Tag: Wednesday

No. 5 Florida at South Carolina

 
* When: Wednesday, 7 p.m. (ET)
* Where: Colonial Life Arena / Columbia, S.C.
* Records: Florida (16-2, 3-2) / South Carolina (10-8, 0-5)
* TV: SEC Network (Mike Morgan and Mark Wise)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD / Stations list
  (with Sean Kelley, Lee Humphrey and Steve Egan) 
* Ticket info

Projected Starters

The Breakdown

SETUP: Fifth-ranked Florida faces South Carolina in a game pitting one of the nation’s best teams against an opponent searching for its first win in Southeastern Conference play. The Gators, who held their previous spot in this week’s Associated Press poll, are coming off a split week when they were upset at home by Missouri, 83-82, but rebounded Saturday with an 84-60 trouncing of Texas. The Gamecocks, meanwhile, were on the road for two games, dropping a 66-63 tight one at Vanderbilt, then getting blown out 82-62 at Oklahoma in a matchup of two SEC-winless foes. Florida is in a six-place tie for fifth in the SEC standings, while South Carolina sits alongside Arkansas as the only 0-5 teams in the league.   

SERIES: UF leads 48-29, including a 24-16 record at Columbia, where the Gators were beaten in their lone meeting with the Gamecocks last season. It was March 2, 2024. USC guard Meechie Johnson was near perfect in the second half, scoring 21 of his 25 points, including the go-ahead 3-pointer with 43 seconds left to fuel the 18th-ranked Gamecocks’ double-digit comeback and 82-76 defeat of the 24th-ranked Gators. Johnson came out of the locker room unconscious, hitting nine of his 10 field-goal attempts to ignite a rally from 10 points down with 12 minutes remaining. The Gators tried to counter Johnson’s hot hand, mostly with guard Walter Clayton Jr. dropping six 3s on his way to a team-high 20 points. Clayton, though, committed six of his team’s 12 turnovers. Five of those team turnovers came in the final three minutes against a 1-3-1 zone defense the Gamecocks rolled out midway through the period and completely altered the flow of a game. UF led by two with just over a minute to go after a Clayton 3, but Johnson’s answer, a couple UF turnovers and USC free throws fueled the outcome from there.  

ETC: The Gamecocks are the only team among 16 in the SEC with a NCAA Evaluation Rating (NET) over 75, meaning, for now, a road game at South Carolina is the only non-Quadrant 1 road game league teams will play this season.

Tale of the Tape

The Gators

They mostly played to their offensive and defensive numbers in the win over Texas. UF held the Longhorns to their lowest point total (60), shooting percentage (36.4) and fewest 3-pointers (4) of the season. The Gators turned a seven-point game at the break into a 24-point rout by shooting 58 percent in the second half and making five of nine 3s. … If the Gators win, they’ll match the best 19-game start in program history. Both national-championship teams of 2005-06 and ’06-07 started 17-2, as did the ’12-13 and ’13-14 teams. … Florida leads the SEC in 2-point percentage defense at 44.1 and remains one of the nation’s best offensive rebounding teams at 39.3 percent, which is second in the league and fourth overall.

UF got a combined 41 points from Alijah Martin and Walter Clayton Jr. in the win Saturday. Martin scored 22 points, with a trio of 3s, grabbed six rebounds, dished four assists and had just one turnover. Clayton chimed in for 19 points, a pair of 3s, but had five of the team’s eight turnovers. … Will Richard, who had nine points, five rebounds and three steals, is shooting 69.9 percent from the 2-point area. That ranks 32nd nationally. He’s at 31.6 percent from the arc on the season and just 27.3 in SEC play. Richard was listed as “probable” on the game’s availability report released Tuesday night. … Backup point guard Denzel Aberdeen followed up an uneven outing against Missouri with five points, two rebounds, two assists and no turnovers in 16 minutes against UT. 

Forward Alex Condon, after going scoreless in the first half against Texas, posted his third double-double in the last four games, finishing with 11 points and 12 rebounds, plus four steals and three assists. He was a game-best plus-26 in the box score. … Center Rueben Chinyelu, who was averaging 10.0 rebounds in SEC play, only pulled three rebounds against Texas, equaling his lowest of the season. But Chinyelu scored nine points and continues to use that physique of his to carve out lanes for drivers. He was a plus-24. … Backup forward Thomas Haugh (7.6 ppg, 5.3 rpg) after consecutive games in foul trouble, had five points, two rebounds and was whistled for just two fouls in 18 minutes. … Forward Sam Alexis (5.5 ppg, 4.5 rpg) had four points and two rebounds in his 10 minutes. He was out of position a couple times on defense and was the lone UF player to post a negative on-court score at minus-8. 

