Florida vs Wake Forest (Thursday, 2:30 pm)

No. 18 Florida vs. Wake Forest

* What: ESPN Events Invitational
* When: Thursday, 2:30 p.m. (ET)
* Where: State Farm Field House / Kissimmee, Fla.
* Records: Florida (6-0) / Wake Forest (6-1)
* TV: ESPN (Kevin Fitzgerald and Daymeon Fishback)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD / Stations list
(with Sean Kelley, Lee Humphrey and Steve Egan)
* Ticket info

Projected Starters

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Alex Condon	F	6-11 / 230	Sophomore	11.5 pts / 6.3 reb
Rueben Chinyelu	C	6-10 / 255	Sophomore	5.7 pts / 5.7 reb
Will Richard	G	6-4 / 206	Senior	13.3 pts / 5.3 reb
Alijah Martin	G	6-2 / 195	Graduate	16.7 pts / 6.7 reb / 3.5 ast
Walter Clayton Jr.	G	6-2 / 195	Senior	16.5 pts / 3.5 reb / 4.2 ast

Wake Forest	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Tre'Von Spillers	F	6-7 / 215	Senior	9.7 pts / 8.4 reb
Efton Reid	F	7-0 / 250	Senior	8.0 pts / 6.0 reb
Davin Cosby	G	6-5 / 210	Sophomore	8.6 pts / 1.0 reb
Hunter Sallis	G	6-5 / 185	Senior	18.9 pts / 3.3 rebounds/ 4.3 ast
Cameron Hildreth	G	6-4 / 195	Senior	11.0 pts / 4.0 reb / 4.3 ast

The Breakdown

State Farm Field House (capacity 8,000) at ESPN Wide World of Sports

SETUP: Florida and Wake Forest square off in opening-round action of the ESPN Events Invitational at Wild World of Sports. The Gators, who moved up to 18th in this week's Associated Press Top 25 poll, equaled their best six-game start of the last 10 seasons by defeating Southern Illiinois 93-68 Friday in Gainesville. The Demon Deacons, out of the Atlantic Coast Conference, are coming off a 67-57 home win over Detroit Mercy. On the other side of the bracket sits Minnesota (4-1) and Wichita State (5-0), who will play in the other first-rounder noon. The winners and losers will be matched in Friday afternoon's championship and consolation games.

SERIES: UF leads the all-time series 7-6, with just three meetings coming this century. The two teams were paired 12 months ago in the inaugural ACC/SEC Challenge, with Wake rallying from nine points down in the second half to hand the Gators an 82-71 loss on Nov. 29, 2023 at Winston-Salem. The Deacons outscored the Gators 44-24 over the final 15 minutes and made 13 of their final 16 field-goal attempts. Wake was led by guard Hunter Sallis, who scored 16 of his 24 points in the second half when he played all 20 minutes. Guard Cameron Hildreth had 18 points, six rebounds and four assists in helping direct his team to 61.5-percent shooting after halftime. UF got 24 points from sophomore guard Riley Kugel, while point guard Zyon Pullin was one of three Gators to finish with 12 points to go with five assists, but went 3-for-13 from the floor, missed all three of 3s and fouled out.

ETC: This is the second time the Gators have played in the ESPN tournament at Disney. They were here in 2016 for what was then called the AdvoCare Invitational, which had an eight-team format with each playing three games over four days. UF won its first-round game by defeating Seton Hall, but lost to 11th-ranked Gonzaga in its second, then beat Miami in the third-place game. That Gonzaga team went on to reach the 2017 NCAA final, where the Bulldogs lost to North Carolina.

