Florida Gators

Florida at Georgia

 
* When: Tuesday, 7 p.m. (ET)
* Where: Stegeman Coliseum / Athens, Ga.
* Records: Florida (14-15, 7-9) / Georgia (16-13, 6-10)
* TV: SEC Network (Richard Cross and Joe Kleine)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD (Sean Kelley and Lee Humphrey)

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Projected Starters

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Jason Jitoboh	C	6-11 / 300	Senior	2.8 pts / 1.4 reb
Will Richard	G	6-5 / 206	Sophomore	10.0 pts / 4.4 reb
Riley Kugel	G	6-5 / 207	Freshman	9.0 pts / 2.6 reb
Myreon Jones	G	6-3 / 177	5th-Senior	8.9 pts / 2.7 reb
Kyle Lofton	G	6-3 / 188	5th-Senior	9.0 pts / 3.0 reb / 3.4 ast

Georgia	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Matthew-Alexander Montcrieffe	F	6-8 / 215	Junior	5.8 ppg / 5.3 rpg
Braelen Bridges	C	6-11 / 245	Senior	8.4 pts / 4.9 reb
Kario Oquendo	G	6-4 / 220	Senior	13.4 ppg  / 2.8 reb
Terry Roberts	G	6-3 / 180	Senior	13.4 pts / 3.7 reb / 4.2 ast
Justin Hill	G	6-0 / 185	Junior	8.2 pts / 2.6 reb

The Breakdown

Setup / Series / Last Meeting

Florida and Georgia meet in the second game of their annual home-and-home rematch, with both teams trying to avoid the dreaded Wednesday night session at the Southeastern Conference Tournament, set for next week in Nashville, Tenn. The Gators, who have lost three straight since losing leading scorer and rebounder Colin Castleton, need only to win to lock up a spot in Thursday's second round by clinching a better league record (along with a sweep of the series). If the Bulldogs win, outcomes from other games around the league will determine if UF or UGA gets that Thursday spot. ... Florida is coming off an 88-72 loss Saturday night at Vanderbilt, while Georgia was manhandled at home by Missouri, 85-63, in a game the Bulldogs led by one point at the break. ... The Gators lead the all-time series 121-103, with seven straight victories, including their 82-75 win Jan. 7 at Gainesville that marked the homecoming (of sorts) of former Coach Mike White, who bolted UF last March for the vacant UGA post. In that one, Florida erased a 13-point first-half deficit and nearly blew a 13-point second-half lead. Instead, it was fifth-year point guard Kyle Lofton scoring 18 points and leading four teammates into double-figure scoring. Lofton had a crucial hand in the Gators' final six points after the Bulldogs pulled within a possession with just over two minutes to go. With his team up four, Lofton lofted an alley-oop assist for a bucket and after a Georgia 3-pointer to cut a six-point margin in half made a pair of free throws with 17 seconds remaining to take the margin back to two possessions. When the Bulldogs missed their last-ditch shot, Lofton tossed a pass over the UGA defense for another assist and the game-clinching bucket. ... The game, obviously, will be the second pitting White, 0-1 versus. his former team, against first-year UF coach Todd Golden, who is 1-0 versus Georgia. 

Tale of the Tape

Florida	Statistics	Georgia
71.7	Scoring	69.1
.437	Field-goal percentage	.415
.319	3-point percentage	.325
68.8	Scoring defense	71.0
.416	Field-goal percentage defense	.441
.327	3-point percentage defense	.325
64th	KenPom.com overall ranking	143rd
121st	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	173rd
32nd	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	133rd
86th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	160th
64th	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	147th
17th	Overall strength of schedule ranking	106th

Team Snapshots

The Gators

They're looking to avoid the program's first four-game losing streak in eight years, the final season one coming under Coach Billy Donovan in his final season. That string was made up of consecutive defeats at Vanderbilt (away), against No. 1 Kentucky (home), Ole Miss (home) and at Texas A&M. Those four losses were by a combined 15 points, including two one-point crushers. ... Over the previous three-game losing