The Gamecocks

They went 11-21 in the debut 2022-23 season for Lamont Paris, who came from Tennessee-Chattanooga to succeed Frank Martin after 10 seasons. Last year, though, South Carolina was one of the surprise teams in the country. The Gamecocks won 26 games, finished fifth in the SEC and Paris was honored as SEC Coach of the Year in guiding the program to its first NCAA Tournament berth since 2017. Paris is 47-37 in his three seasons. … South Carolina opened with a home loss to North Florida. Soon came a road defeat at Indiana and neutral-site holiday tournament loss against Xavier, followed by wins over Virginia Tech, Boston College and cross-state rival Clemson in overtime — that’s 3-0 vs. the Atlantic Coast Conference — that started a seven-game streak heading into SEC play. That streak gave way to five consecutive losses. … USC ranks last in offensive efficiency in league play and 14th in defense, allowing a SEC-worst 57.1 in effective field-goal percentage. The Gamecocks 23.2 turnover percentage in four conference games is bottoms in the conference. They don’t make a lot of 3s (just 28.1 percent), so they don’t shoot a lot of them (33.5 percent of their field-goal attempts, which ranks last in SEC play). They do know how to draw fouls and get to the line. 

Injuries have impacted the Gamecocks this season. Point guard and No. 2 scorer Jamari Thomas (12.3 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 3.3 apg), a transfer from Norfolk State and starter the first 15 games, could be out a month due to a knee sprain suffered last week. His 22 3-pointers were second-most on the team at the time of his injury. Also, shooting guard Myles Stute (5.4 ppg), a starter the first 14 games and one of the team’s best from the arc, is out indefinitely due to complications from a blood clot. … South Carolina’s best player is forward Collin Murray-Boyles, who joined Condon on the SEC All-Freshman Team last season. Murray-Boyles is converting at 59.8 percent from the floor and is really good at drawing contact, with 96 free-throw attempts. His numbers have dipped in league play (12.2 ppg, 46.8 percent), as he’s become a marked man for opposing defenses. He had 25 points and seven rebounds in a narrow loss to Auburn. Murray-Boyles had 15 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks in the win over the Gators last season. … Forward Nick Pringle, a transfer from Alabama, is the team’s next-best front-court option. Pringle, though, has been a liability at the free-throw line (54.2 percent vs. SEC), with his two late misses for the lead costing the Gamecocks a shot at upsetting Auburn.

Guards Jacobi Wright and Zachary Davis are holdovers from last season. Wright has taken on most of the playmaker duties in Thomas’s absence. After scoring 20 points against Alabama, has just 18 in the three games since Thomas went down. Davis has 10 points and nine turnovers his last two games, but his forte is on the defensive end. He’s lengthy and handsy and last season gave UF fits at the top of the 1-3-1 on his way to four steals, including a couple down the stretch. Guard Morris Ugusuk has taken on a bigger role due to the injuries. He’s averaged 17.5 points and hit seven 3s on 13 attempts the last two games. 

Numbers of Note

* 1 — 3-pointers needed by Clayton to break the record for consecutive games with at least one 3, a mark he currently shares with Michael Frazier II (2012-15) at 41 straight. 

* 22 — Points needed by Richard to become the 56th player in program history to reach the 1,000-point milestone for the Gators. 

* 45 — Points needed by Clayton to become the 56th player in program history to reach the 1,000-point milestone for the Gators. Who gets there first?

* 66.9 — UF’s free-throw percentage in its five SEC games, which ranks 14th in the league. The Gators went 10-for-15 against Texas and have hit better than 70 percent in only one conference game (Tennessee) to date.  

* 2017 — The last year Florida lost a second consecutive road game at South Carolina, with most Gator fans well aware of what happened after that. UF was beaten 73-69 in overtime at Colonial Arena in 2016, then a year later, on Jan. 18, 2017, lost 57-53 on a night the Gators’ NCAA record of making at least one 3-pointer in 850 consecutive games was snapped, a streak that dated 25 years. Florida avenged that defeat with an 81-66 win at Gainesville a month later, but a month after — on March 16 at Madison Square Garden, with a trip to the Final Four on the line — the Gators blew an 11-point first-half lead and fell 77-70 to the Gamecocks in the NCAA East Regional championship game, sending South Carolina to its first Final Four.

Bottom Line

Florida has just two road wins thus far (Florida State and Arkansas). Need to start collecting more. Plus, again, if the Gators have championship and NCAA-seeding aspirations, they have to win this types of games.  

Email Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu