Florida vs Ole Miss (Saturday, 3:30 pm)

Florida vs. Ole Miss

* When: Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET
* Where: Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center, Gainesville, Fla.
* Records: Florida (14-8, 4-5); Ole Miss (12-10, 3-6)
* TV: SEC Network / ESPN app (Mike Morgan and Joe Klein)
* 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	10.4 pts / 4.4 reb
Phlandrous Fleming Jr.	G	6-5 / 205	Graduate	10.5 pts / 3.8 reb
Kowacie Reeves	G	6-6 / 182	Freshman	5.2 pts / 1.3 reb
Brandon McKissic	G	6-3 / 185	Graduate	6.3 pts / 3.2 reb
Tyree Appleby	G	6-1 / 163	R-Senior	10.9 pts / 2.9 reb / 3.7 ast

Opponent	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Matthew Murrell	F	6-4 / 200	Sophomore	10.4 pts / 3.4 reb
Nysier Brooks	C	7-0 / 245	Senior	9.5 pts / 8.0 reb
Jaemyn Brakefield	F	6-8 / 220	Sophomore	8.5 pts / 4.1 reb
Luis Rodriguez	G	6-6 / 210	Junior	6.9 pts / 5.1 reb
Tye Fagan	G	6-3 / 190	Senior	7.4 pts / 3.5 reb

The Breakdown

Setup / Series / Last Meeting

Florida has won two straight, after coming from 16 down to beat Oklahoma State at home in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge last Saturday and following that with a 66-65 road win Wednesday afternoon at Missouri. In that one, a game that was moved up six hours because of a Midwest snowstorm, the Gators erased a seven-point deficit over the final eight minutes and got the tying and winning free throws from Tyree Appleby with 7.9 seconds to go. Ole Miss has won two straight also, having defeated Kansas State at home in their SEC/Big 12 matchup, then going on the road Tuesday night and upsetting No. 25 LSU 76-72. … The Gators sit in a five-way tie for sixth place in the Southeastern Conference standings, with the Rebels a game behind and in a two-way tie for 10th place alongside Vanderbilt. … UF leads the all-time series 68-48, but Mississippi is less than two weeks removed from a 70-54 punishing of the Gators in Oxford. That game was originally scheduled to be the Dec. 29 SEC opener for both teams, but COVID in the UF program led to a postponement and rescheduling that squeeze the game to a Monday — between Saturday and Wednesday games — and the Gators did not handle the quick-turnaround and road trip well, at all. The game was tied 22-all at the half, but Ole Miss shot a scorching 74 percent after intermission (17 of 23 from the floor) and hit 12 of 14 free throws (.857) on the way to scoring 48 points over the final 20 minutes. Freshman guard Daeshun Ruffin led the way with a career-high 21 points and six assists, while backcourt mate Matthew Murrell added 20 points, including 3-for-6 from deep. UF got 12 points on 6-for-6 shooting, plus four rebounds, from junior center Jason Jitoboh, but two nights later his season ended with an eye injury suffered in a loss at Tennessee. … Coach Mike White is 6-3 against his Ole Miss alma mater, where he started for four seasons (1995-99) at point guard, including 5-0 at home.

Tale of the Tape

Florida	2021-22 Stats	Opponent
71.5	Scoring	67.7
.428	Field-goal percentage	.432
.304	3-point percentage	.328
64.2	Scoring defense	65.8
.440	Field-goal percentage defense	.433
.317	3-point percentage defense	.296
47th	KenPom.com overall ranking	103rd
47th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	148th
59th	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	66th
228th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	275th
49th	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	105th
80th	Overall strength of schedule ranking	55th

Team Snapshots

The Gators

Two games, two big back-to-back comeback victories. It would please White and staff to no end if the Gators could put two good halves together, but that's not what this team does. At least not yet. It took 50-percent second-half shooting and 29-percent defense to storm from behind to beat Oklahoma State. As for the latest rally, UF erased a seven-point margin at Columbia despite making just six

second-half field goals. Instead, the Gators made aggressive moves to the basket and were rewarded with trips to the free-throw line, where they went 19-for-21 in the second half, including 17-for-17 in the final 7:55 to pull off the victory. Appleby scored 17 points and was 10-for-10 from the line. He had UF's last four points, all from the line, with two clutch ones to draw with one with 34.5 left, then, after a defensive stop, two more with 7.9 left to take the lead. Forward Anthony Duruji, who had 14 points in his second game starting at the "5", got a hand up on the Missouri shooter on the game-ending defensive possession to secure the win. … Speaking of the "5," the status of 6-11, 240-pound forward Colin Castleton, the team's leader in scoring (15.5 ppg), rebounding (9.1 pg) and blocks (2.8 pg), is progressing with his left shoulder injury to the point that he's doing more in practice and taking part in individual instruction sessions. Castleton has missed the last six games. … Myreon Jones, after making six 3-pointers over the previous six games, buried five in the first 10-plus minutes against the Tigers on his way to leading the team with 18 points, to go with five rebounds. He's now worked his season's percentage up to 31.4. Every bit as important in the win at Missouri, though, were the three free throws Jones knocked down — after being fouled on a shot from the arc — with 6:38 remaining, as the Gators were going on a 9-1 run to put themselves in position to steal one on the road. Jones came into the game at 67.7 percent from the line. … Phlandrous Fleming Jr. didn't have a very good shooting game, going 2-for-10, but he hit a couple threes and got to the line eight times, in addition to leading UF with six rebounds in his second start at the "4" spot. He has three straight games scoring double figures. … Backup forward Tuongthach Gatkek missed all three of his shots, but grabbed four rebounds and blocked a career-high five shots, with his biggest swat coming on a Mizzou attempt that Gatkek sent out of bounds with 2.2 seconds left. He has 10 blocks in the last three games. … The three points from Kowacie Reeves were his fewest since the freshman joined the starting lineup eight games ago, but he only took two shots and played a little more than 11 minutes.

The Rebels

It's their fourth season under Kermit Davis, with a 63-52 overall record that includes a 29-34 mark in SEC play and one NCAA Tournament appearance in 2019. Davis is 2-3 against the Gators. ...

The Rebels remain without Jarkel Joiner, the California-Bakersfield transfer who was averaging 13.6 points and 3.2 rebounds when he suffered a knee injury in early January that is expected to keep him out of the lineup at least another week. They also lost 6-8, 230-pound backup forward Robert Allen (6.5 ppg, 5.4 rpg), out of Orlando, to a season-ending knee injury during non-conference play. Of course, they didn't need either in their pounding of the Gators less than two weeks ago. Ole Miss worked UF for 32 points in the paint and made 21 of 35 shots (.600) inside the 3-point line. Defensively, the Rebels dared the Gators to make 3-point shots. It was a good strategy. UF went 4-for-29 from deep — that's 13.9 percent — compared to 15 of 21 on 2-point shots (.714). … With Joiner down, the Rebels had urned to Ruffin, their rookie point guard who had begun living up to the hype of being the first McDonald's All American to sign with the Ole Miss program. Ruffin, though, left the LSU game late with a knee injury and tests Wednesday brought news he is out for the season, a crushing blow for the Rebels. Beginning with the Florida game, Ruffin had a run of four straight games scoring in double figures, including 19 in the upset of LSU. He was averaging 16.7 points on just 39-percent shooting from the floor (just 3 of 13 from deep) those four games, but had become dangerous on drives and drawing fouls, going 24 of 29 from the line the last four games (.827). … The loss of Ruffin means more reliance on Murrell, who had his second-best game of the season against Florida. He's capable of big days, as evidenced by his career-high 31 points against rival Mississippi State back on Jan. 8, when he made 10 of 11 shots, all five 3 attempts and all six free throws. He only scored nine in each of the last two games and did not shoot the ball well, but the Rebels won both. That speaks to the contributions they're now getting elsewhere. … No Ruffin will require more from wing Luis Rodriguez, who goes 6-6 and 210, and figures to get the bulk of those minutes. He had 10 points and seven boards againts UF and is coming off a 15-point, 12-rebound in a 29 minutes beasting of the Tigers. The Gators will have to match his energy in the paint. ... Center Nysier Brooks, the grad-transfer from Miami, had 11 points and seven boards in the first meeting — and that was with the 6-11, 285-pound Jitoboh in the mix. His size figures to be a bigger factor this time around. … Tye Fagan, the transfer from Georgia, has seen his shooting percentage and average inch up a bit since his minutes have increased the last few games. ... Junior guard Austin Crowley (4.1 ppg, 2.0 rpg) is another guy who take some turns on the ball as Mississippi looks for ways to manage Ruffin's loss by committee.

Numbers of Note

**Joakim Noah** (13) and **Al Horford** (42)

.666 — UF's winning percentage with Castleton out of the lineup, based on the team's 4-2 record since their big man's injury during practice on Jan. 17.

4 — Seasons in Florida's program since 1996 that two different players have blocked at least five shots in a game. Joakim Noah and Al Horford did it in each of the 2006-07 national-championship seasons. Castleton and Omar Payne did it last season. Now, Castleton and Gatkek have done so this season.

* 5 — UF players who have scored at least 1,000 points during their respective careers, with Duruji (1,004) and Jones (1,022) eclipsing the milestone over the last two games to join the trio of Fleming (1,742), Appleby (1,420) and McKissic (1,317), each of whom began the season with at least 1,000 points. All five are transfers.

20 — Games between Jones' first time leading the team in scoring (with 20 points against Elon in the season opener on Nov. 9) and Wednesday at Mizzou.

* 29 — Road conference wins for the Gators during White's seven seasons. That's the second-most in the SEC during that time, behind only Kentucky's 34.

Bottom Line

With UF teetering on the NCAA Tournament bubble, by most "bracketology accounts," every game could be the one that, in time, can get the Gators in or keep them out. Need to beat the Rebels at home.

Gators Calendar

Florida vs Ole Miss (Saturday, 3:30 pm)