With Florida needing to boost their NCAA Tournament resume they get a tremendous opportunity on Saturday as they’ll welcome the Oklahoma State Cowboys into Gainesville as part of the Big 12-SEC Challenge. This is a huge opportunity for the SEC to boost the resumes of all their member institutions as right now the Big 12 is considered the best conference in college basketball. If the SEC were to win the majority of games in the challenge it would be a boost to the conference resume on the whole and for the Gators who are on the NCAA Tournament bubble it would be much needed.
Standing in the way of the Gators doing their part is a scrappy Oklahoma State who is difficult to play against. They’ve spent most of the season in the top-15 nationally in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency and while they are nowhere near as talented on the offensive end their defensive excellence has won them a number of games.
The Cowboys, 55th in the NCAA’s NET rankings, are 10-9 on the season and 3-5 in the Big 12 which isn’t a great record, but they hold one of the best wins of anyone in the country. They went on the road at Baylor and beat them 61-54, and you’d be hard pressed to find a better win than that from anyone in the country. Their next best win is a 64-51 win over Texas, and that means two wins better than anything on Florida’s resume.
While they do have 9 losses on their record, none have been particularly bad. Their worst loss has been to Oakland, but they’re the Horizon League favorite to win and are currently 95th in the NET. They also lost to Wichita State, who is 83rd. With the Big 12 considered to be the best league in college basketball there aren’t really bad losses they could take in league play, so that’s why their overall numbers are solid and why they’re around Florida (45th) in the NET.
For the Gators, Oklahoma State is the exact kind of team they need to beat if they want to make the NCAA Tournament. Right now the Cowboys (who are technically ruled ineligible for postseason play due to an NCAA ruling which, if you haven’t already heard about, is far too long of a story to get into in this article) would be on the wrong side of the NCAA Tournament bubble. Lose to them at home, and that’s another devastating blow to a resume that is already full of holes. Win, and you show that you might just be a team worthy of being on the right side of the bubble.
Another storyline to this game will be assistant coach Erik Pastrana getting to play his former team. Pastrana is still close friends with Oklahoma State head coach Mike Boynton, and Pastrana would certainly love to get the upper hand over him with a win. Pastrana will almost certainly have the scout for this game, and hopefully his insight will help the Gators find an edge.
If there is a place the Gators could use an edge it’s to solve Oklahoma State’s defense. Currently 12th in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency the Cowboys have been clamping down opponents all season long, most notably in the Baylor game when the Bears, who are 5th in the country in offense, were held to 54 points on 31% shooting from the field.
Looking up and down the Cowboys roster you will see exclusively plus defenders who can guard their own position and play strong team defense as well. Moussa Cisse, a 6’10” center, is one of the best shot blockers in the country and he also moves well on the perimeter making him the centerpiece of the defensive operation. They can funnel drivers to him in the paint, especially on the baseline, and if opponents try to play pick and roll Cisse can either hedge aggressively or switch to bust up the action.
On the perimeter Avery Anderson, Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe, Isaac Likekele, and Bryce Thompson are all long, athletic wings who plug off perimeter drives and generally make the Cowboys tough to score on. For a Florida team that struggles to generate offense off drives you can certainly see where they could have some trouble against Oklahoma State who has enough quality defenders to neutralize Florida’s perimeter threats.
Mike Boynton has generally been a man to man defensive coach but he’ll also mix in some 2-3 zone, though it’s far from a passive strategy. They’re still very aggressive when in their zone, playing the wings high and matching up with players in a way that can almost disguise the zone and make it appear like they’re still in man. It’s another way they can cause confusion and disruption with their defense and it’s something that Florida will have to be prepared for.
Offensively things are nowhere near as smooth for Oklahoma State as they are on the defensive end. Currently they rank 176th in adjusted offensive efficiency, a number that has been steadily getting worse and worse throughout the season. The first thing you notice looking at Oklahoma State’s offensive woes is the fact that they struggle shooting the three, currently 330th in the country at 29.2%. Some of this is the result of Mike Boynton’s culture where defense matters more than anything else. He has been willing to take players that excel defensively but struggle on the offensive end and he will continue to play players who defend at a high level even if they don’t provide much offensively, so missing shots from the outside is a little bit of the price they pay for having such a good defense. Many of their lineups will feature three non-shooters and just how the Gators respond to that will be one of the early storylines to watch for. Against Tennessee the Gators played heavily in the gaps to help on drives and were willing to give up some threes because of it and playing against an even worse shooting Oklahoma State team you’d think they’d employ a similar strategy.
The Cowboys don’t really have a focal point offensively so if you’re looking for key players to shut down it would be either Bryce Williams (11 points, 3 assists), Avery Anderson (11 points, 2 assists), or Isaac Likelele (7 points, 4 assists) who all, as you can see, don’t average ridiculous numbers but all have their moments leading the offense. Oklahoma State has to move the ball a lot side to side and try to develop offense with screens and cuts since they don’t have a huge threat with the ball in their hands, so you can see the assists spread out with a number of players.
Injuries have played a big role for the Gators and we don’t yet know who will be available Saturday. Colin Castleton has now missed 4 straight games, and his return hasn’t been announced. CJ Felder essentially missed the last two games with a non-COVID illness, and considering he dressed and got in for two minutes out of desperation against Tennessee you’d think he’d have a chance at being ready for Saturday. Jason Jitoboh got hit in the eye against the Volunteers and was immediately ruled out for the game, and there has been no update on his injury situation. If Florida were to be without Castleton and Jitoboh it would be huge if Felder was available to play some minutes at center. He’s hardly got to play minutes at center but that could very well be his best position so he’d give a big boost if healthy.
As a team, the key to the game for Florida will be their offense. Florida has had some stale offensive games against teams that were nowhere near as good defensively as Oklahoma State so if Florida doesn’t play their A-game offensively they could get suffocated.
This game takes place Saturday, January 29 at 4 PM ET. It will be televised on ESPN 2.