Florida vs Mississippi State (Thursday, 1 pm)

Florida vs. Mississippi State

* What: Southeastern Conference Tournament (Defending champion: Tennessee)
* When: Thursday, 1 p.m. (ET)
* Where: Bridgestone Arena / Nashville, Tenn.
* Records: Florida (16-15) / Mississippi State (20-11)
* TV: SEC Network (Karl Ravech, Jimmy Dykes and Marty Smith)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD (Sean Kelley and Lee Humphrey)

Projected Starters

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Jason Jitoboh	C	6-11 / 300	Senior	2.9 pts / 1.5 reb
Will Richard	G	6-5 / 206	Sophomore	10.8 pts / 4.5 reb
Riley Kugel	G	6-5 / 207	Freshman	9.7 pts / 2.8 reb
Myreon Jones	G	6-3 / 177	5th-Senior	5.2 pts / 3.3 reb
Kyle Lofton	G	6-3 / 188	5th-Senior	9.0 pts / 3.0 reb / 3.5 ast

Mississippi State	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
D.J. Jeffries	F	6-7 / 215	Senior	9.0 pts / 6.2 reb
Tolu Smith	F	6-11 / 245	5th-Senior	15.4 pts / 8.3 reb
Cameron Matthews	F/G	6-7 / 225	Junior	7.4 pts / 5.6 reb
Shakeel Moore	G	6-1 / 190	Junior	9.8 pts / 2.9 reb
Dashawn Davis	G	6-2 / 195	Senior	8.3 pts / 2.0 reb / 3.4 ast

The Breakdown

The SEC Tournament is back in Nashville at Bridgestone Arena (capacity 18,500) and will be there until at least 2036.

Setup / Series / Last Meeting

Florida and Mississippi State meet in second-round play of the SEC Basketball Tournament. The event opens Wednesday with two play-in games involving the four bottom seeds, while the No. 8-seed Gators and No. 9 Bulldogs will square off in the first game of Thursday's second round, with the winner advancing into Friday's quarterfinals to face No. 1 seed and SEC regular-season champion Alabama (26-5), which has a bye through the first two rounds. ... The two teams could very well be headed in different directions after the SEC Tournament, with the stakes higher for MSU than UF. The Bulldogs, despite a losing record in league play, sit firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble, for now, with "Last Four In" status among most bracket projections. That means a first-round loss to the Gators would likely knock them out. The Gators, meanwhile, are pure National Invitational Tournament fodder and will be in no NCAA Tournament conversations without, at best, reaching the SEC title game Sunday. The tournament winner gets an automatic berth into the NCAA's field of 68. ... Florida leads the all-time series 67-52, though the Gators snapped a three-game Bulldogs winning streak with a 61-59 victory on Jan. 21 at Starkville. In that one, fifth-year senior forward Colin Castleton scored 13 points, grabbed four rebounds and had a pair of assists and steals, while also batting away the second of two missed shots -- both from inside the paint -- in the final five seconds to seal the win. UF sophomore guard Will Richard added 12 points on four 3-pointers, as Florida weathered its 40-percent second-half shooting and four late Mississippi State 3-pointers for one of its three SEC road wins. ... Florida is 46-52 all-time in the SEC Tournament, with four championships (2005, '06, '07 and '14). The Gators have reached the tournament semifinals only once (2019) since last winning the title during their perfect '14 SEC season en route to the Final Four.

Tale of the Tape

Florida	Statistics	Mississippi State
72.1	Scoring	66.3
.441	Field-goal percentage	.248
.324	3-point percentage	.273
68.6	Scoring defense	60.4
.412	Field-goal percentage defense	.393
.318	3-point percentage defense	.309
59th	KenPom.com overall ranking	45th
114th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	158th
32nd	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	8th
82nd	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	333rd
59th	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	46th
18th	Overall strength of schedule ranking	57th

Team Snapshots

The Gators

They did themselves proud in bouncing back from a three-game losing streak following the loss of Castleton to his season-ending broken hand by winning the last two games of the regular-season, albeit against two of the four teams that will play in the dreaded Wednesday SEC Tournament opening round. Still, behind some impressive offensive numbers by a pair of perimeter

players -- guard Riley Kugel, named Monday to the league's All-Freshman Team, and sophomore guard Will Richard -- the Gators beat Georgia 77-67 on the road last week, then followed it with Saturday's 79-67 come-from-behind home defeat of LSU thus avoiding the program's first losing record in eight years. ... Florida is in the 8/9 seed game for the second year in a row. The Gators were the 9-seed last year in Tampa when they lost to Texas A&M 83-80 on a buzzer-beating 3-point shot with a half-second to play. ... Kugel is coming off a sensational performance in the win over the Tigers, when he scored 17 of his game-high 21 points in the second half while showing off a buffet of moves both inside and outside the 3-point line. Kugel went 8-for-14 from the floor, including four of five from deep in the second half, on his way to an eighth consecutive game of double-figure scoring, marking the longest such string for a UF freshman in SEC play since Bradley Beal's 10 games in 2012. Over that eight-game span, Kugel is averaging 18.3 points (21.0 over the last four) and shooting 54 percent. Remember, the Orlando product originally signed with Mississippi State, but backed out after the coaching changes Starkville and in Gainesville. He had eight points and five rebounds in the first meeting with the Bulldogs. ... Richard's remarkable and consistent efficiency on offense continues to astound. He had 24 points and made five 3s in the win at Georgia, then went 7-for-10 overall and 3-for-5 from deep against LSU. Richard wil go to the tournament shooting 50.7 percent from the floor, 41.7 from the arc and 86.9 at the free-throw line. ... Since posting no assists over 38 minutes in a five-point loss at Kentucky on Feb. 4, point guard Kyle Lofton has averaged nearly five assists a game. He had five against LSU, but also 16 points, a couple big 3s and five rebounds. ... Myreon Jones has just one double-figure scoring game over his last five outings (14 points at Georgia, just 10 points in the other four games), but he also gets credit for deferring to the hot hands of Kugel and Richard. ... The post tandem of Jason Jitoboh and backup Aleks Szymczyk (just 42 seconds vs LSU) that played the first three games after Castleton's injury has turned into a tandem of Jitoboh and 6-9 sophomore Alex Fudge (5.9 ppg, 4.6 rpg). Jitoboh had six points, four rebounds and a block in 21 minutes last game, while Fudge, in his second straight game taking turns at the "5," had six points, six boards and a block. He was 2-for-7 from the floor, but three of those misses were from the 3-point line, where he's 2-for-19 over the last 15 games, with eight consecutive misses. ... Backup sophomore wing Kowacie Reeves (8.7 ppg, 2.6 rpg) scored eight points and grabbed four rebounds off the bench vs. LSU and finished a team-best plus-15 over just 20 minutes. ... Freshman Denzel Aberdeen appears to have sub-planted Trey Bonham as the backup point guard who gives Lofton (32.3 minutes per game) a couple possessions of rest each half.

The Bulldogs

What a great season for first-year MSU coach Chris Jans. He had a heckuva track record before arriving, having won at least 21 games in five of six seasons as a head coach, including the last five at New Mexico State, where he won four Western Athletic Conference regular-season championships and reached the NCAA Tournament three times. Add another 20-win

season, this time after starting 1-7 in SEC play. The Bulldogs have won eight of their last 11, including victories over Texas Christian, Missouri and league runner-up Texas A&M (all at home), and have done it by rolling out one of the best defenses in the country. Mississippi State ranks fifth in the country in steal percentage, eighth in overall defensive efficiency and 16th in effective field-goal percentage. They're also one of the worst 3-point shooting teams in the country, as well as next to last in the conference in scoring offense. They'll want to play a game in the 60s; preferably the low-60s. ... Forward Tolu Smith was named to the All-SEC first team this week. He's shooting 58.3 percent on the season (has not attempted a 3) and is a dogged offensive rebounder, all of which spells a serious challenge for the Gators without Castleton, who harried Smith into a 5-for-15 game last time. Smith is highly turnover prone (72), so look for double teams down low. ... Guard Shakeel Moore, a transfer from North Carolina State, is the Bulldogs' most prolific shooter from deep (119 attempts), but at just 26.9 percent. He's at 42 from inside the arc. ... Forward D.J. Jeffries, by way of Memphis, had a frustrating last game against the Gators (1 of 7, just 3 points), including a last-second miss from about five feet to tie the game. He'll be looking to atone. ... Guard/Forward Cam Matthews is second on the team in field-goal percentage (48.2), but like the rest of his team struggles from deep (15.2 percent). ... Guard Dashawn Davis, who was at Oregon State last year, is probably the Bulldogs' most efficient perimeter player at 40 percent from 2 and 35 from 3. He almost single-handedly was responsible for a near-comeback in the first UF meeting, as the Gators led by 16 after holding the Bulldogs without a 3-pointer in the first half. Davis made three in the second half. ... Beware backup guard Eric Reed Jr., who is making just 24 percent from the arc, but has 100 attempts, which ranks second.

Numbers of Note

Mississippi State forward Jarvis Varnado (32) against UF in the 2010 SEC Tournament.

* .641 — Florida's combined field-goal percentage by its five starters the last two games (in the wins over Georgia and LSU), based on 47-for-73 shooting, including a rip-roaring 17 of 35 from the 3-point line (.485).

* 1.000 — Golden's winning percentage against his five other fellow first-year coaches at their respective spots around the league, based on a 7-0 head-to-head record. This game will mark an eighth, with Golden thus far perfect in two games against Georgia's Mike White and LSU's Matt McMahon, plus single wins against Missouri's Dennis Gates, South Carolina's Lamont Paris and Jans.

* 23.2 — Average wins for Jans over his seven seasons, including stops at Bowling Green (1 season), New Mexico State (5) and now Mississippi State.

* 46 — Where Mississippi State ranks in the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET), making the Bulldogs one of the two wins (and highest-rated victory on the road) in the Gators' 2-12 record in the NET. The other was a home defeat of Tennessee, which currently sits at No. 3.

* 2010 — The last year Florida played Mississippi State in the SEC Tournament. The Bulldogs defeated the Gators 75-69 at Nashville behind forward Jarvis Varnado's 15 points, four rebounds and four blocks, plus 17 points by guard Chris Stewart, who iced the game with six straight free throws down the stretch. UF was led by freshman guard Kenny Boynton's 23 points and 19 more from sophomore point guard Erving Walker.

Bottom Line

As Golden has suggested, any wins that come in this tournament, given the loaded field and the Gators' current predicament (as in Castleton), would have to be considered "house money."

Gators Calendar

Florida vs Mississippi State (Thursday, 1 pm)