Florida Gators

Florida at Missouri 

 
* When: Saturday, 8 p.m. (ET)
* Where: Mizzou Arena / Columbia, Mo.
* Records: Florida (11-6, 1-3) / Missouri (8-9, 0-4)
* TV: ESPNU (Kevin Fitzgerald and Daymeon Fishback)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD (Sean Kelley, Lee Humphrey and Steve Egan) / Stations list

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Projected Starters

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Tyrese Samuel	F	6-10 / 239	Graduate	13.4 pts / 8.6 reb
Micah Handlogten	C	7-1 / 236	Sophomore	7.3 pts / 6.3 reb
Will Richard	G	6-4 / 206	Junior	10.6 pts / 3.5 reb
Walter Clayton Jr.	G	6-2 / 195	Junior	15.9 pts / 3.8 reb
Zyon Pullin	G	6-4 / 206	Graduate	14.9 pts / 3.6 reb / 4.9 ast

Missouri	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Noah Carter	F	6-6 / 235	Senior	12.8 pts / 5.7 reb
Connor Vanover	F	7-5 / 230	Graduate	4.3 pts / 2.3 reb
Tamar Bates	G	6-5 / 195	Junior	11.3 pts / 1.8 reb
Sean East II	G	6-3 / 180	Senior	16.5 pts / 3.5 reb / 3.8 ast
Nick Honor	G	5-10 / 200	Senior	10.8 pts / 2.0 reb

The Breakdown

Setup / Series / Last Meeting

Florida and Missouri meet in a game between two teams near the bottom of the Southeastern Conference rankings. The Gators, with three losses in four league games, sit in a four-way tie for ninth place, while the Tigers, along with Vanderbilt, remain one of two teams winless in SEC play. ... UF is coming off Tuesday's blowout 85-66 loss at sixth-ranked Tennessee, a game the Gators never led and trailed by double-digits for the last 25-plus minutes. That same night, Mizzou hung around well into the second half at Alabama, one of two remaining unbeaten league teams, until the Crimson Tide turned what was a four-point game inside 10 minutes remaining into a rout that sent the Tigers to their seventh loss in eight games. ... Florida leads the all-time series 9-4, with all the games coming since Missouri joined the SEC for the 2012-13 athletic season. The Gators have won two straight meetings, including a 73-64 over the No. 20 Tigers on Jan. 14, 2023 in what was Coach Todd Golden's first victory at UF over a ranked opponent. Fifth-year senior forward Colin Castleton scored 16 points, grabbed 13 rebounds, dished six assists and had three steals, while guard Will Richard tallied 18 points, dropping four 3-pointers, as UF rallied from a double-digit deficit and leaned on a defense that frustrated the nation's No. 5-ranked team in offensive efficiency. The Tigers, who pounced to an 11-0 lead, came in averaging 85.7 points and shooting 49.4 percent, but were held to 41.7 percent and tied their lowest-scoring output of the season.

Tale of the Tape

Florida	Statistics	Missouri
85.2	Scoring	75.5
.456	Field-goal percentage	.450
.326	3-point percentage	.334
76.5	Scoring defense	73.9
.428	Field-goal percentage defense	.438
.338	3-point percentage defense	.335
42nd	KenPom.com overall ranking	104th
24th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	77th
84th	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	150th
14th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	241st
52nd	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	117th
42nd	Overall strength of schedule ranking	70th

Team Snapshots

The Gators

They're 0-3 in true road games this season, losing at Wake Forest, Ole Miss and Tennessee, all by double digits, so how will the Gators respond to a second consecutive poor performance

away from home? ... This will be a Quadrant 2 opportunity, as far as the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) metrics are concerned. UF is 3-1 in Q-2 games this season, much better than its 0-5 record in Q1 games. ... UF shot 29.4 percent at Tennessee, with an identical 10-for-34 in both halves and missed a handful of close-in shots. The Gators were five of 22 from the 3-point line (22.7 percent). They trailed for an entire game for the first time this season and finished with a season-low points. ... Florida was paced by Walter Clayton's Jr.'s 16 points, but the Gators' season scoring leader was just 6-for-18 from the floor, 1-for-7 from distance and really struggled on the defensive end. Clayton wasn't the only one with problems on the defensive end. The Volunteers got way too comfortable on offense and UF let guard Dalton Knecht go off for a career-high 39 points. ... UF had two other players in double-figure scoring, point guard Zyon Pullin (11 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists) and forward Tyrese Samuel (10 points, 11 rebounds), but those two combined to go 5-for-19. ... Center Micah Handlogten hit his only shot of the game, a putback, but played just 11 minutes, probably because of the physical nature with which the Volunteers play. Handlogten's length is one thing, but he has trouble in man-to-man situations in the post. The Tigers don't have anyone like 6-11, 240-pound Jonas Aidoo, who bodied-up and worked the Gators for 19 points (all but two on the block) and 10 rebounds. ... Guard Will Richard scored eight points against the Vols. The Gators are 0-3 when he scores in single-digits against SEC teams. He had two points against Kentucky and five at Ole Miss. ... Reserve center Alex Condon (8.2 ppg, 7.2 rpg) had his first really tough game since going scoreless against Virginia on Nov. 10. Condon was 1-for-9 from the floor, grabbed six rebounds and turned it over three times. Count on the fiery Australian freshman to be extra-determined to atone for his difficult outing. ... Backup sophomore guard Riley Kugel (11.6 ppg, 3.9 rpg) had 12 points and three rebounds. He made four of 10 field goals and and two of five 3s. ... Sophomore guard Denzel Aberdeen went 1-for-6 from the floor and scored two points in six minutes, while freshman forward Thomas Haugh did not attempt a field goal and grabbed one rebound in seven minutes. ... Sophomore 6-10, 250-pound forward Aleks Szymczyk, who broke his left foot in September and has been dealing with right foot pain the last couple weeks, returned to full-contact at practice this week and will be available, if need be. After making just seven appearances (for only 15 minutes) over the team's first 26 games last season, "Shimmy" averaged 3.4 points and 2.3 rebounds over the final seven games, including a career-best performance of eight points (with a couple 3-pointers) and six rebounds over 21 minutes in a loss at Arkansas.

