Florida Gators

No. 13 Florida vs. Virginia

 
* What: ACC/SEC Challenge 
* When: Wednesday, 7:15 p.m. (ET)
* Where: Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center / Gainesville, Fla.
* Records: Florida (8-0) / Virginia (5-2)
* TV: ESPN2 (Kevin Brown and Chris Spatola)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD / Stations list
  (with Sean Kelley, Lee Humphrey and Steve Egan) 
* Ticket info

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Projected Starters

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Alex Condon	F	6-11 / 230	Sophomore	12.3 pts / 6.9 reb
Rueben Chinyelu	C	6-10 / 255	Sophomore	6.3 pts / 6.8 reb
Will Richard	G	6-4 / 206	Senior	12.4 pts / 5.6 reb
Alijah Martin	G	6-2 / 195	Graduate	15.1 pts / 5.9 reb
Walter Clayton Jr.	G	6-2 / 195	Senior	17.4 pts / 3.3 reb / 3.8 ast

Virginia	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Elijah Saunders	F	6-8 / 240	Junior	9.0 pts / 5.0 reb
Blake Buchanan	F	6-11/ 227	Sophomore	6.6 pts / 5.4 reb
Andrew Rohde	G	6-8 / 200	Junior	10.0 pts / 2.0 reb / 3.0 ast
Isaac McKneely	G	6-4 / 195	Junior	13.3 pts / 3.6 reb
Dai Dai Ames	G	6-8 / 240	Junior	9.1 pts / 2.1 reb

The Breakdown

SETUP: Florida and Virginia meet for the second consecutive season, this time in the ESPN-contrived ACC/SEC Challenge, a two-day series of 14 games pitting teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference against teams from the Southeastern Conference. The Gators, 8-0 for only the fourth time in program history, are coming off last week's two-day run to a championship in the ESPN Events Invitational at Kissimmee, Fla., where they trounced Wake Forest and Wichita State on consecutive days to claim their first holiday tournament in three years. The two wins came by a combined 52 points and surged UF five spots, to No. 13, in this week's Associated Press Top 25 poll, the highest the team has been ranked in five years, and debuted the Gators at No. 6 in the first NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) rankings. The Cavaliers played twice last week also, defeating Manhattan and Holy Cross on their home floor. 

SERIES: It's tied 2-2, with UVA evening the count with its 73-70 victory on a neutral floor in Charlotte, N.C., on Nov. 10, 2023. That was the second game of the season for the Gators and they were playing without point guard Zyon Pullin, who had to sit out the season's first three games for playing in the Portsmouth (Va.) Invitational combine. Down 11 in the second half, UF scored 12 straight to take the lead. From there, it was a back-and-forth of 11 lead changes or ties -- eight in the final four minutes -- before freshman backup forward Blake Buchanan made three of four free throws after consecutive UF turnovers in the final 1:03 to eek out the victory. Buchanan finished with 18 points and seven rebounds in 27 minutes off the bench. Senior guard Reese Beekman added 13 points, three rebounds, five assists and four steals in playing to his 2023 Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Year bona fides. Forward Ryan Dunn had six points, eight rebounds and six steals, as the Cavs took advantage of the Gators' carelessness (15 turnovers) in challenging the UVA passing lanes. UF was led by junior guard Will Richard's 15 points, while sophomore center Micah Handlogten had 14 points and 14 boards.

ETC: UF is off to its best start since 2009 and is seeking to go 9-0 for the first time since 2005, when the Gators opened with 17 straight wins en route to their first NCAA title. 

Tale of the Tape

Florida	Statistics	Virginia
86.5	Scoring	62.1
.468	Field-goal percentage	.448
.329	3-point percentage	.388
64.5	Scoring defense	58.7
.375	Field-goal percentage defense	.386
.292	3-point percentage defense	.333
8th	KenPom.com overall ranking	103rd
9th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	176th
22nd	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	56th
125th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	364th
6th	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	125th
189th	Overall strength of schedule ranking	277th

The Gators

The orange-and-blue freight train that took out Wake Forest and Wichita State over a 25-hour span was one of the most impressive performances by a UF team in years. It wasn't because of the Gators' offense, either (though they weren't bad on that side). Florida combined to shoot 42.6 percent overall and 36.3 from distance -- with a numbing 27-0 run in the blowout of Wichita -- but it's what the Gators did on the other end of the floor that overwhelmed the Demon Deacons and Shockers. UF combined to defend over the two games at 33.6 percent overall and 19.0 from deep, while out-rebounding the two teams 100-60 (plus-20 on the offensive glass) and now has a chance to see how it stacks up against a program known for going on two decades as one of the best at defending in the nation. A common denominator of both games was the effort and energy expended, with center Rueben Chinyelu (8.0 points, 10.0 rebounds in the tourney) playing the best basketball of his young UF career. He was eight of 11 from the floor in the tournament (with six offensive rebounds) and is now at 71.9 percent from the floor for the season. 

Walter Clayton Jr. averaged 20 points and made nine 3-pointers in the tournament on his way to MVP honors. Clayton, it is worth noting, committed two turnovers in the final minute against UVA last season, both with a chance to tie or take the lead. He may bring have a little extra motivation for this one. Oddly, Clayton has failed to get to the free-throw line in three of the last four games, which is uncharacteristic of one of the best free-throw shooters in the country. ... Guard Will Richard continues to search for his outside shooting touch (24.4 from 3-point range), going just three of 17 over the previous three games. Richard, though, has done other things to impact the Gators' winning, notably on the glass (his 5.6 rebounds rate fourth on the team) and the defensive end (team-high 18 steals). ... Guard Alijah Martin is shooting 45.6 percent overall and 38.0 from deep, with his 19 makes second to Clayton's 23. He's 9-for-20 over his last three games (45.0 percent). ... Reserve point guard Denzel Aberdeen had a season-high of nine points against the Shockers, plus three assists and two steals. ... Backup guard Urban Klavzar got his first 3, but he's just 1-for-10 in his five games since becoming eligible. He's 5-for-10 inside the arc, with six assists and two turnovers.  

