After suffering a crushing loss on Wednesday on the road at Ole Miss the Florida Gators (10-5, 0-2 SEC) will look to get things back on track when they take on the Arkansas Razorbacks (9-6, 0-2 SEC) on January 13th in Gainesville.
While it’s certainly too early for “must win” game conversations, Saturday’s contest is going to see two teams that are absolutely desperate for a victory. Both the Gators and Razorbacks entered the season expected to be quality teams easily in the NCAA Tournament field and right now both squads find themselves 0-2 in SEC play and outside of any brackets.
If you had to say which team is feeling more heat it would be Arkansas. The Razorbacks were picked to finish third in the SEC preseason poll and they’re coming off an offseason where they were able to not only retain some key pieces but land some big names in the transfer portal. There is one massive win on Arkansas’ resume, a home win against Duke, but after that there isn’t a lot of meat on the bone. An overtime win over Stanford would be Arkansas’ next most notable win, followed by a victory over UNC Wilmington. In the loss category the Razorbacks have one poor loss to UNC Greensboro and outside of that they have fallen to decent teams in Memphis, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and now Auburn and Georgia in SEC play.
Looking at the grand scope of Arkansas’ season it’s been the defense that has let them down. Currently the Razorbacks sit at 95th in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency metric and it was their inability to get stops which led to their non-conference losses. However, since SEC play began it hasn’t been the defense that has faulted them–it’s been their offense. In fairness Auburn is an elite defensive team and Georgia can be stout–but Arkansas couldn’t muster much and it resulted in two losses. Considering that both the offense and defense has given Arkansas problems you can see how the season is not going according to plan with them currently ranking 109th in the NET. With this game taking place in Gainesville, it will stand as a quadrant-3 game for the Gators.
Part of the underachieving of the Razorbacks could be chalked up to the play of forward Trevon Brazile and guard Davonte Davis. Brazile was picked as preseason first team All-SEC while Davis was picked second team and while both players have been decent it hasn’t been near All-SEC levels of production. Ever since coming to the SEC with Missouri, Brazile has been seen as an NBA prospect with massive talent and while he has shown flashes the injuries that started with the Tigers and carried on to his time in Arkansas have kept him from reaching his potential. Averaging 9.9 points and 6.8 rebounds while shooting 39% from three he has been a contributor–but not at the level he was expected to be. Look for him to be featured against the Gators in a stretch role where he could try to take Florida’s frontcourt players off the dribble in the way that Jaemyn Brakefield just did against the Gators with great success.
Entering his fourth year with Arkansas, Davonte Davis had the expectations of being a second team All-SEC player. Davis has never been a huge scorer but has been a dog on the defensive side of the ball and a huge part of why Arkansas has been successful on that end. He is still impactful as a point of attack defender, but his individual defensive skill hasn’t been enough to help out a Razorback squad struggling to keep the ball out of their hoop.
Leading the way in scoring for Arkansas is Houston transfer Tramon Mark who was one of the top names in the transfer portal–and for good reason. Houston has been one of the best programs in college basketball in recent seasons and Mark was a big part of that success so when he hit the portal you knew he was going to be a productive player wherever he went. Florida contacted Mark in the portal but didn’t get deep in the recruitment and he ended up at Arkansas where he was always rumored to go. He’s averaging 17.0 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 1.6 assists per game–and he’ll be at the top of Florida’s scouting report. An extremely physical guard listed at 6’5”, 195 pounds he’s able to get downhill against just about any defender and if he does get cut off he’ll turn the drive into a post up, and he usually has a length and strength advantage over any guard quick enough to cut him off on a drive. The one hole in Mark’s game to this point in his career was the three-point shot but he has made huge strides in that area now shooting 39% from three making him an extremely difficult cover. Florida just had all kinds of issues trying to keep Ole Miss’ guards from flying downhill at the rim and Mark plays a similar style which could be concerning.
Florida’s biggest focus in this game has to be tightening up their defense. Outside of offensive rebounding the Gators aren’t good enough offensively to hang with high-powered teams so they’ll need to clean things up defensively and they will be challenged by Arkansas’ dribble drives. Keeping Walter Clayton and Zyon Pullin hot will be paramount as well and while one of them, probably Walter Clayton, will be handed a tough assignment with Davonte Davis guarding him, the other guard should be able to get loose as many Arkansas opponents have this year.
One of the biggest question marks will be how much Riley Kugel plays. He only played 4 minutes against Ole Miss, and when asked about it in the postgame media availability Golden said he just didn’t think Kugel “had it” that game. Florida needs every bit of athleticism and scoring juice possible if they’re going to make noise in the SEC, so they’ll need to hope Kugel “has it” on Saturday.
This is setting up to be a remarkable game as both the Gators and Razorbacks are desperate for a win. Arkansas has won a remarkable eight NCAA Tournament games in the last three years and there was no reason to believe they’d take a step back this year so expectations were rightfully high–and they haven’t come close to reaching them yet. Florida also had high expectations entering year two of the Todd Golden era, meaning that falling to 0-3 in SEC play will be a huge disappointment to whichever team falls on Saturday.
Florida and Arkansas will tip off at 4 PM ET on January 13th and it will be televised on ESPN.