Florida Gators

Florida vs. East Carolina

 
* What: Central Florida Tip-Off
* When: Thursday, 7 p.m. 
* Where: RP Funding Center / Lakeland, Fla.
* Records: Florida (6-3) / East Carolina (6-4)
* TV: SEC Network (Mike Morgan and Mark Wise)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD (Sean Kelley and Lee Humphrey) / Stations list
* Ticket info

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Projected Starters

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Tyrese Samuel	F	6-10 / 239	Graduate	14.2 pts / 8.3 reb
Micah Handlogten	C	7-1 / 235	Sophomore	6.9 pts / 6.6 reb
Will Richard	G	6-4 / 206	Junior	9.7 pts / 3.9 reb
Riley Kugel	G	6-5 / 207	Sophomore	13.6 pts / 4.1 reb
Walter Clayton Jr.	G	6-2 / 195	Junior	15.9 pts / 3.8 reb / 4.0 ast

East Carolina	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Brandon Johnson	F	6-8 / 222	Junior	14.6 pts / 8.4 reb
Ezra Ausar	F	6-8 / 247	Sophomore	14.3 pts / 5.8 reb
Quentin Diboundje	G	6-5 / 221	Junior	9.5 pts / 3.4 reb
R.J. Felton	G	6-3 / 209	Junior	16.2 pts / 6.8 reb
Bobby Pettiford	G	6-0 / 196	Junior	9.8 pts / 3.2 reb / 3.7 ast

The Breakdown

Setup / Series / Last Meeting

Florida and East Carolina meet in a rare neutral-site game at Lakeland, Fla., an event being staged by Chicago-based marketing firm Intersport and being billed as the "Florida Tip-Off." The same company put on UF's neutral-site game against Ohio U in Tampa last December. ... The Gators have won two straight and are on the second leg of a three-game stretch of consecutive neutral-site games. Florida defeated Richmond 87-76 Saturday in the Orange Bowl Classic at Sunrise, Fla., where they mostly were in control from the outset. ECU, out of the American Athletic Conference, is coming off a 68-62 home loss Saturday to cross-the-state-line foe South Carolina, a game the Pirates led late and let slip away. ... This will mark the first meeting between the Florida and East Carolina men's basketball programs.   
 

Tale of the Tape

Florida	Statistics	East Carolina
83.7	Scoring	75.0
.458	Field-goal percentage	.443
.328	3-point percentage	.318
73.7	Scoring defense	70.4
.422	Field-goal percentage defense	.451
.351	3-point percentage defense	.322
31st	KenPom.com overall ranking	206th
25th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	128th
51st	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	293rd
15th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	300th
43rd	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	266th
58th	Overall strength of schedule ranking	243rd

Team Snapshots

The Gators

The victory over Richmond marked just the second game this season the Gators had their full complement of rotational players, thanks to the full-go return of center Micah Handlogten, who in

making his first start since rolling an ankle on Nov. 22 posted a solid eight points and 10 rebounds in 19 minutes. Handlogten's return allowed the Gators to more evenly distribute the minutes among the front court and thus provide forward Tyrese Samuel (18 points, 14 rebounds) and backup 6-11 freshman center Alex Condon (8 rebounds, 3 blocks) to play a little freer without worrying so much about foul trouble plaguing the bigs. Freshman forward Thomas Haugh, who started two games at the "4" spot while Handlogten was out, was needed for just nine minutes, which was more a testament to the other players than an indictment of him. Haugh (4.1 ppg, 5.3 rpg) has been terrific in doing whatever is asked. There will be games down the line when he plays 20-25 minutes, to be sure. ... Samuel (3.33), Handlogten (3.29) and Condon (2.56) represent three of the top seven offensive rebounders in the SEC. No surprise, the Gators rank seventh nationally in offensive rebounding at 41.7 percent. ... Throw out the two games he barely played (49 seconds against Pittsburgh and four minutes vs Merrimack), Handlogten is averaging 9.5 points and 9.4 rebounds. .... Samuel went 6-for-10 from the floor, made his second 3 of the season and had five offensive rebounds. He's shooting 60.5 percent from the floor. And while Samuel is just 28-for-51 from the free-throw line (54.9 percent), he's 13 of 19 over the previous four games (68.4). ... The game will represent a homecoming for guard Walter Clayton Jr., who starred as freshman and sophomore at Lake Wales High and won back-to-back Class 6A state championships at Bartow High, both in Lakeland area of Polk County. Clayton, the Iona transfer, is expected to have close to 50 family and friends there. Look for UF's leading scorer to bounce back from his eight-point outing (on 2-for-7 shooting) against Richmond. He did have a game-high six assists, plus two blocked shots. ... Clayton's wing man, Riley Kugel, had a tough offensive day, also. Just two weeks ago, he averaged 24.5 points in losses to No. 13 Baylor and at Wake Forest, but is just 8.0 points for the last two games on 6-for-21 from the floor and one of 10 from the arc in two wins. To Kugel's credit, his tough day in Sunrise (4-for-16 overall, 0-for-7 from 3) did not bleed over to the defensive end, where he was great. If he counters bad offensive nights with excellent defense, UF will live with it. The Gators have enough guys who can score to pick him up. ... Speaking of which, what about Will Richard against Richmond? His three straight 3-pointers (part of a 19-point second half on the way to a game-high 21) broke things open. If Richard can redirect some of his uncharacteristic lower offensive numbers, the Florida just might take off on that end of the floor. ... Backup point guard Zyon Pullin came off the bench for a second straight game since banging his shoulder at Wake and looked much more like himself in scoring 14 points, including just his second and third 3s of the season, to go with three assists. 