Tale of the Tape

Florida	Statistics	Wake Forest
82.2	Scoring	72.9
.482	Field-goal percentage	.440
.316	3-point percentage	.291
67.8	Scoring defense	66.3
.387	Field-goal percentage defense	.381
.328	3-point percentage defense	.323
18th	KenPom.com overall ranking	99th
8th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	143rd
47th	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	76th
91st	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	198th
N/A	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	N/A
256th	Overall strength of schedule ranking	347th

The Gators

Despite poor 3-point shooting to start the season, Florida has moved into the KenPom.com top 10 in offensive efficiency, mostly because of its outstanding work from the 2-point area, where the Gators are making 61.7 percent (11th nationally) and getting back to being their solid offensive rebounding team of a year ago (40.4 percent, which ranks 12th) after a slow start on the glass, also. In the win over SIU, they had a season-best 26 assists versus only six turnovers. UF is coming off a season-high (41 percent) from the 3-point line -- 16 makes on 39 attempts -- but still sits at 31.6 percent on the season, which sits 222nd nationally.

Florida is 6-0 for the first time since 2021 and for the 11th time in program history. The Gators have reached 7-0 only five times, the last instance in 2012.

Wake Forest will represent just the second top-100 opponent (barely) the Gators have faced this season. Florida State was 75th when the Gators went to Tallahassee and handed the Seminoles their only loss of the season. FSU has moved up to 56th over the last couple weeks.

With his blistering 32-point eruption against Southern Illinois, fifth-year guard and Florida Atlantic transfer Alijah Martin inched ahead of Walter Clayton Jr. for team-high scoring average. Martin sank eight of 13 from the 3-point line and was 11-for-19 overall to go with team bests of nine rebounds and five assists, plus a couple steals. His plus-30 over just 31 minutes was the highest plus-minus by a UF player this season. Since going 3-for-13 from the arc in the opener against South Florida, Martin is 13 of 30 (43.3 percent). Clayton, despite coming off his UF career-low of just seven points, is shooting 51.4 percent from the floor (best among perimeter players), as well as 34.1 from distance.

Clayton's seven points against the Salukis marked his fewest as a Gator. Clayton was just 3-for-10 shooting, 1-for-6 from deep and did not get to the free-throw line. He also had four rebounds and four assists. Guard Will Richard had a quiet scoring night of five points as well, but also five rebounds, three assists and two steals. ... Reserve 6-9 forward Thomas Haugh was the only Gator besides Martin to reach double-figure scoring against the Salukis. Haugh had career highs of 19 points and four blocks, while tying his career-high of seven rebounds, plus three assists without a turnover. Haugh, despite coming off the bench, is averaging 23.7 minutes per game, which is second on the team among front court players.

Front court starters Alex Condon and Rueben Chinyelu combined for 14 points, nine rebounds and a couple blocks. Condon had four assists without a turnover, but failed to get to the free-throw line (after averaging 7.2 attempts per game) for the first time this season. Condon, whose 24.0 minutes per game is team-tops among "bigs," is hitting 53.5 percent from the floor, but just 58.3 on a team-high 36 attempts. ... Backups Sam Alexis and Denzel Aberdeen returned against SIU after missing the previous game against Florida A&M due to illness. Alexis's lone field goal was his first 3 in six attempts thi season. He also had five rebounds. Aberdeen had six points and a couple assists. ... Backup guard Urban Klavzar, after a tough night shooting against FAMU, went 3-for-5 from the floor, including his first career 3, for seven points in nine minutes.

The Demon Deacons

Demon Deacon guard **Hunter Sallis** (23)

They're in the fifth season under Steve Forbes and still looking for a first NCAA Tournament berth since 2017. Forbes is 77-55 at Wake, with seasons of 25, 19 and 21 wins, but no dancing in March. The Deacons were 21-14 last season, including 11-9 in ACC play, but played in their third straight NIT. Forbes, who averaged 26 wins and went to two NCAAs during the five seasons at East Tennessee that caught Wake's attention, might have his best team to date. The Deacons do their best work on defense, landing in the top 60 in a slew of categories, including 30th in turnover percentage (22.8) and 31st in 2-point defense (43.0), where the Gators are at their best.

Five of its six wins have come against teams ranked 265th or lower by KenPom, but Wake did beat No. 32 Michigan 72-70 on a semi-neutral floor in Greensboro, N.C. The team's lone loss was a 75-60 setback at Xavier when the Deacs turned the ball over 18 times.

