Florida at Vanderbilt (Tuesday, 8:30 pm)

Florida at Vanderbilt

* When: Tuesday, 8:30 p.m. (ET)
* Where: Memorial Gymnasium, Nashville, Tenn.
* Records: Florida (18-11, 8-8); Vanderbilt (14-14, 6-10)
* 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
CJ Felder	F	6-7 / 231	Junior	3.6 pts / 2.4 reb
Colin Castleton	F	6-11 / 231	Senior	16.0 pts / 9.1 reb / 2.6 blx
Phlandrous Fleming Jr.	G	6-5 / 205	Graduate	10.7 pts / 4.2 reb
Tyree Appleby	G	6-1 / 163	R-Senior	11.3 pts / 2.0 reb / 3.8 ast
Myreon Jones	G	6-3 / 175	Senior	9.0 pts / 2.8 reb

Vanderbilt	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Quentin Millora-Brown	F	6-10 / 235	Senior	5.9 pts / 5.8 reb
Liam Robbins	C	7-0 / 250	Graduate	6.0 pts / 3.9 reb
Jordan Wright	G	6-6 / 215	Junior	11.9 pts / 6.0 reb
Scotty Pippin Jr.	G	6-3 / 185	Junior	20.2 pts / 3.6 reb / 4.1 ast
Tyrin Lawrence	G	6-4 / 195	Sophomore	3.5 pts / 2.3 reb

The Breakdown

Setup / Series / Last Meeting

Florida comes in seated on the wrong side of the NCAA Tournament bubble, but coming off an 84-72 road win Saturday at Georgia that evened its Southeastern Conference record and positioned the Gators into a four-way tie for sixth place in the league standings alongside LSU, South Carolina and Mississippi State. A date with Vanderbilt, which rests alone in 11th place in the league, may not seem like such a big deal. The Commodores, though, have very respectable metrics for a team with a .500 record, including a No. 75 rating in the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET). That means this game represents a Quadrant-1 opportunity for the Gators. Vandy has lost two straight, but the first was a two-point defeat at home against Alabama and the second Saturday's 74-69 setback at Mississippi State. The Commodores had their chances in both games and figure to have a bunch of chances in this one. ... Florida has a 72-71 lead in the series, with eight consecutive victories, including three straight at Memorial. UF has never beaten Vandy four consecutive times on the road. The Gators edged ahead in those all-time results with their 61-42 win at Gainesville on Jan. 22, led by a terrific all-around outing from 6-foot-11, 290-pound backup center Jason Jitoboh, who in relief of injured Colin Castleton scored eight points and grabbed a career-high 10 rebounds over a career-best 27 minutes. Jitoboh was one of seven UF players who scored at least six points, led by Tyree Appleby's 11. The Gators held the Commodores to just 29-percent shooting for the game, including just three second-half field goals on 23 attempts (.136). Jitoboh was lost to a season-ending eye injury four days later. ... UF is 9-6 against Vandy under Coach Mike White, including 3-3 on the road.

Tale of the Tape

Florida	2021-22 Stats	Vanderbilt
70.3	Scoring	69.4
.426	Field-goal percentage	.418
.311	3-point percentage	.327
64.9	Scoring defense	67.2
.432	Field-goal percentage defense	.421
.312	3-point percentage defense	.300
55th	KenPom.com overall ranking	75th
45th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	123rd
67th	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	41st
305th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	140th
51st	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	75th
79th	Overall strength of schedule ranking	24th

Team Snapshots

The Gators

They're 2-8 in coveted Q-1 games. That's not good. They're 6-10 in combined Q-1s and 2s. That's a little better. However this game ultimately shakes out (Q-1 or Q-2), the Gators need it to bolster their resume and land the best seed possible for the SEC Tournament next week in Tampa. ... The status of forward Anthony Duruji (8.8 ppg, 4.2 rpg) likely won't be known until the run-up to the game. Duruji was

scratched from the lineup at Georgia due to a sore ankle. ... UF's last outing was all about Phlandrous Fleming Jr., who returned to his hometown of Athens, Ga., and had the kind of lights-out performance a player could only dream about in a rare homecoming situation. Fleming, the grad-transfer wing from Charleston Southern, finished with a Florida career-high 27 points. He hit 11 of his 18 field-goal attempts, including four 3-pointers. Fleming also had five rebounds, four assists, a steal and drew two charges. Yes, it came against the league's last-place team, but if Fleming can muster the kind of energy he had playing before dozens of family and friends, the Gators will be better off for it. ... Castleton posted his eighth double-double of the season against the Bulldogs with 10 points and 12 rebounds, along with two blocks and a career-high five assists. All of his assists came on double-teams and led to made 3s, which speaks to his recognition, where he's had some of greatest growth this season. Castleton needs one more blocked shot to reach 115 for his career, which would tie Alex Tyus for 10th on the all-time list. ... Appleby dropped five 3-balls against the Bulldogs on his way to 19 points and seven assists. Speaking of assists, the Gators had 20 in that game, their most in a SEC outing this season. Appleby scored at least 19 points in each of the last three games, with 13 combined assists to eight turnovers. ... Fleming (at Georgia), Castleton (career-high 29 vs Arkansas) and Appleby (UF career-high 26 vs Auburn) have given the Gators three different players with at least 26 points over three straight SEC games. That hasn't happened, at least, over the last 26 seasons (or as far back as the data base goes these days). ... After going scoreless (and missing all four of his 3-point attempts) in the Arkansas loss, guard Myreon Jones bounced back with 13 points and a trio of 3s against Georgia. ... Backup wing Niels Lane had four points, five rebounds and three assists in 21 minutes off the bench, with Brandon McKissic adding six points and two assists (with no turnovers) in a reserve role, as well. ... Freshman guard Kowacie Reeves snapped his drought of four straight games without a 3. He had missed his previous eight attempts, then went one of two against the Bulldogs.