The Pirates

They're in the second season under Coach Mike Schwartz, who apprenticed under both Jim Larranaga at Miami and Rick Barnes at Tennessee. East Carolina went 16-17 (same as Golden) in

 Schwartz's first go-around with the program in '22-23, including a 6-12 mark in AAC play. In Schwartz's two seasons, ECU is 2-9 against opponents in the KenPom Top 100, including 0-2 this season. The Pirates did, however, defeat UNC-Wilmington just three days before the Seahawks went into Rupp Arena and shocked 12th-ranked Kentucky earlier this month. ECU has played just one high-major thus far this season (South Carolina), which matches the number of Division II opponents it's played (Ferrum). ... The Pirates' strengths are on the offensive glass, ball security and an ability to get to the free-throw line. ... ECU is not a deep team, but all five starters basically average double figures or close to it. The top three are over 14 per game and the next two are at 9.5 or above. ... RJ Felton and Brandon Johnson will dominate the scouting report. Felton, the shooting guard, is making 46.6 percent from the floor, while Johnson is just shy of 40 percent from his spot at the "4." Both are an identical 16-for-46 from the 3-point line (34.8 percent). Both are 80 percent at the free-throw line. ... Felton had consecutive games of 30 and 33 points against Campbell and USC-Upstate this season. Johnson has three games with at least three 3s, including a 4-for-8 effort against UNCW, and went 10-for-10 from the free-throw line against Ferrum. ... Ezra Ausar, who last season became the program's first player to be named to the AAC All-Freshman Team, is an aggressive dude in the post with a team-high 73 trips to the line. He scored 24 against Upstate. ... Guard Quentin Diboundje transferred from Tennessee, where he was recruited by Schwartz. He didn't play much as a Volunteer, but threw in 27 points in 28 minutes against Georgia Southern earlier this season. ... Another transfer, point guard Bobby Pettiford, didn't see much at Kansas, but he's at 37 assists and just 13 turnovers in his first year as a Pirate playmaker. 
 

Numbers of Note

* 3 — Players from France on the East Carolina roster. Dibouundje is from Montpellier (by way of Montverde Academy), backup guard Benjamin Bayela is from Le Chesnay Rocquencourt and seldom-used guard Logan Bourgeois is from Fleury-Les-Aubrais. 

* 5 — Players on the UF roster who won state titles at the RP Funding Center, which hosts the FHSAA basketball championships each year: Clayton won his back-to-backs with Bartow; Kugel won the 2021 7A crown alongside guard Denzel Abderdeen, but also won a 2A title at Central Florida Christian Academy in 2019; walk-on guard Jack May won the 2020 3A title at Boca Raton Saint Andrew's School; walk-on Cooper Josefsberg won the 2023 3A championship with Miami Riviera Prep. And as a bonus, assistant coach/director of player development Taurean Green won the 2A championship for Fort Lauderdale Westminster back in 2002.

* 14.9 — Offensive rebounding percentage for Condon, which ranks 41st in the country. Broken down, the stat means Condon grabs nearly 15 percent of his team's missed shots. Remarkable for a freshman.

* 14.9 — Average length of possession (in seconds) for the Gators this season, which is the 10th fastest in the country. For context, last year Florida averaged 17.4 seconds per possession, which ranked 146th.

* 2016 — The year the Gators last played in Lakeland, as the program was forced to barnstorm to various venues around the state (Jacksonville, Tampa, Orlando, as well) while the O'Connell Center was under renovation en route to becoming Exactech Arena. The date was Nov. 17 and UF defeated St. Bonaventure 73-66, but the game was tied inside a minute to go, with Florida scoring the game's final seven points. The Bonnies erased a 16-point second-half deficit behind a barrage of 3-pointers and had a wide-open look for the lead with just over a minute remaining. The shot was missed and rebounded by forward Canyon Barry (team-high 16 points), who sank two free throws for the lead with 58 seconds to go. The next two Bonnies possessions ended in missed 3s that turned into back-to-back transition dunks (by John Egbunu and Devin Robinson) to close the game. 
 

Bottom Line

This is a tough time of year, what with the holiday break looming, so focus has to be at a premium. The Pirates (not Michigan next week, nor going home for Christmas, etc.) need to be top of mind, full stop, as the Gators look to go 3-0 in December.