The Florida Gators (15-6, 5-3 SEC) found a potential season changing win over No.10 Kentucky on Wednesday night, marking the 4th straight conference victory for the Orange and Blue and the first quad one win of the 2023-24 season.
While the win inside Rupp Areana sparked excitement across Gator Nation, Todd Golden’s squad knows they can’t get too high following their thrilling overtime win over the Wildcats.
“We can’t get too high because if you do that you’re gonna get smacked on your face in this league,” Golden told the media on Friday afternoon. “But you got to be confident coming off that. You just can’t allow yourself to be arrogant and not remember what you did prior to the Kentucky game to put yourself in that position. We have to have the same preparation, the same mentality going in this game against A&M on Saturday.”
The page has turned to the Aggies, who are 12-8 (3-4 SEC) on the season and rank 46th in KenPom entering Saturday’s contest.
“They do two things incredibly well. They’re obviously an amazing rebounding team. I think we’re No. 2 nationally right now offensive rebounding, I think they’re one. So that’s going to be quite the scene on Saturday that way – they get to line a lot.”
Texas A&M is bringing down 43.8% of their offensive rebound opportunities, which ranks 1st in the country. As Coach Golden mentioned, Florida ranks 2nd in the country in offensive rebounding, hauling in 40.3% of their offensive rebound opportunities.
The Aggies get 22.8% of their points from the free throw line, which ranks 31st in college basketball. TAMU hasn’t been a great free throw shooting team either, connecting on just 69.2% of their attempts from the charity stripe, 2.3% below the D1 average. They are similar to Florida in the fact that they score a ton of points from the FT line without shooting it well from the line on the season. It’s important to note that the Gators have vastly improved from the FT line in conference play, connecting on 75.4% of their attempts in league play.
The Aggies rank 64th in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency, according to KenPom.
“Then defensively they do a good job taking you out of what you run,” Golden said. “They play like a little matchup zone, they guard different things, they switch a lot. They try to make you uncomfortable, so you’re not gonna be able to run your normal offense for most of the game. But you got to take advantage of when they trap the ball and when they take chances, which they do a little bit.”
“So different game stylistically. It’ll be a lot different than the Kentucky game, that’s for sure. It’s more similar to the Missouri game, more similar to Mississippi State, teams that really like to get after you defensively. But they’re good. They’re really tough on their home floor. They beat Kentucky on their home floor. So it’s a team, especially with Wade Taylor. They have some weapons and they just have a very physical mentality in terms of the way they play. So that’s gonna be the challenge is making sure we go in there and fight the fight properly,” Golden added.
Florida will have another opportunity for a quad one win against the Aggies on Saturday at 4:00 PM in College Station.