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

Florida at Texas A&M

* When: Wednesday, 7 p.m. (ET)
* Where: Reed Arena / College Station, Texas
* Records: Florida (10-7, 3-2) / Texas A&M (12-5, 4-0)
* TV: ESPN (Roy Philpott and Pat Bradley)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD (Sean Kelley and Lee Humphrey)

Projected Starters

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Alex Fudge	F	6-7 / 240	Sophomore	7.5 pts / 5.0 reb
Colin Castleton	F	6-11 / 231	5th-Senior	15.0 pts / 7.8 reb / 3.3 blk
Will Richard	G	6-5 / 206	Sophomore	10.3 pts / 4.2 reb
Trey Bonham	G	6-0 / 170	Junior	8.9 pts / 2.6 reb
Kyle Lofton	G	6-3 / 188	5th-Senior	9.0 pts / 2.3 reb / 3.1 ast

Texas A&M	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Julius Marble	F	6-9 / 245	Junior	9.4 pts / 4.4 reb
Henry Coleman III	F	6-8 / 245	Junior	10.2 pts / 5.8 reb
Dexter Dennis	G	6-5 / 210	Grad	8.2 pts / 5.2 reb
Tyrece Radford	G	6-2 / 195	Senior	12.4 pts / 5.2 reb
Wade Taylor IV	G	6-0 / 185	Sophomore	15.6 pts / 2.6 reb / 3.6 ast

The Breakdown

Reed Arena (capacity 12,989) in College Station, Texas

Setup / Series / Last Meeting

Florida and Texas A&M meet for the second time this season, with the Gators on a three-game winning streak and the Aggies unbeaten in league play and a half-game out of first place in the Southeastern Conference standings. The matchup also will mark the first rematch for both teams, who were assigned as rotating home-and-home for the 2022-23 season (each league team gets two). ... UF is coming off Saturday's 73-64 home win over 20th-ranked Missouri, which gave Coach Todd Golden his first triumph over a ranked opponent in his first season with the Gators. A&M had an earlier go of it last weekend, obliterating South Carolina by 41 on the road, 94-53, in their most lopsided SEC victory since joining the conference 10 years ago. ... For the Gators, the game represents their seventh "Quadrant 1" opportunity relative to the NCAA Evaluation Tool, the metric that will seed the NCAA Tournament. UF is 0-6 in its previous Q1s. This one will qualify as a seventh because the Aggies are a Top-75 NET team and the Gators are playing on the road. ... Florida leads the all-time series 9-7, but A&M has won three straight, including the 66-63 win in Gainesville on Jan. 7. In that one, guards Wade Taylor IV and Tyrece Radford, along with forward Julius Marble, all scored 17 points to lead the Aggies, but it was the Gators' generosity (as in a season-worse 20 turnovers leading to 21 A&M points) that determined the game. Florida shot 45.5 percent for the game, including 56 percent after halftime, while holding Texas A&M to just 37.7 for the game (32.3 in the second half) and 2-for-16 from distance. The defense was good enough to win, but the ball security was bad enough to lose, with Taylor's go-ahead floater in the paint with 42 seconds left breaking a tie and proving the difference. UF had a chance to tie the game, but guard Trey Bonham was called for an offensive foul driving to the basket with six seconds to go. ... The Gators are 3-4 all-time at College Station and lost there last Feb. 15 when Taylor was fouled attempting a 3-point shot with 17 seconds to go and made all three free throws for what turned out to be a 56-55 victory for the Aggies. ... UF is 8-6 vs. A&M in conference games, as the Aggies joined the SEC for the 2012-13 athletic year.

Tale of the Tape

Florida	Statistics	Texas A&M
74.2	Scoring	76.2
.452	Field-goal percentage	.456
.337	3-point percentage	.326
66.4	Scoring defense	66.4
.403	Field-goal percentage defense	.404
.323	3-point percentage defense	.349
44th	KenPom.com overall ranking	47th
110th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	28th
14th	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	85th
51st	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	216th
48th	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	57th
12th	Overall strength of schedule ranking	117th

Team Snapshots

The Gators

Though they had a string snapped of six straight games holding opponents under 40-percent shooting from the floor, the Gators were pretty darn good Saturday against a Missouri team that came to town ranked fifth nationally offensive efficiency and No. 1 in the SEC in points per game at 85.7. The UF defense equaled the lowest point total for Mizzou this season, while holding

