Florida Gators

Florida vs. Loyola Maryland

 
* When: Monday, 8 p.m. (ET)
* Where: Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center / Gainesville, Fla.
* Records: Florida (0-0) / Loyola Maryland (0-0)
* TV: SEC Network+ (Kyle Crooks and Mark Wise)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD (Sean Kelley and Lee Humphrey)
* Ticket info

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Projected Starters

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	2022-23 Statistics
Tyrese Samuel	F	6-10 / 239	Graduate	11.0 pts / 5.9 rebs (Seton Hall)
Micah Handlogten	C	7-1 / 235	Sophomore	7.6 pts / 9.8 reb / 2.3 blk (Marshall)
Will Richard	G	6-4 / 206	Junior	10.4 pts / 4.5 reb
Riley Kugel	G	6-5 / 207	Sophomore	9.9 pts / 2.8 reb
Walter Clayton Jr.	G	6-2 / 195	Junior	16.8 pts / 4.2 reb / 3.8 ast (Iona)

Loyola Maryland	Position	Height / Weight	Class	2022-23 Statistics
MIlos Ilic	F	6-10 / 235	Junior	5.8 pts / 3.5 rebs ('21-22)
Golden Dike	F	6-10 / 250	5th-Senior	7.3 pts / 6.7 reb
Commander Tyson	G	6-4 / 185	Sophomore	3.6 pts / 1.2 reb
D'Angelo Stines	G	6-2  185	Junior	3.0 pts / 1.0 reb (Old Dominion)
Deon Perry	G	5-8 / 160	Sophomore	11.4 pts / 2.0 reb / 2.0 ast

The Breakdown

Setup / Series / Last Meeting

Florida and Loyola Maryland will square off at Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center in the 2023-24 season opener for both teams. The game will be the back end of a UF double-header, with the Gators' women opening their season against North Florida at 5:30. ... The Gators have not lost a season opener at home in 40 years, mostly because they've scheduled low-major opponents for the annual lid-lifter. The last five season openers at the O'Dome, for example, featured Stony Brook ('22), Elon ('21), North Florida ('19), Gardner-Webb ('17) and William & Mary ('15). ... The Gators are looking to rebound from just their second losing season in the previous 25 years and successive seasons without a NCAA Tournament berth for the first time since 2008-09. The Greyhounds, out of the Patriot League, have posted 10 consecutive losing seasons and have just two NCAA berths in their history, the last in 2012. ... The game will mark the first meeting between the two programs.

Tale of the Tape

Florida	2022-23 Statistics	Loyola Maryland
71.2	Scoring	67.3
.436	Field-goal percentage	.451
.314	3-point percentage	.357
68.6	Scoring defense	70.6
.415	Field-goal percentage defense	.478
.316	3-point percentage defense	.363
74th	'KenPom.com overall ranking	325th
139th	'KenPom.com offensive efficiency	297th
31st	'KenPom.com defensive efficiency	328th
70th	'KenPom.com adjusted tempo	240th
N/A	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	N/A
N/A	Overall strength of schedule ranking	N/A

Team Snapshots

The Gators

Following Golden's first season, the coaching staff executed a significant makeover of a roster that produced a 16-17 overall record, including 9-9 in SEC play, with the season ending in the NIT for a second straight year. Golden's second team has eight new players -- six transfers and three freshmen -- and at least six (maybe seven down the line) will figure regularly into the