streak (with defeats at Arkansas, home against Kentucky, at Vanderbilt), Florida opponents have combined to average 84.7 points, shoot 54.1 percent overall, 34.0 from the 3-point line and out-rebound the Gators by a collective 87-35, including plus-12 on the offensive glass. ... Guard Riley Kugel has a run of six consecutive games of double-figure scoring, with a career-high 24 points in last week's Kentucky game. During the current stretch, Kugel has scored no less than a dozen points, averaging 17.7 per game and shooting 51.3 percent overall and 37.5 from the 3-point line. ... Point guard Kyle Lofton had 15 points in 37 minutes last game, with a season-high three 3-pointers. ... Guard Will Richard, still playing that undersized "4" spot, had nine points and seven rebounds at Vandy, but seven of those points came in a row in the second half. Richard is shooting 39.6 percent from the 3-point line, but only has nine attempts over the previous five games. He needs more. ... Since stepping up for 15 points, including five 3-pointers, in the Gators' last win (Feb. 15 vs. Ole Miss), Myreon Jones has totaled just seven points, gone 2-for-11 from the floor and one of five from deep. He has seven assists and two turnovers during that time. ... The "5" spot duo of Jason Jitoboh and Aleks Szymczyk (2.1 ppg, 1.2 rpg) combined for 13 points, four rebounds and two blocks at Vandy. Szymczyk hit his third 3-pointer of the season. ... Backup wing Kowacie Reeves (8.9 ppg, 2.7 rpg) is at 10.6 points per game since Castleton exited the rotation and gone 2-for-8 from the arc. ... Sophomore forward Alex Fudge (5.9 ppg, 4.5 rpg) is just 1-for-9 from the 3-point line since returning from the concussion he suffered Jan. 21 at Mississippi State. ... Junior wing Niels Lane, after a lengthy run of DNPs (just 10 appearances this season) has combined for 13 points the last three games, made five of his 10 shots, both free throws and grabbed eight rebounds. ... Both forward CJ Felder and guard Trey Bonham were DNPs the last two games. 

The Bulldogs

A year after going 6-26 overall, including 1-17 in SEC play, Georgia has guaranteed no worse than a .500 record in White's first season. In four seasons at Louisiana Tech and seven at Florida, White was 11-for-11 in posting winning records. He needs one to make it 12-for-12. ... Since winning back-to-back games to move to 16-10, highlighted by a huge home defeat of

Kentucky, the Bulldogs have dropped three straight and have not been competitive on either. First it was Alabama by 49, followed by Arkansas by 32, both on the road, then Saturday's 22-point home loss to NCAA Tournament-bound Missouri. The three opponents averaged 96.7 points, 62.5-percent from the floor and 50 percent from deep on a staggering 41-for-82. ... As UF found out in the first meeting, the Bulldogs can be a very good 3-point shooting team (they made 10, including seven in the second half), but not because their two best players. It's the guys around guards Terry Roberts and Kario Oquendo who do the most damage from deep. Roberts, though, is among the best pure scoring guards in the league -- and definitely among the highest-volume shooters. He had 25 in the first meeting, including four 3s, but also took 22 shots. He's at 38 percent overall on the season and just 29.5 from deep. Oquendo has the second-most field-goal attempts on the team, but leads the Bulldogs in attempts from 3 and lands them at 29.1 percent. Like Roberts, he's a three-level scorer who will look to attack, evidenced by his team-high 126 free-throw attempts. ... After giving a trio of seniors ceremonious starts on "Senior Day" over the weekend, the first unit will look more like it has all season, with Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe (54.4 percent) back in the front court, alongside talented and long center Braelen Bridges (58.8 percent), who is coming off a 10-point, 10-rebound double-double against Mizzou when he hit all five of his field goals. ... Neither Bridges nor Montcrieffe have attempted a 3 this season, meaning they'll be planted in the post and crashing against a UF team which struggles mightily on the glass. ... Guard Justin Hill, who gave up his starting spot Saturday, ranks second on the team in assists with 84. ... Sixth man and forward Jabri Abdur-Rahim (7.4 ppg, 2.7 rpg) hit four 3s in the first meeting and is at 37.7 percent from distance on the season, with his 43 long-range makes a team high. 

Numbers of Note

* 0 — Times the Gators have played in the two-game Wednesday night first-round of the SEC Tournament, since the league expanded to 14 teams for the 2012-13 season, a streak the program would very much like to avoid ending. 

* 4 — Games Florida has played over its history against a former Gators head coach, with the team going 3-1 in those situations. Before the date against White earlier this year, UF faced Lon Kruger three times (once at Illinois in the NCAA Tournament, twice at Oklahoma) and won two of those three games. 

* 10 — 3-pointers made by Georgia in the first meeting, with seven of them coming in the second half. The Gators have given up at least 10 3s in three of their last six games after doing so much three times in the season's first 22 games. 

* 34.3 — Average margin of defeat for the Bulldogs over their last three games. 

* 2008 — The last year a UF freshman posted back-to-back games of least 20 points in SEC play, like Kugel has the last two games. The previous UF rookie to do so was guard Nick Calathes (above), who tallied 24 in a win over Kentucky on Jan. 19 and followed that with 21 in a win at South Carolina. In 2009, freshman guard Kenny Boynton rang up back-to-back 20-point games, but in non-league wins over Georgia Southern and Troy. 

* 2015 — The last year Florida posted a losing record, a mark the Gators would almost certainly guarantee with a loss Tuesday night.
 

Bottom Line

Pretty ironic that a team coached in its first season under White holds the key to whether the Gators finish with a losing record in his first season gone, something the Gators never did during White's seven years.