With Florida’s NCAA Tournament hopes in danger they’ll have their last opportunity to get the wins they desperately need at the SEC Tournament where they’ll first see Texas A&M. As things currently stand Florida is on the wrong side of the bubble, and consensus among bracketologists is that they’ll need two wins to make the at-large field. If the Gators were to take down the Aggies they’d next see Auburn, making it a pretty difficult task. However, Florida can’t look past Thursday where they’ll see Texas A&M.
One of the reasons the Gators can’t overlook Texas A&M is that the Aggies beat Florida in the first meeting of the season. The game script saw a few interesting turns as Texas A&M led for much of the game and stretched the difference to double digits in the second half before the Gators stormed back and took the lead. It looks like they were going to hold on to win until Phlandrous Fleming committed a cardinal sin–fouling a jump shooter. He took a bad angle to close out to a Wade Taylor three point attempt and fouled him, where he then went to the line and confidently knocked down all three attempts, putting Texas A&M ahead by one. Florida got the last shot of the game to win–a decent look from Fleming in the midrange, but he missed and the Aggies were victorious.
One of the major storylines of this game was the offensive glass. Both teams entered this game with some peculiar quirks–both were solid offensive rebounding teams, and both were terrible on the defensive glass. We saw that play out exactly with the Gators getting 20 offensive rebounds while Texas A&M grabbed 17. In a one point game every possession is valuable and both teams were giving up extra possessions that defined the flow of the game.
Entering meeting number two, both teams have continued to struggle on the defensive glass while continuing to pound the offensive glass.
Florida enters Thursday’s game 72nd in the country in offensive rebounding while being all the way down at 335th in defensive rebounding.
Texas A&M will enter as the 22nd ranked offensive rebounding team and the 340th ranked defensive rebounding team.
Clearly rebounding will be a huge storyline once again and whichever team is able to win the battle on the boards could come out victorious. What makes Texas A&M’s offensive rebounding so impressive is the fact that they aren’t big, long, or athletic, and on the contrary are actually somewhat undersized. They often play four guards, and it’s often alongside Henry Coleman at center who isn’t a monster at 6’8” and 240 pounds. Their lack of size makes it apparent why they struggle on the defensive glass, but it doesn’t hold them back on the offensive glass.
One of the big reasons they’re able to offensive rebound so effectively is that it isn’t just their forwards attacking the glass. In fact, their second best offensive rebounder is Tyrece Radford, a 6’2” guard who plays the game below the rim. It isn’t size or leaping ability with him, it’s his nose for the ball and the fact he can catch opposing guards sleeping that aren’t used to being so disciplined in having to box out their check. The Gators will need to be aware of Radford’s offensive rebounding because he was able to go largely unchecked against them the first time around and it resulted in 4 offensive rebounds.
A player to watch out for is center Javonte Brown who is Texas A&M’s lone frontcourt player with noticeable size at 7’0”. He hardly plays (only 7 minutes per game that are mostly in garbage time, with plenty of “DNP-Coach’s Decisions”) but got the start against the Gators to match up with Colin Castleton. The 20 minutes he got in the game are a season high, and he did well getting 5 offensive rebounds and adding 6 points. Since then, he hasn’t played meaningful minutes. However, they used him once as a secret weapon and he could come out of the arsenal again given how well he played against Florida in the earlier meeting.
For Florida, a matchup of concern is 6’5” Quenton Jackson. Florida was able to keep him relatively in check in their first meeting (16 points, but on 4-13 shooting) but since then he has been lighting up the SEC with a 31 point game against Georgia and a 28 point effort against Alabama. Jackson is an athletic guard who can get into the paint and finish with his length and craft, and he often gets favorable matchups from the Aggies playing him at power forward. Sure, he might give up some points on the other end due to him being undersized for the position, but offensively he is able to get around pretty much any power forward that is unlucky enough to be matched up with him. Recently the Gators have gone to more lineups with Phlandrous Fleming at the four, due partially to Anthony Duruji’s injury and partially due to the effectiveness of those lineups, and they might be wise to do that to match Fleming on Jackson as much as possible.
Considering Texas A&M’s relatively small frontcourt it will be Colin Castleton that the Gators look to feature as much as possible. The Aggies did a pretty good job of forcing the ball out of his hands in the first meeting but Castleton was still able to make things happen offensively whether off drop off passes or offensive rebounds on his way to 15 points. In recent games the Gators have done a better job of getting Castleton the ball in the high post where he could turn and attack with one or two dribbles, and him catching the ball in that area made it much more difficult for opposing teams to double team him. This would be a good strategy against the Aggies who would be in tough in situations where Henry Coleman would have to guard him one on one without help and any time the Gators can create that situation they’ll likely get a good shot.
For Florida to win and continue their season they’ll need a better performance out of Tyree Appleby than what he brought in the last meeting. He was largely frustrated with only 3 points on 1-8 shooting and had trouble with the perimeter pressure the Aggies like to play with. Luckily for Florida, Appleby has been playing excellent basketball as of late. He’s averaging 17 points per game in the five games since the Gators and Aggies last met and has been confident on both sides of the floor, something that has allowed the Gators to hang in a number of important games.
Since the Aggies beat the Gators they’re 4-1, and they’ll ride a four-game winning streak into the SEC Tournament. Their last two wins include a 16-point drubbing of Alabama on the road and a tough-fought win over Mississippi State, and they’re playing some of the best basketball of their season right now. This is the time every team wants to be playing their best, and it looks like Texas A&M might be accomplishing that.
One x-factor in Florida’s favor is the fact that the SEC Tournament is in Tampa this year, perhaps giving the Gators a bit of an edge. If you’re in the area and would like to attend, tickets are still available.
Florida’s opening game in the SEC Tournament against Texas A&M takes place March 10 at 12 PM ET. It will be televised on SEC Network.