the Tigers to 41.7 percent for the game, including just 3-for-18 from the 3-point line, as well as 52.4 from the 2-point area, where the Tigers were at nearly 59 percent on the season. Like in the A&M game, turnovers were a huge problem. The Gators coughed it up 19 times, with 13 in the first half, but only surrendered 14 points of those giveaways, which speaks to their commitment to transition defense. And in the second half, it was Florida that was the high-scoring team, with 45 points to Missouri's 64. ... Forward Colin Castleton had another outstanding game, with his third double-double (16 points, 13 rebounds) of the season, plus six assists. The Tigers, unlike LSU four nights earlier, sent waves of double teams his way, but Castleton made some good decisions with the ball and made up for his four turnovers. He finished seven of 11 from the floor. ... Guard Will Richard had a string of four straight games where he totaled just 11 points and missed all 12 of his 3-point shots, but in the four games since has averaged 11.3 points, shot 50 percent overall, 44.4 from 3 (8-10) and gone 13 of 14 from the free-throw line. ... Point guard Kyle Lofton, remarkably, had a second straight game playing at least 31 minutes without an assist, and yet his command and pace of the offense is a huge reason the Gators are growing on that end of the floor. His final stat line showed eight points, four steals and three turnovers. ... Fifth-year senior guard Myreon Jones (4.5 ppg, 2.4 rpg) went into the SEC season averaging 2.9 points and 13 minutes per game. Since being elevated basically to a second ball-handler (Lofton's wing man, per se), Jones is averaging 8.2 points and 26.4 minutes in league play and has turned the ball over just three times in a combined 133 minutes (just once in over 65 minutes the last two games). ... Trey Bonham (8.9 ppg, 2.6 rpg), who seems to have ceded his role to Jones, played just over eight minutes against Missouri and did not score. It was his second scoreless game of the last three and fourth this season. He's averaged just one point and 10.7 minutes over the last three games, but did have 21 points (8-for-13 from the field, 4 of 7 from deep) in the first meeting A&M. ... Forward Alex Fudge had some crowd-pleasing slams in the Mizzou game and was the beneficiary of some excellent post feeds from Castleton on his way to eight points. ... Backup wing Kowacie Reeves hit just one of six shots against the Tigers and missed all four of his 3s. He's now a baffling 2-for-25 from the arc in SEC play, but has managed to hit double-figure scoring in three of the five league games. ... Freshman guard Riley Kugel (6.1 ppg, 2.1 rpg) continued on his upward trajectory with 13 points and five rebounds in the Mizzou game. He also had five turnovers, but his offense (3-4 from 3) helped keep the Gators in the game in a first half when they trailed 11-0 out of the gate. Over the last three games, Kugel has averaged 9.0 points and 4.0 rebounds and 18.0 minutes. When he starts taking better care of the ball, Kugel will play more.

The Aggies

Last March, the Aggies made a run from the No. 8-seed in the SEC Tournament to the championship game, then parlayed that streak to reach the NIT Final, where it lost to Xavier. With a trio of major pieces returning, A&M was picked as a top five or six team in the league going into the 2022-23 season, including some spots in various preseason Top 25s. After 11 games, though, the

Aggies were 6-5, including losses to Murray State, Boise State and Wofford, but three weeks into the conference season they're one of two teams (along with No. 4 Alabama) to be unbeaten in league play, including that frustrating (for the Gators) victory at the O'Dome two weeks ago. The Aggies have found their sweet spots, though, starting with a highly efficient offense (No. 28), rebounding (No. 8) and Buzz Williams' blueprint for toughness and physicality. A&M had two of those elements working in the first UF game, but were able to overcome the offensive struggles by forcing all those turnovers. ... The backcourt of guard Wade Taylor IV and Tyrece Radford occupies an overwhelming percentage of both usage and production on the offensive end. They've combined to hit 57 of the team's 111 3-pointers and taken 40 percent of the Aggies' free throws (and made at a collective 81 percent). Taylor is shooting 44.8 percent from the floor and 38.5 from the arc, with his 40 makes from deep more than twice as many as Radford (17). Taylor also is averaging almost 2.5 steals per game. Radford is at 40.8 percent overall and 32.1 on long-range shots. ... Julius Marble, the transfer from Michigan State, is shooting 59 percent from the floor. ... That Taylor-Radford-Marble combination that scored 51 of the Aggies' 66 points in the first meeting made 20 of 42 field-goal tries in the first game and nine of 14 free throws. ... Henry Coleman IV, in his second season since transferring from Duke, gave the Gators plenty of trouble in the 2022 SEC Tournament with 22 points and eight rebounds, but was quiet in the first meeting (2 points, 3 rebounds, 23 minutes). He's got double doubles in each of the last two games, however, and made 10 of his 14 shots in those two wins (Missouri and South Carolina). ... Wing Dexter Dennis, the American Athletic Conference 2022 Defensive Player of the Year at Wichita State, was 0-for-8 from the floor in the first game, including 0-5 from deep, but still finished with four points, six rebounds (two on the offensive end). ... The Aggies worked the Gators for 36 points in the paint last time and they'll try to do it again.

Numbers of Note

LSU freshman **Ben Simmons** during 2015-16

* .574 — UF's winning percentage vs. A&M as SEC opponents, based on the Gators' 8-6 advantage in the series since the Aggies joined the league for the 2012-13 season.

* 1 — SEC players this century other than Castleton who posted at least 16 points, 13 rebounds, six assists, three steals and two blocks in a game. That other player was LSU's Ben Simmons, who erupted for 43 points, 14 rebounds, seven assists, five steals and three blocks in a 119-108 shootout win over North Florida on Dec. 2, 2015 (Note: UNF went 19-for-33 from 3 that game, so the Tigers needed everything Simmons gave them). Castleton is the lone SEC player to do it in a conference game, as well as the only player (any conference, any opponent) since 2000 to do so against a ranked opponent.

* 24.0 — Average margin of victory for the Aggies in their three wins since winning in Gainesville by three points.

* 88.4 — Combined free-throw percentage of Lofton and Jones, based on their 46-for-82 numbers at the line, including 88.5 in SEC play (23 of 26).

* 1992 — The year Florida beat Texas A&M twice, though in different seasons, in their only non-conference meetings. The Gators, then under Coach Lon Kruger, won 73-46 on Jan. 2, the returned the game the following season, with the Aggies, coach by Tony Barone, winning 57-54 in overtime on Dec. 22.

Bottom Line

How will the Gators, armed with all the lessons their recent turnover fests provided, handle the Aggies' defensive pressure on the road?

Gators Calendar

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