in positive digits. Duruji has been limited to just 17 points over the previous five games after his four double-digit outings while playing mostly the "5" spot while Castleton was out with a shoulder injury. ... Everyone will remember the ill-advised pass by Brandon McKissic that became a pick-6 steal and layup late in Auburn's comeback, but the guy who was shooting 19 percent from deep in SEC play hit a huge 3-ball in the second half, as well as a couple free throws to finish with five points, three rebounds, two steals and an assist in 20 minutes. ... Guard Niels Lane had a rebound and steal over 19 minutes, while missing all three of his shots, but at plus-12 he joined Duruji and freshman wing Kowacie Reeves (no points, one shot attempt, plus-3 over seven minutes) as the lone UF players with a positive plus/minus against the Tigers.

The Razorbacks

They're in the third season under Coach Eric Musselman, who came to Fayetteville by way of the University of Nevada, where he averaged 27.5 victories per season and won three Mountain West Conference regular-season titles over four years. Musselman is 66-25 at Arkansas, including 30-19 in SEC play, and well on his way to a second straight NCAA Tournament berth. In

2021, the Razorbacks reached the NCAA South Region title game before losing to eventual national champion Baylor. ... Musselman was one of the pioneers of the transfer portal, with his final team at Nevada, which was beaten in Round of the 2019 NCAA Tournament by the Gators, armed with 11 transfers. His current team has nine, including four starters. Note: If that sounds like a lot, consider Florida has eight with five starters. ... This Arkansas team is built on defense. Yes, the metrics might say the Hogs boast the fourth-best defense in the SEC -- behind LSU (3rd), Tennessee (4th) and Auburn (9th) -- but they check in 12th in the country and are coming off a 48-point stone-walling of the Volunteers, a game they won despite shooting 30.5 percent and just 5-for-22 from deep (.227). ... Guard JD Notae, a transfer from Jacksonville, has been one of the league's most prolific scorers the last two seasons. He was honored as the SEC's 2021 Sixth Man of the Year after averaging 12.8 points (second on the team), while topping the Hogs in steals. Notae's 18.5 points per game is second only to Vanderbilt's Scotty Pippen Jr. He's shooting 44.0 from the floor, 31.0 from deep and 75.0 from the free-throw line. ... Though the Razorbacks work mostly from a lineup of four perimeter-role players, Jaylin Williams fits nicely as the team's most utilized big. He's at 48.2 percent overall this season and isn't a major 3-point threat, though he has made a dozen. He is an interior anchor, however, who has drawn a league-high 41 charges (four against Tennessee) and will pound the defensive glass, with his 9.6 boards second only to Kentucky monster Oscar Tshiebwe. He also has 74 assists to just 50 turnovers. Excellent ratio for a post guy. ... McKissic and Arkansas grad guard Stanley Umude can exchange pleasantries before the game. They played against each other a bunch during their previous four seasons in the Summit League, where both were all-conference players; McKissic at Missouri-Kansas and Umude at South Dakota. Umude, who played the "4" at USD, was ninth in the nation in scoring last season at 21.9 points per game. He's second on his team this season, but making 45.8 percent from the floor and a team-best among rotational players of 35.2 from deep. ... Au'Diese Toney, a transfer from Pittsburgh, is a guard by definition, but he does a lot of dirty work underneath the basket as the team's No. 2 rebounder and big second-chance possession guy; 44 percent of his rebounds come on the offensive end. ... Davis (8.6 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 3.0 apg), who killed the Gators last season, is now a sophomore and coming off the bench for nearly 28 minutes per game. ... Miami transfer Chris Lykes (8.6 ppg), like Davis, is getting starter minutes in a reserve role, as Musselman has shrunk his rotation since early in the season (the Hogs opened SEC player with three straight losses, like the Gators) and clearly has landed on a good combination that plays to the team's identity of athleticism, speed and defense.

Numbers of Note

Freshman forward **Keyontae Johnson** (11) scored 10 points and grabbed 10 rebounds when the Gators defeated Nevada, coached by **Eric Musselman**, in the 2019 NCAA Tournament.

* 1 — Combined players on the Florida and Arkansas rosters ranked in the SEC top 20 in 3-point field-goal percentage. Umude checks 19th at 35.2 percent, while Jones just misses at 21st and 34.9 percent.

* 17 — White's age (he was a senior at New Orleans Jesuit High) the last time Arkansas won at Gainesville. The date was Feb. 28, 1995, and the seventh-ranked Razorbacks, led by Coach Nolan Richardson and armed with standouts Corliss Williamson and Scotty Thurman, came to the O'Dome as reigning NCAA champions and defeated Coach Lon Kruger, Dan Cross, Andrew DeClercq and friends (all of whom joined the Hogs in the Final Four the season before) by a score of 94-85.

* 2015 — The last year UF played back-to-back one-point games, as they've done the last two games. That was Coach Billy Donovan's final season and the Gators lost both; 62-61 at home against Ole Miss, then 63-62 at Texas A&M.

* 2017 — The last year the Gators won back-to-back games against ranked teams, as they have a chance to do Tuesday. The last time came in the NCAA Tournament (always the best time to do it), with UF defeating No. 24 Virginia 65-39 in second-round play at Orlando, then No. 25 Wisconsin 84-83 in the "Sweet 16" at Madison Square Garden in New York.

* 2019 — The year White's 10th-seeded UF team upset Musselman's seventh-seeded Nevada team in opening-round play of the NCAA Midwest Region Tournament at Des Moines, Iowa. The Gators were led by freshman forward Keyontae Johnson's 10 points and 10 rebounds, plus 16 points and three blocked shots from senior forward Kevarrius Hayes.

Bottom Line

A second straight opportunity for a home win over an AP Top 25 team. Let's see how the Gators handle prosperity this time, minus the electric O'Dome environment from the weekend.

Gators Calendar

Florida vs Arkansas (Tuesday, 7 pm)