No. 8 Florida vs. No. 1 Tennessee (Tuesday at 7 p.m.)

No. 8 Florida vs. No. 1 Tennessee

* When: Tuesday at 19 (ET)
*Where: Exactech Arena/O’Connell Center / Gainesville, Fla.
* Records: Florida (13-1, 0-1) / Tennessee (14-0, 1-0)
* TV: ESPN2 (Karl Ravech and Jimmy Dykes)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD / Station List
(with Sean Kelley, Lee Humphrey and Steve Egan)
* Ticket info

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Projected starters

Tennessee	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Igor Milicic	F	6-10 / 225	Senior	10.9 pts / 8.9 reps
Felix Okpara	F	6011/235	Junior	7.1 points / 5.9 reb
Chaz Lanier	G	6-5 / 207	Senior	20.3 pts / 2.9 reb
Jahmai Mashack	G	6-4 / 202	Senior	5.8 pts / 3.9 reb
Zakai Zeigler	G	5-9 / 172	Senior	11.7 pts / 3.7 rope / 8.0 ast

The breakdown

SETUP: 8. Florida and top-ranked Tennessee meet in the Southeastern Conference home opener for the Gators. UF, which dropped two spots this week Associated Press The Top 25 poll comes after Saturday’s 106-100 loss at 10th-ranked Kentucky, while the Volunteers further cemented their No. 1 ranking by smashing no. 23 Arkansas 76-52 at home, leaving them (with the losses to both UF and Oklahoma) as the only undefeated team in Division I.

SERIES: Tennessee leads 81-59, including wins in eight of the last 10 meetings dating back to 2018, with six of those games played in Knoxville. That’s where the two met in the lone meeting of ’24, in a game that was moved up two hours to a Tuesday afternoon tip-off because of a pending snowstorm. The Gators had no answer for the fifth-year grad transfer forward Dalton Knechtwho poured in a career-high 39 points on a series of offensive moves and shots while also grabbing eight rebounds as the sixth-ranked Vols won on the road, 85-66, last Jan. 16. Knecht, the transfer from Northern Colorado, went 13 of 23 from the floor, drained four of his six 3-pointers and made all nine free throws over 32 minutes. His performance paired with UT’s trademark defense, which held UF to just 29.4 percent for the game and five of 22 from the 3-point line. The Gators’ 66 points were a season low for the nation’s 24th-ranked offense.

ETC: Florida is 2-17 all-time against No. 1 team, including 0-5 at home. Not surprisingly, Kentucky was the final no. 1-ranked SEC teams that played in Gainesville on February 7, 2015. These Wildcats – with Karl-Anthony Towns, Devin Booker and Willie Cauley-Stein — came in with a perfect record through 22 games en route to winning their first 38 before being upset by Wisconsin in the Final Four semifinals. In one, the Gators actually had a second-half lead behind the hot shooting of Michael Frazier IIand only trailing by two with three minutes to go. However, Frazier left the game with an ankle injury and UF faded in a 68-61 loss. The last no. 1 SEC team Florida faced was Tennessee, led by the SEC Player of the Year Grant Williams and Admiral Schofieldin what was a 73-61 on February 9, 2019 in Knoxville.

Story of the tape

Florida	Statistics	Tennessee
88.3	Score	79.8
.478	Field-goal percentage	.481
.346	3-point percentage	.357
66.5	Scoring defense	55.9
.384	Field-goal percentage defense	.349
.286	3-point percentage defense	.243
7	KenPom.com overall ranking	4
3	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	20
38	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	1
85	KenPom.com adjusted pace	297
8	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	3
101	Overall strength of schedule ranking	76

The Gators

They went to Kentucky with the nation’s no. 8 offensive and no. 12 defense. The Gators improved on the previous number and rose to No. 3, but UK’s 58 percent overall shooting and 14 made 3s on 29 attempts sent UF tumbling all the way to 36th in defense. To be fair, the Wildcats are elite and creative with the ball, but to be real, the Gators need to be much, much better on defense if they want to seriously contend in the SEC. They also need to be better at the free throw line than going 22 of 35 (62.9 percent), especially in a two-possession game. Eight of those misses were by their top two scorers, Walter Clayton Jr. and Alijah Martinwho entered the game at 90.9 and 81.6, respectively, but went a combined 12-for-20 (60 percent). That’s not to put the defeat on their shoulders, though, as the duo also tallied 59 of UF’s 100 points. Clayton scored 33 points on 9-for-15 from the floor and six-of-12 from deep, while Martin had 26 and went nine-of-17 and 5-for-12. Clayton is now shooting 38.4 percent from the 3-point line on the season. Guard Will Richard scored nine points in what was his first game in single figures after a four-game streak in which he averaged 20.3 points per game.

Florida turned the ball over just nine times in the hostile environment that is Rupp, but Kentucky made the Gators pay with 20 points off those turnovers. Clayton had a team high five of them.