Hunter Sallis was a McDonald's All American out of Nebraska who played his first two collegiate seasons at Gonzaga, where he averaged under five points per game. Sallis transferred to Wake in the spring of '23 and has scored at better than 18 points since, shot 55 percent overall and 3p from deep. HIs last game was a career-best 31-point outing against Detroit Mercy that included five 3-pointers. He's been in double-figure scoring in all seven games.

Cameron Hildreth, the combo guard from England, scored his 1,000 point for Wake late last season and his complete floor game has carried over into his fourth go-around with the Deacons. He hasn't shot the ball very well thus far (34 percent overall, 23 from 3), but Hildreth gets his teammates organized and can break out any night -- as the Gators learned in '23. Hildreth twice has scored 18 this season. ... Center Efton Reid did not play the last game and was limited to six minutes the game before due to migraine headaches. When available, Reid is a monster presence in the paint. Now on his third school (he started at LSU, then went to Gonzaga for one season before transferring to Wake in '23), Reid is not particularly dominant numbers-wise and is a 7-footer who doesn't block a lot of shots, but he's a massive space-eater who can box out and deter would-be drives in the paint. Reid was replaced the last two games by 6-10, 250-pound Churchill Abass (3.0 ppg, 2.5 rpg), a transfer from DePaul. ... Forward Tre'Von Spillers is the Deacons' No. 3 scorer and leading rebounder after transferring from Appalachian State. He doesn't take a lot of 3s (only 11 this season), but he's made four this season at 36.4 percent. ... Davin Cosby, who played low minutes as a freshman for Alabama's Final Four team last year, has a team-high 17 makes from 3 at 35.4 percent. ... Juke Harris (5.6 ppg, 2.7 rpg), a 6-7 wing, is the best freshman on the squad. He scored 11 off the bench in the win against Michigan. ... Another reserve, sophomore guard Parker Friedrichsen (5.0 ppg), is not a high-percentage maker from distance, but he takes a bunch of them.

Numbers of Note

UF guard **Tyree Appleby** (22) launches his buzzer-beating game-winner against Ohio State in the 2021 Fort Myers Tipoff tournament.

* .714 — UF coach Todd Golden's career winning percentage (at Florida and San Francisco) against ACC teams, based on a 5-2 record (with two more opportunities coming in December). The record reflects three wins against Florida State, one against Pittsburgh, a split with Virginia and the loss to Wake.

* 3 — Florida players from the Orlando area who will be well represented in the arena: Aberdeen (Dr. Phillips High), Alexis (Apopka) and freshman guard Isaiah Brown (Orlando Christian Prep).

* 34.3 — Percentage increase, freshman to sophomore season, for Haugh on his free throws. He shot 45.7 last year (21 of 46), but is at 80 percent this season (16 of 20).

* 72 — Games for the Gators without a 30-point scorer before Martin's 32-point night against the Salukis. The last UF player to tally 30 was forward Colin Castleton, who scored 30 in a 76-74 loss (ironically) to Martin and FAU on Nov. 14, 2022.

* 2021 —The last year the Gators won a holiday tournament. The date was Nov. 24. The place was Suncoast Credit Arena and the four-team event was the Fort Myers Tip-Off. Florida had defeated California in first-round play and faced Ohio State in the title game. The score was tied when Buckeyes forward Eric Liddell missed a low-post bank shot with about six seconds to go. UF guard Myreon Jones grabbed the rebound and pitched the ball ahead to guard Tyree Appleby who took one dribble to cross halfcourt, set his feet and let fly a 30-footer that beat the buzzer and beat the Buckeyes 71-68 in a holiday classic. Worth noting: At the end of that season, Appleby transferred to Wake Forest for his sixth year of eligibility and not only played to first-team all-conference accolades, but was voted 2023 ACC Player of the Year.

Bottom Line

As holiday tournaments across the country go, this is not a great field (par for the course for the UF non-league schedule), but the two teams the Gators will face figure in time to be "Quadrant 2" good (per the NCAA Evaluation Tool), which means they'll face two of their most challenging foes to date.

Email Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu

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