Florida Gators

Florida at No. 3 Alabama

 
* When: Wednesday, 9 p.m. (ET)
* Where: Coleman Coliseum / Tuscaloosa, Ala.
* Records: Florida (13-10, 6-4) / Alabama (20-3, 10-0)
* TV: ESPN2 (Tom Hart, Jimmy Dykes and Alyssa Lang)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD (Sean Kelley and Lee Humphrey)

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Projected Starters

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Colin Castleton	F	6-1 / 240	5th-Senior	15.6 pts / 7.7 reb / 2.7 ast / 3.1 blk
Will Richard	G	6-5 / 206	Sophomore	10.3 pts / 4.6 reb
Riley Kugel	G	6-5 / 207	Freshman	6.6 pts / 2.5 reb
Myreon Jones	G	6-3 / 177	5th-Senior	5.3 pts / 3.0 reb
Kyle Lofton	G	6-3 / 188	5th-Senior	9.0 pts / 3.0 reb / 2.9 ast

Alabama	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Brandon Miller	F	6-9 / 200	Freshman	18.8 pts / 8.2 reb
Charles Bediako	C	7-0 / 225	Sophomore	5.5 pts / 5.3 reb
Noah Clowney	G	6-10 / 210	Freshman	10.0 pts / 8.3 reb
Mark Sears	G	6-1 / 185	Junior	13.7 pts / 3.8 reb
Jaden Bradley	G	6-3 / 185	Freshman	7.7 pts / 2.9 reb / 3.4 ast

The Breakdown

Setup / Series / Last Meeting

Florida wraps its heavyweight four-game run with the most formidable test of all; a road date against third-ranked Alabama, still unbeaten in league play, at sold-out Coleman Coliseum. ... The Gators are 1-2 in the first three games of a four-game gauntlet that sent them to No. 5 Kansas State (64-50 loss), brought No. 2 Tennessee to Gainesville (67-54 win), followed by a road trip Saturday to Kentucky (72-67 loss). The Crimson Tide have won 11 of 12, with the lone blip a blowout (and surprising) 93-69 defeat at unranked Oklahoma in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge on Jan. 28. The Tide responded by beating Vanderbilt (wait for it) by 57 points three nights later at home, then went to LSU and held serve for a 79-69 win Saturday. ... Bama leads the all-time series 77-70, with victories in each of the last two seasons. The Tide defeated the Gators 83-70 on Jan. 5, 2022, in the SEC opener for both teams, erasing a three-point halftime deficit by shooting nearly 49 percent in the second while defending at 35 percent after the break. All five Bama starters scored in double figures, led by 19 points each forward Juwan Gary and guard Jahvon Quinerly, who also had five assists. Florida got 19 points and seven rebounds from forward Colin Castleton, but the Gators turned the ball over 20 times, contributing to 21 Alabama points. UF was pounded for 20 offensive rebounds, outscored 40-26 in the paint and surrendered 20 more field-goal attempts than it attempted, thanks to those second-chance opportunities and turnovers. Three different UF players had four turnovers. ... Tide coach Nate Oats is 2-1 against the Gators, including 1-0 at Tuscaloosa. This will be UF coach Todd Golden's first go in the series.

Tale of the Tape

Florida	Statistics	Alabama
71.3	Scoring	83.1
.434	Field-goal percentage	.442
.324	3-point percentage	.348
64.8	Scoring defense	68.7
.394	Field-goal percentage defense	.373
.308	3-point percentage defense	.261
39th	KenPom.com overall ranking	5th
134th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	20th
10th	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	5th
88th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	1st
43rd	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	3rd
17th	Overall strength of schedule ranking	3rd

Team Snapshots

The Gators

They took a step back defensively in the loss at Kentucky, but a case could be made they took one forward on the offensive end by shaking off a dreadful first-period shooting performance and scoring 45 after intermission in one of college basketball's toughest environment. UF trailed by 14 midway through the second half and stormed back behind a fabulous performance from

Castleton, who scored 19 of his game-high 25 during a comeback that got the Gators within a 3-pointer of tying the game in the final 20 seconds. Florida, however, allowed UK to shoot 45.2 percent for the game, including nearly 54 in the second half, as the Wildcats became just the second SEC opponent to hit 40 percent against a defense that rates 10th nationally in overall efficiency. The Gators got a little loose with their transition defense at Lexington and the Cats made them pay to the tune of 14 fast-break points (UF had none). If that happens against the Tide, with their unmatched break-neck pace of play, the game won't be close. ... Castleton thoroughly outplayed UK superstar Oscar Tshiebwe in their head-on battle. He made nine of 16 shots and drew four fouls, eventually fouling the reigning SEC and NCAA Player of the Year out with just four points, albeit 15 rebounds. ... Point guard Kyle Lofton and guard Will Richard each had 13 points in the game and combined to make nine of their 15 shots, meaning Castleton, Lofton and Richard accounted for 51 of the team's 67 points. ... Guard Riley Kugel, making his third straight start, had six points and veteran guard Myreon Jones five, as the starting five accounted for nearly all the Gators' scoring. ... Backup wing Kowacie Reeves (8.4 ppg, 2.8 rpg) had five early points, during a stretch when UF was making just two field goals over the first 14 minutes to fall back by 13. Reeves finished just one of seven from the floor and missed all three of his 3-pointer tries. He is two of 15 from the floor and 0-for-8 from the arc over the previous three games, as well as 7-for-45 in SEC play (15.2 percent). ... Reeves' five points represented all the scoring contribution from the Florida bench, as sophomore forward Alex Fudge (6.7 ppg, 4.7 rpg), junior guard Trey Bonham (6.9 ppg, 2.3 rpg) and senior center Jason Jitoboh (2.4 ppg, 1.3 rpg) joined Reeves in combining to go 1-for-9 with five rebounds, one assist and two turnovers in 39 reserve minutes. ... Four different UF starters played at least 30 minutes, with Jones just a tad back at 28. Don't be surprised if this is the way the Gators choose to go (with heavy starters' minutes) unless someone starts providing consistent contributions off the bench. ... Senior forward CJ Felder (2.5 ppg, 3.1 rpg), who was excused from the team last month for personal reasons, returned on Tuesday for practice and accompanied he Gators to Tuscaloosa. 

