Florida Gators

No. 24 Florida at No. 12 Alabama

 
* When: Wednesday, 7 p.m. (ET)
* Where: Coleman Coliseum / Tuscaloosa, Ala.
* Records: Florida (18-7, 8-4) / Alabama (18-7, 10-2)
* TV: ESPN2 (Tom Hart and Jimmy Dykes)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD (Sean Kelley and Lee Humphrey) / Stations list
 

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Projected Starters

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Tyrese Samuel	F	6-10 / 239	Graduate	12.9 pts / 7.9 reb
Micah Handlogten	C	7-1 / 236	Junior	6.5 pts / 7.3 reb
Will Richard	G	6-4 / 206	Junior	11.1 pts / 3.9 reb
Walter Clayton Jr.	G	6-2 / 195	Junior	16.4 pts / 3.6 reb
Zyon Pullin	G	6-4 / 206	Graduate	15.5 pts / 4.0 reb / 4.9 ast

Alabama	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Rylan Griffen	F	6-6 / 190	Sophomore	11.2 pts / 3.6 reb
Grant Nelson	F	6-11 / 230	Senior	11.9 pts / 5.9 reb
Latrell Wrightsell	G	6-3 / 190	Senior	9.0 pts / 3.2 reb
Mark Sears	G	6-1 / 185	Senior	20.6 pts / 4.3 reb / 3.9 ast
Aaron Estrada	G	6-3 / 190	Grad	12.7 pts / 4.9 reb / 4.1 ast

The Breakdown

Setup / Series / Last Meeting

No. 24 Florida and 12th-ranked Alabama meet in a game between two of the hottest teams in the Southeastern Conference, with the Crimson Tide and their locomotive offense currently a full game atop the league standings. ... For the Gators, ranked for the first time since Dec. 6, 2021, it's a chance to see just where they match up against not just the league's best, but one of the best teams in the country in a venue that's become one of the most hostile in college basketball the last couple seasons. UF is on a three-game winning streak, with victories in three of the four previous road games, as well as seven of eight overall, and is coming off Saturday's 88-82 win at Georgia, where the Gators erased an 11-point first-half deficit for a big road triumph. Alabama, since getting trounced on the road at rival Auburn two weeks ago, has won two straight in dominant fashion, beating LSU 109-92 on the road and, following a mid-week bye, destroying Texas A&M 100-75 at home on Saturday. ... The Tide lead the all-time series 78-70 and have three straight wins, including a 97-69 massacre on Feb. 8, 2023 at Tuscaloosa, where the 28-point margin of defeat marked the Gators' worst loss in conference play in 26 years. Freshman forward Brandon Miller, the 2023 SEC Player of the Year and eventual NBA lottery pick, scored 24 points, grabbed nine rebounds and dished three assists as the Tide improved to 11-0 in the league with a 10th straight double-digit victory over a conference foe. Miller was joined in double-figure scoring by guards Mark Sears (19 points) and backup guard Jahvon Quinerly (11), but it was the totality of the Bama onslaught — both inside and out — that was the story of this game. Alabama hit 56 percent in the first half, including 9-for-17 from distance (53 percent), while Florida was shooting 23 percent overall against the nation's No. 5 defense and missing all five of its deep ones to take a 52-23 halftime lead. UF was led by forward Colin Castleton's 29 points and 10 rebounds, plus a career-high 15 points from freshman guard Riley Kugel. Castleton and Kugel combined to make 15 of their 29 field-goal tries, while the rest of the Gators went just 7-for-44 (15.9 percent). 
 

Tale of the Tape

Florida	Statistics	Alabama
84.8	Scoring	90.7
.454	Field-goal percentage	.482
.336	3-point percentage	.385
76.8	Scoring defense	76.8
.436	Field-goal percentage defense	.430
.333	3-point percentage defense	.311
27th	KenPom.com overall ranking	7th
9th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	1st
91st	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	73rd
36th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	11th
28th	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	5th
33rd	Overall strength of schedule ranking	4th