The Commodores

Former NBA standout Jerry Stackhouse took over the program in 2019, after a successful stint as a G League coach (followed by one year as an assistant for the Memphis Grizzlies), and has guided the Commodores to a 34-51 record that includes a 12-38 mark in SEC play. In each of his first two seasons, Vandy won just three conference games, but this season the

Commodores have doubled that total, as the program tries to post its first winning record since the 2016-17 season. ... This is a better team than when the two met at the O'Dome, what with the addition of 7-foot center Liam Robbins, the transfer from Minnesota, who entered the season on the 2021-22 "watch list" for the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Center of the Year Award. Robbins suffered a stress fracture in the preseason, but made his Vandy debut Feb. 2 against Kentucky. He scored just one point his first three games (and nine through the first four), but then went for 14 points and nine rebounds in a win over Texas A&M and season-high 16 in the loss to Alabama. For now, as he gets his legs back, Robbins is shooting just 38 percent, but he's rounding into groove and is capable of taking Castleton away from the basket, given his 4-for-14 shooting from the 3-point line. He averaged 11.7 points and 6.6 rebounds with the Gophers last season. ... Any scouting report of the Commodores begins and ends with Scotty Pippin Jr., son of the Hall of Famer, who last week past the 1,400 points for his career. Pippin leads the SEC in scoring (the lone player averaging at least 20 per game), but was held to a season-low six in the first meeting and missed all four of his 3s. He'll be out to avenge that one. Pippin's percentages are down this season, with 43.4 from the floor and 31.5 from the arc, but he remains dangerous in his ability to score at all three levels, plus leads the SEC in free-throw attempts with 229. ... Jordan Wright can do a little bit of everything from his spot on the wing. He shoots at almost a 40-percent clip overall, 33 from 3 and 79 from the free-throw line. Wright is a heat-check guy who in last season's SEC tourney game against UF, Wright bombed a trio of 3s over a two-minute span to help erase a UF lead before the Gators broke away for the win. ... Myles Stute is Vandy's most consistent threat from the arc at 42 percent on the season. ... Forward Quentin Millora-Brown was the Commodores' only true "big" while Robbins was recovering from his injury. He plays hard at both ends (92 defensive rebounds, 71 on the offensive side), but shoots just 48.8 percent from the free-throw line. ... Backup forward Jermaine Mann (5.5 ppg, 3.9 rpg) gives Vandy a lift, but it's all inside and around the basket, where he's over 50 percent on the season. He's taken a dozen 3s and made just two.

Numbers of Note

Gold-clad Vandy players celebrate their 71-68 win over the Gators in 2018 -- the last time the Commodores won in the series -- as UF point guard **Chris Chiozza** (11) heads off the floor.

* .645 — Percentage of UF's 31 field goals against Georgia that came by way of an assist, the team's highest of the season.

* 8 — Consecutive wins for the Gators in the series, which is the longest such run by either team in the series that dates to 1931.

* 22.0 — Appleby's scoring average the last three games (after going for 26 against Auburn, 19 against Arkansas and 21 at Georgia) on 47.6 percent from the floor and 13-for-28 from the 3-point line (.464).

* 30 — Road wins for the Gators under White, which are the second-most in the SEC (behind Kentucky's 36) over the last seven seasons.

* 2018 — The last year Vandy defeated Florida. The date was Feb. 17, when the Commodores rallied from 11 points down with less than 12 minutes to play for a 71-68 victory. Forward James Roberson scored 26 points and grabbed seven rebounds, while guard Riley LaChance, a four-year thorn in Florida's side, pitched in 22 more. Sophomore forward Keith Stone led UF with 20 points and six rebounds, while grad forward Egor Koulechov had 14 points and seven rebounds. The Gators, who led by nine with eight minutes remaining, had 14 offensive rebounds in the game and a mere three turnovers, but shot just 43 percent (with a bunch of missed "bunnies" in close), made only seven 3-pointers and attempted only three free throws in the second half.

Bottom Line

A win would give the Gators a break-even record (at worst) playing in the nation's second-rated league and will (at least) give the NCAA selection committee pause when the UF resume comes across their desks.

Gators Calendar

Florida at Vanderbilt (Tuesday, 8:30 pm)