Center Rueben Chinyelu hit all four of his field-goal attempts (60.3 percent on the season) en route to 10 points and eight rebounds against the Wildcats. He was the only UF forward able to match UK’s physicality in the post as each of his fellow forwards was knocked around and backed up on occasion. Tennessee will use the same tactics, to be sure, but Chinyelu needs to show the same strength on the road. He helped the Gators outrebound the Wildcats 38-30. … Forward Alex Condon had seven points, 10 rebounds and three assists in the game. He is at 49.5 percent. … Backup forward Thomas Haugh (7.8 ppg, 5.6 rpg) and Sam Alexis (6.2 ppg, 4.8 rpg) had two different experiences at Rupp. Haugh had 11 points but just one rebound in his 21 minutes, while Alexis was scoreless and rebound-less in his five short minutes. … Denzel Aberdeen (6.9 ppg) had four points off the bench in 15 minutes and — like the rest of his teammates — had a few breakdowns on defense that need to be cleaned up.

 

The volunteers

It is their 10th season under Rick Barneswhose record with the Vols is 214-101, with two SEC regular season championships (including 2024), as well as a pair of conference tournament titles. Barnes, a future Hall-of-Famer, has 818 career wins — tied for third among D1 active coaches behind John Calipari (Arkansas) and Bill Self (Kansas) — made stops at George Mason, Providence, Clemson and Texas during a 38-year head coaching career. However, that career includes only one Final Four (2003 with Texas). He has taken the Vols to six consecutive NCAA Tournaments and last year lost to top-seeded Purdue in the Elite Eight, with four key rotation players returning from that team. Barnes’ teams always play elite defense, and this one is not only different, but ranks No. 1 nationally in defensive efficiency, as well as the no. 2 in effective field-goal percentage, no. 28 in 2-point percentage (44.9) and no. 1 in 3-point percentage (24.3). However, what has propelled the Vols to the top of the polls this season has been a vastly improved offense that ranks 20th nationally per. KenPom.comafter placing 28th, 64th, 85th and 96th the last four seasons. However, UT was not on point offensively in the win over Arkansas. The Vols shot just 39 percent for the game, but hit 10 3s. Defensively, of course, they were terrific, limiting the Razorbacks to just 37.7 percent shooting, including 6-for-29 from deep (20.7 percent), and forcing 15 turnovers.

Point guard Zakai Zeiglerthe reigning SEC Defensive Player of the Year, looks to be the guy assigned to Clayton. Zeigler has been great running the Vols offense, with his 8.0 assists per game. game more than two better than the next closest conference player. He had 15 assists against Middle Tennessee and 10 against Miami last month. Although Zeigler, second in the SEC in minutes at 33.7 per, is capable of scoring, that’s not what he’s looking to do; not at 38.5 percent from the floor at 29.6 from 3. He looks to distribute and he has plenty of options starting at shooting guard Chaz Lanierthe transfer from North Florida, who currently leads the SEC in scoring with 20.2 points per game. game and second only to Saturday’s Gator killer, Kentucky’s Koby Breain 3-point percentage of 46.7 on a league-high 120 attempts. Lanier averages four makes from deep per. game. He was five on nine attempts against Arkansas en route to 29 points.

Forward Igor Milicicwho started his career at Virginia but broke through the last two seasons in Charlotte, has been a huge addition with nearly nine rebounds a game. He had a double-double (18) against the Hogs, plus five assists. … Guard Jahmai Mashak are an ideal sidekick for Zeigler, especially with how they can harass opposing guards. He has averaged just 3.8 points over his four-year career, but is averaging 2.4 steals per game this season. game, which is third in the league. … Backup guard Jordan Gainey (11.4 ppg, 3.4 rpg) is the team’s third-leading scorer and is playing 26.5 starting minutes. He is at 47 percent from the nearly 36 from deep. … Felix Okparathe transfer from Ohio State, is at 61 percent for the season and likes to backup big Cade Phillips (6.5 ppg, 4.4 rpg) has yet to attempt a 3-pointer.

 

Remark numbers

*5 — Where Lanier currently ranks KenPom’s Player of the Year ranking. The only D1 players above him are Auburn’s Johnny BroomeDuke’s Cooper FlagMarquette Cam Jones and Kansas’s Hunter Dickinson.

* 26.6 — Percentage allowed by the Gators from the 3-point line in their 13 non-conference games (all wins).

* 48.3 — Percentage the Gators allowed from the 3-point line — on 29 attempts — in their SEC opener at Kentucky (loss).

* 1923 — Last year, Tennessee began a season with 14 straight wins. That UT team, a member of the Southern Conference at the time, finished 15-2.

* 2020 —Last year, a no. 1 ranked team against the Gators at the O’Dome. The date was January 25th. The event was the Big 12/SEC Challenge. The opponent was Baylor. Macio Teague and Devonte Bandoo scored 16 points each, and Baylor extended its winning streak to 16 with a 72-61 victory. UF, with six losses, was actually a two-point favorite going into the game, but the Bears stifled the Gators to 44 percent shooting, including just 23.5 from the 3-point line.

 

Bottom line

The Gators will either make history Tuesday night or be in an early-season SEC hole.

Email Chris Harry at [email protected]