Team Snapshots

The Gators

They opened the league season with a pair of losses (at home against Kentucky, followed by an embarrassing blowout at Ole Miss), but the Gators have redirected their season to the point now

they can even dream about getting into the SEC title mix, especially with two games against first-place Alabama over the next two weeks. UF has won seven out of eight because they can score and rebound, not because of anything they've done on the defensive end of the floor with any consistency. In the win at Georgia, the Gators allowed the Bulldogs to hit their first seven shots (and nine of the first 10) on the way to 60-percent shooting in the first half and a six-point deficit at the break. The second half (after a stern talking-to by Coach Todd Golden) was different. Georgia shot just 37.5 and turned it over 10 times in the second half, as Florida went on to win for the third time in its last four road games. The X-factor for the Gators -- and not just in the second half, but the entire game -- was 6-9, 210-pound freshman forward Thomas Haugh (3.8 ppg, 3.8 rpg), who came off the bench to score a career-high 17 points, including 3-for-4 from the 3-point line, and grab seven rebounds, four on the offensive end, over 26 minutes to help spark the comeback. Coming into the game Haugh's high-minute game in league play was 14 and he had combined for just four field goals and zero 3s in those 11 SEC games. ... Speaking of freshman, backup 6-11 forward Alex Condon (7.5 ppg, 6.6 rpg) had a big hand in the victory, also. He was 4-for-7 from the floor for 10 points, three rebounds, plus an assist and steal in 19-plus minutes. ... Point guard Zyon Pullin extended his double-figure scoring string to a perfect 22-for-22. He also had team highs of seven rebounds, five assists, two steals and for the sixth time this season did not turn the ball over. ... Guard Walter Clayton Jr. led UF with 21 points, despite going just one of five from distance. Clayton, who had some big buckets early in both halves to help settle his team in, also had five rebounds and a couple steals. ... Guard Will Richard made just one of six field-goal attempts at Georgia, but hit all seven of his free throws and passed the 1,000-point milestone. Backup guard Riley Kugel also struggled from the floor in going 2-for-10 on his way to five points (his fewest in five games), but Kugel got on the glass with six rebounds. The combined 3-for-16 from Richard and Kugel, plus the starting front court of Tyrese Samuel and Micah Handlogten (both of whom had four fouls during the game and combined for just nine points and six rebounds, made the performance from Haugh and Condon all the more pivotal. Samuel actually was a minus-13 on the floor, the only Gator not on the plus side. Handlogten's two rebounds were his fewest since playing just 49 seconds before leaving the Nov. 22 game against Pittsburgh with a sore ankle. ... UF normally has a significant edge on opponents when it comes to offensive rebounding (the Gators remain No. 2 in the country in that category), but Bama can hold its own in that area at 24th in gathering their misses.  
 

The Crimson Tide

No program in the SEC has won more games than Alabama since Nate Oats came into the league for the 2019-20 season. Oats, the former high school math teacher who distinguished himself at the

