Following a loss at home to Texas A&M the Gators (7-7, 0-2 SEC) will now shift their focus to Saturday’s contest against the Georgia Bulldogs (11-3, 1-0 SEC).
This game will of course mean the return to Gainesville for Mike White who led the Florida basketball program for seven seasons before taking the Georgia job. White’s record at Florida was 142-88, with an Elite Eight in 2017 being the highlight of his tenure.
It will also be the return for two assistant coaches–Akeem Miskdeen and Erik Pastrana. Fans will particularly remember Pastrana for his ability to recruit elite talent, with a pair of Florida’s elite commits choosing to go elsewhere once the staff moved on.
White inherited a Georgia team that won only 6 games last year and has already soared past that win total currently sitting at 11-3. Their schedule hasn’t been particularly difficult, but they have largely avoided bad losses with an exception of an overtime loss on the road to Georgia Tech who is 127th in the NET.
Until last week the Bulldogs had only played one particularly good basketball team, UAB, and lost by 14 points. However, their second chance to get a quality win came on Wednesday and they didn’t let that opportunity slide, dispatching the Auburn Tigers 76-64. The Tigers, of course, are coming off a win against the Gators–so the Bulldogs have the edge in a common opponent comparison situation.
Coach Mike White is largely playing a similar style of basketball at Georgia as he did at Florida. They play slow and methodically offensively and are aggressive and tough on defense, with their better side of the floor definitely being the defensive end. While this strategy might not have been the best for the talent he was getting at Florida it’s a much better fit for the situation at Georgia where he’s going to need to find ways to junk up the game against more talented opponents. This strategy worked with flying colors against Auburn, and they’ll try to grind the game down once again against the Gators who like to play fast.
Offensively one of the major issues facing the Bulldogs is turnovers. They’re currently 290th in the country in turnover rate, which is especially frustrating given how slow they play. Some teams that play fast and loose will live with turnovers when they are making high-risk plays, but the Bulldogs are a rather low-risk offensive outfit yet they are still struggling with turnovers. Florida hasn’t been a disruptive team this year and haven’t come up with a lot of steals but they’ll have the chance to change that against the Bulldogs who are prone to coughing the ball up from their frontcourt players as they try to go inside-out.
One of the reasons that the Bulldogs have been able to put up points right away and why they might surprise and finish higher in the SEC than expected is their stellar backcourt who has the opportunity to be one of the better units in the league when they’re firing on all cylinders. Terry Roberts and Kario Oquendo is an electric duo of physical, downhill guards that puts all kinds of pressure on opponents. You may remember the name Terry Roberts as the Gators were recruiting him as a transfer from Bradley, but they ultimately backed off and he ended up at Georgia. The point guard is having a stellar season putting up 15 points, 4 assists, 4 rebounds, and 2 steals a game and he’s going to be an issue for the Gators on Saturday. Roberts is 6’3”, 180 pounds, and extremely athletic for the point guard position. He is constantly looking to get downhill into the paint, and while Kyle Lofton is a savvy positional defender with league he’ll be at a considerable speed and athleticism disadvantage against Roberts and it could be a potential matchup issue. Roberts is shooting only 30% from three, an issue he’s had his whole career, and the Gators will likely have Lofton sag off him a little bit to try to encourage the jumper as opposed to the drive.
Joining Roberts in the backcourt is returning shooting guard Kario Oquendo who gave the Gators major issues last year scoring 20 and 22 points in the two meetings against the Gators last year as a very explosive scorer despite being on a team that wasn’t very good. At 6’4” and 220 pounds he almost has shades of Anthony Edwards when driving the basketball, though while he’s athletic he’s certainly not as athletic as the first overall NBA draft pick. Oquendo is extremely powerful and physical and comes off screens looking to torpedo his way to the rim and that will cause matchup issues for the Gators who have been starting 6’3” Kyle Lofton and 6’0” Trey Bonham next to each other in the backcourt. Shooting was an issue for Oquendo last year but he’s off to a decent start this year hitting 36% of his threes and if those shots are falling he’s a very difficult cover.
You’d love to say this is just another game for the Gators, or talk about how they really need a win to stay in the mix for the top half of the SEC where they’d like to finish, but the fact of the matter is that this is a pretty huge game for the perception of the program. Things are not off to a running start in the Todd Golden era, and if the team were to lose to Mike White who departed for a team that 1-17 in the SEC last year there will be a segment of fans who are extremely unhappy.
The key to the game defensively for the Gators is figuring out how they’ll keep the turbocharged backcourt of Terry Roberts and Kario Oquendo out of the paint. Florida’s current starting backcourt is undersized and not particularly athletic and it has the potential to be a matchup issue.
Offensively, the Gators need to find a system that’s going to put their players in attacking positions that utlize their strengths. Currently the Gators are in somewhat of a scoring tailspin and are seeing their efficiency numbers plummet, and against a Georgia defense that can be disruptive they’ll need to have a clear plan of attack.
This game takes place on January 7th at 1 PM ET and will be televised on SEC Network.