The Tigers

They're in the second season under Dennis Gates, longtime former assistant for some outstanding teams at Florida State, as well as a reported candidate for the UF job that went to Golden.

Despite the sub-.500 mark this season, the Tigers are 33-19 in his two seasons after going 25-10 inb '22-23 and reaching the 2023 NCAA Tournament as a No. 7-seed in Gates' first season. Missouri defeated 10th-seeded Utah State in opening-round play, then were upset by No. 12-seed Princeton for a berth in the Sweet 16. Before going to Missouri, Gates worked wonders in three seasons at Cleveland State, which was one of the worst programs in the country when he took over. After going 11-21 his first season, Gates' next two teams went a combined 39-19 and made him an attractive option in the 2023 coaching carousel. ... Mizzou is led by Sean East II, now in his second season after transferring from Bradley (and Massachusetts before that). East is hitting 53 percent from the floor and an outstanding 49 percent from the 3-point line. ... Forward Noah Carter, a two-year standout at Northern Iowa, was recruited by the Gators during spring '22 portal time, but opted for the Tigers and was a bundle of productive energy last season. His percentages are down this season (41 overall, 28.6 from deep), but Carter still plays hard and draws a bunch of fouls, evidenced by his team-high 58 free-throw attempts at 77.6 percent. ... Guard Tamar Banks was a rotation player at Indiana last season. He's got East-like shooting numbers at better than 55 percent overall, 50 from distance (20 of 40) and a team-high 92.7 from the free-throw line. ... Point guard Nick Honor, in his second season since coming from Clemson, is a stocky, pesky fireplug with logo range (39.2 percent). ... Center Connor Vanover, tied for the tallest player in the nation at 7-5, only averages 12 minutes per game. He's on his fourth school, after transferring from Oral Roberts. Before that, Vanover played at California and Arkansas. ... Backup guard Caleb Grill (8.4 ppg, 5.8 rpg) is a pretty productive sub and brought his 37-percent 3-point shooting with him from Iowa State. Reserve guard Anthony Robinson II (4.5 ppg, 2.3 rpg) played at Tallahassee Florida State University High. ... Forward Aidan Shaw (3.6 ppg, 3.9 rpg) became somewhat famous this week. He was the player who Alabama coach Nate Oats shoved away from the Tide's bench during the second half of their game Tuesday. 
 

Numbers of Note

* minus-16 — Average scoring margin in Florida's three road losses this season.

* 1.000 — UF guard Tyree Appleby's free-throw percentage on 10 attempts in the Gators' last win at Columbia, a 66-65 win under bizarre Covid-like circumstances after the game, scheduled for a 9 p.m. tip, was moved up six hours due to a severe blizzard that paralyzed the Midwest. Inside what was basically an empty house, Appleby's last two free throws came with 7.9 seconds left and gave Florida a one-point lead that held up when UF forward Anthony Duruji contested a desperation shot by Tigers guard Jarron Coleman that fell short of the goal as time expired.

* 71.1 — Free-throw percentage by Mizzou during the '23-24 season, which ranks third in the SEC and is 9.2 percentage points higher than Florida's 66.9, which ranks last in the league.

* 76.9 — Free-throw shooting percentage by Mizzou's opponents during the '23-24 season, which puts the Tigers at 357th (out of 362nd) in the dreaded free-throw defense category, a big reason they're ranked 313th in the dreaded "Luck" category, per KenPom. 

* 2012 — The last year the Gators lost their first four road games of a season, something they'll try to avoid doing Saturday. UF opened the '11-12 season ranked eighth in the country, but lost at No. 7 Ohio State, at No. 4 Syracuse, at Rutgers in double-overtime and at Tennessee in the SEC opener. That Florida team went 4-3 in its remaining road games and reached the Elite Eight before falling to Louisville in the NCAA West Region title game.  
 

Bottom Line

Forget Missouri's record. It's a second straight road game in the SEC amid awful and inconvenient travel circumstances, with the low temperature in Columbia expected to be zero degrees. Tasting a win on the road would do the Gators a world of good.