University of Buffalo, is 110-29 in his five seasons, including 59-25 in SEC play, with regular-season and conference tournament championships in both 2021 and '23. A couple of Oats' past Bama teams were positively elite on the defensive end, but the '23-24 Crimson Tide rank No. 1 in the country in offensive efficiency and lead the league in virtually every offensive category. Bama, which at 90.7 points per game is tied for No. 1 nationally, scores at 57.4 percent from the 2-point area (10th nationally), 38.5 percent from the 3-point line (11th) and knocks down 79.0 percent of its free throws (6th). Defensively, they rate fourth in the SEC, but beating the Tide will require scoring with them -- and very few teams average 90 a game. ... The Tide are also battle-tested, having played the fifth-toughest schedule in the country. Before playing a league game, Alabama faced six power conference opponents and lost to five of them, with November defeats against Ohio State (neutral site) and Clemson (home) sandwiched around a win over Oregon. In one December stretch, Alabama played Purdue, Creighton and Arizona in succession over an 11-day period and lost all three. The Tide opened SEC play with four wins, but got drummed by 20 at Tennessee and four more wins got drummed again at rival Auburn, but taking matters out on LSU and Texas A&M to the tune of 209 points. ... Guard Mark Sears is likely in a dead heat with Tennessee's Dalton Knecht for SEC Player of the Year, as well as flirting with All-America status. An all-league performer last season after transferring in from Ohio U, Sears's conference numbers show 49.7 percent overall, 44.6 from 3 and a league-high 93.5 at the free-throw line. On a team that boasts three players with at least 50 makes from distance, Sears tops the squad with 60, while ranking second in assists with 98. ... Forward Rylen Griffen was a role player as a freshman last season, but now is second on the team in scoring and putting up similar shooting numbers to Sears. Griffen is at 49 overall, 42 from deep and 80 at the line. Griffen scored 17 points and dropped four 3s in the rout at A&M. ... Guard Aaron Estrada is on the extreme side of the transfer portal movement, with Alabama his fourth school after stops at Saint Peter's, Oregon, two seasons as a standout at Hofstra, and now a key component of the Alabama offense. Estrada doesn't shoot like Sears or Griffin (44 overall, 33 from deep), but he play-makes. His 102 assists top the team. ... Stretch-5 forward Grant Nelson was one of the biggest mid-major prizes in the portal. He came from North Dakota State, where Nelson was Summitt League Sixth Man of the Year as a freshman and first-team all-league in '23 after averaging 19.9 points, 9.8 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.7 blocks and 1.1 steals per game. His two-year totals with the Bison were 1,043 points and 520 rebounds. He's at 47 percent overall and 85 at the free-throw line, but just 28 from deep. ... Guard Latrell Wrightsell, transfer from Cal-Fullerton, has combined for 37 points his last two games, with a 21-point, 10-rebound double-double against LSU when he hit six 3s. With guys like Wrightsell, defenses can't focus on Sears or Griffin or any one Tider. ... Depth in the post comes from 6-10 senior Nick Pringle (5.5 ppg, 4.2 rpg) and 6-11 freshman Jarin Stevenson (5.6 ppg, 2.6 rpg).
 

Numbers of Note

* .964 — Alabama winning percentage at home the last two seasons, based on its 27-1 record at Coleman Coliseum, where only Clemson, with its 85-77 win in the ACC/SEC Challenge on Nov. 28, 2023, has gotten out alive. The Tide are 15-0 against the SEC in '23 and '24. 

* 6 — Active players in Division I who have amassed at least 1,500 points, 500 rebounds and 500 assists in their careers, a triple crown achieved over the weekend by Pullin, the grad-transfer from California-Riverside. The others: RayJ Dennis (at Boise State, Toledo and Baylor); Xavier Johnson (Pittsburgh and Indiana) Dayvion McKnight (Western Kentucky and Xavier); Tristen Newton (East Carolina and Connecticut); Baylor Scheierman (South Dakota State and Creighton)

* 6 — Where Sears ranks nationally in the KenPom Player of the Year standings, behind only Purdue's Zach Edey (1), Dayton's DaRon Holmes (2), Auburn's Johni Broome (3), San Diego State's Jaedon LeDee (4th) and UConn's Tristen Newton (5th). 

* 1999 — The last year the Gators suffered an even more lopsided loss than the 28-point margin of defeat in Tuscaloosa last season. It came at Tennessee in 1999, when Coach Billy Donovan was guiding his third UF team to its first of 14 NCAA tournament berths. The Volunteers obliterated the Gators 91-56 on Feb. 10 of that season, with the 35-point difference matching the largest for any opponent against a Donovan team during his 19 seasons on the Florida sideline.  

* 2020 — The last year the Gators defeated the Crimson Tide. The date was Jan. 4. The place was Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center. The circumstance was the SEC opener for both teams, with Alabama roaring to a 21-point lead before the Gators staged a comeback for the record books to win 104-98 in double overtime. behind a career-high 25 points from sophomore point guard Andrew Nembhard, plus 24 points and 16 rebounds from grad-transfer forward Kerry Blackshear Jr. The Tide led by eight with 40 seconds left and five with 29 to go, but UF came up with the scores and stops. In the second OT, Nembhard, Blackshear and guard Scottie Lewis each hit a pair of free throws over the final 42 seconds to ice the victory. That aforementioned trio combined to score 47 of Florida's final 52 points over the last 12 minutes of regulation and both overtimes. 
 

Bottom Line

As tough an ask for the Gators as any game they've played in recent years. But at the same time, what an opportunity.