Following the beatdown at Kentucky the Gators (16-9, 6-6 SEC) will look to get back to their winning ways on Tuesday in College Station where they’ll take on the Texas A&M Aggies (15-10, 4-8 SEC).
After dropping the game to Kentucky the Gators now sit at 7th in the SEC in a congested middle of the pack. 7th certainly isn’t where they’d love to be but only a few games separate the Gators and the fourth spot so if they’re able to take care of the games they’re expected to win they could still have some favorable seeding in the SEC Tournament.
Conference play has been a tail of two stretches for Texas A&M who started league play coming off a four game non-conference win streak. Aided a bit by a relatively soft schedule the Aggies rolled through the first two weeks of SEC play going 4-0 and finding themselves surprisingly at the top of the standings.
Since then, things have taken a nosedive.
After losing to Auburn on Saturday the Aggies have now lost 8 straight games with their last win coming in the middle of January. While they’ve come out on the wrong side of these games, it’s worth noting that they’ve actually been able to keep most of them close. They lost to Kentucky by 6, Arkansas by 3, LSU by 6, and Tennessee by 10, so it isn’t like they have been getting blown out, which you might expect from a team that has put together that many losses. For that reason, the advanced metrics actually don’t think the Aggies are that bad a basketball team, KenPom has the Aggies as the 76th best team in the country and in the ever-important NET rankings they’re 73rd. With Florida on the road for Tuesday’s game this will be a quadrant-2 game which would be a decent win for a Gators team that desperately needs one.
Florida will face an Aggies team that has improved talent from recent seasons and is extremely disruptive, a pesky defensive squad that has stayed in games with quality opponents by constantly nagging them with pressure.
This year’s Aggies play a bit less zone than we’ve seen from head coach Buzz Williams the last few seasons but they’ll still mix it in here and there to confuse and frustrate opponents. It’s often a 2-3 that they’ll match up out of, and it can make it difficult for opponents to run offense. They’re also playing a full court press a good deal this season which wears down opponents and forces turnovers. The Aggies are third in the country in steal percentage this season, a testament to their high pressure, highly disruptive defense. Five of Texas A&M’s players are in the top 300 in the country in individual steal percentage, something no other team in the country can boast. Leading the way is freshman guard Wade Taylor who often spearheads the press and opportunistically doubles down on unsuspecting ball handlers where he can tap the ball away to an awaiting teammate.
Overall, Texas A&M isn’t a super athletic, quick, or long team, and for that reason they’re only average as a halfcourt defensive team. They’re very aware of that and instead of sitting back and letting offenses get shots easily against them they go to the full court press and implement janky zone defenses in an attempt to junk up the game and hopefully confuse their opponent. They’re like a starting pitcher whose fastball tops out in the high 80’s so instead of trying to throw fast balls by a batter they have a laundry list of different offspeed pitches.
Florida will need to be prepared for a number of different looks and if they lose focus at any point during a possession they could find themselves turning the ball over and giving the Aggies free points on the other end.
Speaking of extreme strategies, you’ll also see the Aggies go after the offensive glass with a reckless abandon you don’t see from many other teams in the country. They don’t have the one single offensive rebounding monster like, say, Oscar Tshiebwe, and instead they’ll send three and even sometimes four players to the glass in order to try and cause chaos and come away with extra possessions. They’re aware they’re not the most offensively gifted team, so they attack the glass relentlessly and try to give themselves a numbers advantage by coming up with more possessions than their opponent. They’re currently 27th in the country in offensive rebounding, something incredibly concerning for a Florida team that is currently 319th in the country in defensive rebounding.
Given the fact that Texas A&M is elite on the offensive glass you’d assume they’d be great on the defensive glass, right? Well, that isn’t the case. Like Florida, Texas A&M struggles on the defensive glass but even worse, ranking 343rd in the country. The Aggies are quite undersized, often playing a 6’5” wing at power forward and a 6’2” guard at small forward and they give up all kinds of second chances due to that lack of size. Truthfully, this makes the fact that they’re able to be so good at offensive rebounding even more impressive.
Since the Gators have struggled to find offensive rhythm recently it could be the offensive glass that provides them some of their best opportunities to score. Florida is 59th in the country in offensive rebounding so they might really be able to have their way on the offensive glass, though they’ll likely be giving up second chance opportunities on the other end. This is a rare battle of two teams that are good at offensive rebounding and poor at defensive rebounding which could make for a very fascinating matchup.
Offensively the player to watch out for is Tyrece Radford, a name that might be very familiar to you. That’s because he played for Virginia Tech last year and had 18 points against the Gators in the NCAA Tournament, almost handing the Gators a loss if not for overtime. He’s a crafty 6’2” guard who can get into the paint seemingly at will, like what we saw in March last year, and could present issues for Florida’s perimeter defenders. Radford wasn’t a huge threat earlier in the season but has been one of Texas A&M’s best scorers recently and since the Gators have struggled with similar players recently it is definitely a matchup of concern.
For Florida the key to this game will be keeping Texas A&M off of the offensive glass. The Gators have had all kinds of issues doing that this season and it has negated some of the games where they have played good defense so if they’re not able to control the defensive glass, whatever else they do could be for nothing. The Aggies are loaded with big time scorers or high level athletes so their game is all about creating chaos and trying to come up with extra possessions. If Florida doesn’t turn the ball over and doesn’t allow a ton of rebounds they should be in pretty good shape to get a win that they could really use.
This game takes place Tuesday, February 15th at 7 PM ET and will be televised on SEC Network.