Forward Alex Condon averaged 14.5 points and 8.5 boards in the tournament and had one game where he 3-for-3 from distance. Better (and more significantly) yet, he went 12 of 15 from the free-throw during the tourney; and that was after starting 2-for-5. In other words, he hit his last 10 in a row, which is huge because "Condo" figures to be one of the best in the SEC at drawing fouls and needs to capitalize at a better clip than his current 64.7 percent (33 makes on a team-high 55 attempts). ... Maybe Condon will take a cue from his BFF, reserve sophomore forward Thomas Haugh (7.5 ppg, 6.0 rpg), who is 18 of 22 from the free-throw line this season (81.8 percent) after going 21 of 46 as a freshman (45.7 percent). Haugh, despite not starting, is averaging 22.8 minutes per game, which ranks fifth on the team. ... Backup junior forward Sam Alexis didn't have his best at Disney. He went scoreless in eight minutes against Wake, but bounced back with seven points and five rebounds against Wichita. The last time Alexis faced an ACC team (Louisville during his sophomore season at Tennessee-Chattanooga), he went for 16 points, 11 boards and four blocks in an upset win. 
 

The Cavaliers

Less than six weeks before the start of the 2024-25 season, the Virginia program was rocked by the announcement that Coach Tony Bennett, the Cavaliers coach the previous 15 seasons, was retiring, thus becoming the most recent wildly successful coach to exit the profession citing burnout and an inability to navigate the current landscape of college athletics. Bennett went 364-136 during at UVA, leading the program to six ACC regular-season championships, two tournament titles, 10 NCAA appearances and the 2019 national championship, while garnering ACC Coach of the Year honors in 2014, '15, '18 and '19. Longtime assistant Ron Sanchez, who returned to the program in '23 after being fired after four seasons and a 72-78 record at Charlotte, was installed as interim coach, with a national search expected at the end of the '24-25 season.

UVA, by most objective prognostications, took a step back in talent acquisition, with early season results suggesting as much. The Cavs opened with wins over Campbell, Coppin State and Villanova, but were hammered by a combined 47 points by Tennessee and St. John's in the Baha Mar Invitational at Nassau, Bahamas, before bouncing back with two low-major wins last week. According to KenPom.com, four of UVA's five wins have come against teams ranked 269th or worse. The Cavs' current KenPom ranking of 102nd puts them 13th out of the 18-team ACC. Sanchez kept the pack-line defense that made life miserable for opponents under Bennett, as well as the methodical offense that, at times, has made life miserable for UVA fans. The Cavs' collective 3-point shooting of 38.8 percent -- even though they don't take a bunch of them -- warrants attention. They're efficient with the long balls.

Guard Isaac McKneely is an elite spot-up shooter who currently is making 47.5 percent overall and 50 percent from the 3-point line on 50 attempts, which would rank second-most on the Gators. He also leads the team in steals with nine. ... Forward Andrew Rohde transferred in last season from Division II St. Thomas in Minnesota. He's got some versatility on the perimeter and is equally adept at shooting from inside (56.4 percent from 2) or outside the arc (10 of 20). He also has an eye for creating for teammates, with a team-best 18 assists. ... Forward Blake Buchanan had his career game (x10) against the Gators last season. After going for those 18 points and 10 rebounds, he totaled just 91 points the rest of the season (2.8 per game). Go figure. ... Guard Dai Dai Ames is in his first year since coming from Kansas State, where he started half the Wildcats' games last season. Like McKneely and Rohde, he's very efficient around the paint and dangerous from deep (52.9 percent). ... Forward Elijah Saunders was a role-playing freshman for the '22-23 San Diego State team that reached the Final Four and lost to Connecticut in the national championship game. He'll be active around the block.  
 

Numbers of Note

* 0 — Teams that play slower than UVA's pace of 61.7 possessions per game. For a squad that likes to get up and down (like the Gators), facing the Cavs is a test of wills (and patience).

* 8.8 — Rebound average for Chinyelu over the previous four games. 

* 17 — Unbeaten teams remaining in Division I basketball, heading into Tuesday night's games. Five of them are from the SEC (Auburn, Florida, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Tennessee). 

* 25 — The largest run of consecutive points scored by a UF basketball team before the 27-point ambush against Wichita State. That wicked run came March 18, 2012, in the second of the NCAA Tournament at Omaha, Neb., where UF fell behind 6-4 against Norfolk State and quickly flipped the score to a 29-6 lead on the way to an eventual 84-50 victory.  

* 2005-06 — The last season Florida won at least eight consecutive games by double figures (which is also the last season the team won its first nine games). They did it to 12 straight opponents. From Nov. 28 to Jan. 18, the Gators strung together victories against Alabama State, UCF, Providence, Bethune-Cookman, Jacksonville, Miami, Florida A&M, Morgan State, Georgia, Mississippi State, Auburn and Savannah State -- to start 17-0 -- before losing their first game of the season at Tennessee. That NCAA title-winning team finished 33-6.
 

Bottom Line

More of the same, please. That's the ask from the UF coaching staff ... and it starts with energy and a fierce competitiveness, two traits that do no require talent.

Email Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu