After avoiding disaster against LSU in the final moments the Florida Gators (17-7, 7-4 SEC) will get a chance to keep the wins coming when they take on the Georgia Bulldogs (14-10, 4-7 SEC) on February 17. This will be the second meeting between the two teams with Florida taking round one at home in a 102-98 thriller. With the Bulldogs currently 94th in the NET this will be a quadrant-2 game for the Gators which won’t offer much upside from a resume standpoint with a win and while a loss would be detrimental, it wouldn’t be debilitating. With the Gators currently in the NCAA Tournament field these are the games the Gators need to control, and after a scare against an LSU team in a similar situation to Georgia they should enter this game with a renewed level of focus.
Georgia will have a rest advantage in this one as their last game came on February 10th before they entered their bye week. This time off couldn’t have come at a better time for the Bulldogs who are on a five-game losing streak that started with their loss in Gainesville to Florida and continued with losses to Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi State, and lowly Arkansas. They need a full reset and to figure out what their identity is going to be for the rest of the season and the week off could be a huge advantage as we saw with the Gators when they had one of their best efforts of the season against Auburn after a week off.
Overtime was required in the first meeting between the Gators and Bulldogs which was a little bit close for comfort for a Florida team that was the heavy favorite. Georgia stayed in the game with one of their hottest shooting nights of the season going 11-26 from three, and even more important was the 19 turnovers they forced. Six Gators had two or more turnovers in this game with Will Richard (4), Tyrese Samuel (3), and Micah Handlogten (3) particularly struggling and the Gators will have to be more aware of Georgia’s perimeter pressure and interior doubling the second time around. Defensive intensity has been Georgia’s strength when they have played their best basketball this season and even in their current losing streak they have been effective defensively so the Gators will have to come into this game with a more established offensive plan. Mike White has started to play more zone defense recently and the Gators have continually struggled against zones so that could very well come into play and if the Gators again turn the ball over like they did in the first meeting things could get uncomfortable.
Another major storyline from that game was an explosive performance from RJ Melendez who had a career high 35 points. Melendez, who comes off the bench for Georgia, isn’t usually an offensive leader for the Bulldogs and the Gators may not have been ready for him to have such a huge outing and they will likely see him as a focus in the second meeting–though don’t look for him to match that output again. 35 points was nearly double Melendez’s previous career high of 18 points, and while he followed up the Florida game with a 15 point performance his next three were 6, 3, and 2 point performances. In the game prior to the 35 points he had against Florida, Melendez had 9. This isn’t to say Melendez isn’t an effective player, but he’s known more for his defense than his offense and the 35 point explosion against the Gators was likely more of an anomaly than something he’s going to replicate. Perhaps the real story of his 35 points is the fact that he went 6-10 from three exploiting the Gators’ three-point defense that lost shooters far too many times and allowed the Bulldogs to put up their biggest point total of the season.
Florida will also look to perform a bit better defensively against center Russel Tchewa, a 7’0”, 275 pound center who is perfectly suited to physically overwhelm the Gators’ more slender frontcourt. Tchewa isn’t much of a scorer usually but he had 15 points on 7-8 shooting against the Gators and Florida’s frontcourt will have to be prepared to initiate and maintain contact to keep him from getting easy looks around the rim.
When you look at Georgia’s current five-game slide they have dont well defensively but their inability to score particularly for long stretches at a time has been their undoing. In most of these losses they have had early leads, most notably a 37-21 lead over a very good Alabama team, but almost always their offense goes ice cold and no matter how good the defense is their opponent can get back into the game. Florida’s offense just had a rough showing against LSU and with Georgia having a week to prepare they’re probably going to have some decent schemes in place to slow the Gators down which could be a concern. While Georgia hasn’t been good offensively this season they did manage to score against the Gators in the last meeting and if they can regain some of that magic while continuing their defensive intensity they could find a way to win.
At the current moment the Gators are fighting for NCAA Tournament position and the Bulldogs are fighting for SEC Tournament position, and certainly Georgia would also love to play spoiler by handing the Gators a tough loss. Which team is able to execute better offensively could be the difference between a Florida team that has won 6 of their last 7 and a Georgia team that has lost their last 5.
Florida and Georgia tip off at 1 PM ET on February 17 and it will be televised on SEC Network.