The Crimson Tide

Oats has it rolling in Tuscaloosa, boy. Both on the floor and on the recruiting trail. After going to Bama from Buffalo in 2019 and going 16-15 in his first season, Oats in his second season guided the Tide to their first SEC regular-season championship in 19 years, posting a 26-7 record that included a 16-2 mark in league play. Bama reached the Sweet 16 that year before losing to eventual '21 Final Four participant UCLA, then took something of a

step back in '22 by reaching the NCAA Tournament and getting ousted in first-round play by Notre Dame in an 8/9-seed game. All the while, though, Oats was burning up the recruiting trails and hauled in a top-five '22 class, led by a pair of McDonald's All Americans in forward Brandon Miller and guard Jaden Bradley who along with a nucleus of returnees appears to be bee-lining for a No. 1 seed in the '23 NCAA bracket. ... Alabama has wins over then-No. 1 Houston on the road, plus Michigan State and North Carolina (in four overtimes) in the PK80 at Portland, Ore. Of the Tide's 10 conference wins, nine have come by double digits, including margins of 27 at Mississippi State, 26 against Kentucky, 15 at Arkansas, 40 against LSU, 19 at Missouri and the aforementioned 57 against Vanderbilt. ... Bama ranks first in pace of play at nearly 74 possessions per game and fourth nationally at 15.1 seconds per possession. Defensively, they're remarkably consistent at guarding the 2- and 3-point areas, where they rate second nationally in both (42.5 percent and 26.1, respectively). ... Miller has been tabbed as the No. 1 overall college prospect and is being projected as a top-3 pick in the 2023 NBA Draft. He's shooting 45.2 percent from the floor, a stellar 44.2 from 3 and isn't just a shoot-first guy, what with 45 assists. He's from Antioch, Tenn., which had to be a gut punch to the Volunteers. ... Guard Mark Sears transferred from Ohio and is second on the team in scoring and hitting 3s at 37.3 percent. Sears and Miller have both led the team in getting to the free-throw line. Both have attempted 103, both at better than 82.5 percent. ... Rookie guard Noah Clowney, the reigning South Carolina Player of the Year, is shooting nearly 49 percent from the floor and has hit double-figure scoring in four of the past five games. ... Bradley is the other McDonald's guy and was handed the ball to run Oats' show. Though not much of a 3-point threat, he's at 41 percent overall on the season and leads the team in assists with 77, just ahead of Quinerly (7.3 ppg), with 74. Quinerly, a 2018 McDonald's All American from Hackensack, N.J., has been a terrific program and culture guy since transferring from Villanova after the 2019 season. He needs two points to hit 1,000 for his career. He's played 84 games for the Tide, starting just 37, but was SEC Tournament MVP in 2021. Quinerly averaged 13.8 points last season and 4.2 assists per game. ... Seven-footer Charles Bediako (60.6 percent from the floor) is not only a gifted defender and rebounder, but plays hard on both ends. Of his 123 rebounds rebounds, nearly 45 percent have come on the offensive glass (not good for the Gators). ... Backup guards Nimari Burnett (7.1 ppg), a transfer from Texas Tech, and Rylan Griffen (7.0) give the Tide seven players who average at least seven points per game. Both can shoot 3s, what with Griffin's 30 (at 34.1 percent) being third-most on the team despite ranking eighth on the team in minutes.  

Numbers of Note

* .006 — UF's all-time winning percentage in road games against teams ranked in the Associated Press top five, based on an 2-31 all-time record, with the lone victories both coming at fourth-ranked Kentucky in 1966 and '88, respectively. The Gators are 0-16 all-time against top-3 opponents on the road. 

* .760 — Oats' winning percentage in SEC play the last three seasons, based on the Tide's 35-11 record over that time. 

* 3 — Former UF players Castleton passed Saturday night on the program's all-time scoring list. Castleton, now with 1,108 career points as a Gator, moved ahead of Kasey Hill (1,087 from 2013-17), Harry Hamilton (1,102 from 1946-51) and Gary Keller (1,104 from 1964-67) and currently stands at No. 46. If Castleton hits his average of 16 against the Tide, he'll move up three more spots. 

* 36 — Points scored by Bama's Miller, the freshman, in the team's 100-90 loss to Gonzaga on a semi-home floor in Birmingham on Dec. 17. Miller, facing two-time first-team All-America senior Drew Timme, hit 12 of his 22 shots, including six of 11 from distance, all six of his free throws and also grabbed six rebounds. Timme finished with 29 points and 10 boards. 

* 2020 — The year Florida erased a 21-point home deficit against Alabama in the Jan. 4 SEC opener for both teams and rallied for an epic 104-98 double-overtime victory that marked the second-largest come-from-behind win in program history. Sophomore point guard Andrew Nembhard led the Gators with a career-high 25 points, followed by 24 points and 16 rebounds from grad-transfer forward Kerry Blackshear Jr. and 17 points and 10 boards by freshman guard Scottie Lewis. Those three players scored 47 of the team's final 52 points. Alabama led 44-23 late in the first half, as well as by eight inside two minutes to go and by five with 23 seconds left in regulation in what was Oats' first SEC game.
 

Bottom Line

Another monumental road challenge, way tougher than last weekend's trip to Kentucky or the weekend before at No. 5 Kansas State.