rotation. ... Fifth-year grad-transfer point guard Zyon Pullin will miss the first three games of the season because he played in three showcase games in the Portsmouth Invitational while participating in the NBA pre-draft process before opting to return to school. Pullin, who was a first-team All-West Coast Conference selection after averaging 18.3 points, 4.4 rebounds and 4.2 assists as a senior at California-Riverside, made a late jump into the transfer portal and selected the Gators over Xavier and LSU. He's expected to start upon his return to action. ... Florida's first order of business was to improve at rebounding, an area where it was one of the worst in the country last year (320th out of 363 Division I teams and last in the SEC). The Gators also sought better outside shooting after posting the third-worst 3-point percentage in program history (a year after posting the all-time worst under the previous staff). The arrival of two transfers, center Micah Handlogten (from Marshall) and forward Tyrese Samuel (Seton Hall), along with the 6-11 freshman Alex Condon should go a ways to address the former. As for the latter, transfer Walter Clayton Jr. shot 43 percent from the 3-point line on his way to being named Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Player of the Year and leading Iona to a league title and NCAA Tournament berth. Clayton will pair on the perimeter with Florida's two returning starters, preseason All-SEC guard Riley Kugel and wing Will Richard. Kugel made history last season in becoming the first UF freshman since Bradley Beal to hit double figures in 10 consecutive games. Richard, meanwhile, was one of the most offensively efficient players in the country, shooting 49.3 overall, 39.8 from deep and 85.7 at the free-throw line. ... Handlogten, the first 7-footer in the program since Dwayne Schintzius (1986-90), sat out Thursday night's open mini-scrimmage but only due to precautionary reasons. He banged knees with a teammate at practice earlier in the week. ... Look for backup 6-9 freshman forward Thomas Haugh to be on the floor early. He had some outstanding moments in the team's preseason "closed" scrimmages, including seven rebounds (six on the offensive end) at Miami. ... Sophomore guard Denzel Aberdeen, the clear-cut most improved player among the four returnees, likely will get some reps on the ball the first three games with Pullin sidelined. ... Shooting guard Julian Rishwain, transfer from San Francisco, played in the team's scrimmage last week, but his role is to be determined after rehabbing after undergoing reconstructive knee surgery in January. Rishwain was an outstanding 3-point shooter for Golden (40.4) in the two season they were together with the Dons. ... Sophomore 6-10, 250-pound forward Aleks Szymczyk will miss as much as the first month of the season as he recovers from a broken foot suffered in August, but figures to be a depth option in the front court rotation upon his return.   

The Greyhounds

Coach Tavaras Hardy is entering his sixth season and has yet to post a winning record (overall or in the league), most recently last year's 13-20 mark that included a 7-11 record in the Patriot. The Hardy-led Greyhounds are 26 games under .500 over those five

seasons, with a mark of 59-86. Hardy believes this could be the year the program's cold streak is snapped, what with the Hounds returning five of their top six scorers, getting an injured "big" back and after adding some bodies via the transfer portal. ... Some preseason projections have the Hounds finishing as high as fourth in the Patriot, which would be a bounce-back from their eighth-place finish in conference play in '23. ... LMU won its lone exhibition game, defeating Division II McDaniel College 58-40 on Oct. 29. ... The Greyhounds were a poor defensive team last season, one of the worst in the nation, surrendering a sky-high 55.5 effective field-goal percentage on defense, which ranked 355^th nationally, meaning only nine teams in the country were worse. They were 328^th in overall defensive efficiency, so the Gators should have a chance to score. They may find some resistance inside due to the Greyhounds' size. ... The team's No. 1 scorer from '22-23 is gone, but point guard Deon Perry and reserve guard Jaylin Andrews (11.3 ppg, 4.3 rpg) were two of the team's three double-figure scorers. They're back. So are centers Alonso Fauve (8.9 ppg, 6.1 rpg) and Golden Dike, each of whom go 6-10 and will be spelled by Veljko Ilic (4.0 ppg, 2.9 rpg), who also goes 6-10. Ilic missed the bulk of the season last year due to injury. So did his brother, Milos Ilic, who missed the entire '22-23 season with a knee injury and has battled back to a sport in the starting lineup. ... The top transfer figures to be guard 6-2 junior guard D'Angelo Stines, who led the team with 14 points in their exhibition victory.
 

Numbers of Note

* .923 — UF's winning percentage in season opener's since 1984-85, based on a record of 36-3. 

* 1.000 — UF's winning percentage in home season opener's since '84-85, based on a record of 29-0.

* 1983 — The last year Florida lost a home season opener, with Stetson coming to the O'Dome and defeating the Norm Sloan-coached and Ronnie Williams-led Gators 77-73 on Nov. 26 to open the '83-84 campaign.

* 2020 — The last year the Gators played an opponent from the Patriot. It was in the infamous Covid "Bubble" at Mohegan Sun in Montville, Conn., where Florida defeated Army 76-69 behind 19 points, six rebounds and four assists from forward Colin Castleton in his Florida debut and the '20-21 season opener.

* 3,793 — Combined points scored by UF's five transfers (Pullin, Samuel, Clayton, Handlogten and Rishwain) at their previous schools. 
 

Bottom Line

Bring a roster. So many new faces.