After opening the season with a convincing win over USF the Florida Gators (1-0) will head home to Gainesville for their home opener against the Jacksonville Dolphins (1-0).
This game marks the return of Jacksonville head coach Jordan Mincy to Florida after he spent 2015-2021 in Gainesville as an assistant coach with Mike White. He was also an assistant under White at Louisiana Tech, following him over to Florida after the hire. Mincy was one of the players’ favorite coaches who could keep the atmosphere in the locker room light as well as get them better on the court, and he maintains close relationships with a lot of the Gators he worked with.
Through three seasons at Jacksonville Mincy has a record of 50-43. His best season actually came in his first year where he finished second in the Atlantic Sun conference regular season and then nearly made an NCAA Tournament, falling just short losing 77-72 to Bellarmine in the ASUN Championship game. Since then, things haven’t gone quite as well. The Dolphins finished 11th and 10th in the league the last two seasons and Mincy has quite a job to do in order to turn momentum around, and he’ll hope to try to do that with a competitive game against the Gators.
Jacksonville opened their season against division-II Trinity Baptist where they were victorious 78-65. Trinity Baptist is not a particularly high-level D2 and they played 16 different players against the Dolphins, so it’s safe to say that Jacksonville was hoping for a more comfortable margin. One of the reasons why they weren’t able to pull away was the fact they were 6-32 from the three-point line (19%), which does mark a notable difference in style of play from a year ago where the Dolphins were 288th in the country in three-point attempts. It’s just a one game sample but Jacksonville was really letting threes fly in their opener so they might be looking to have much more of a long range attack this year, something they could need if they were to take down a team like Florida.
Leading the way against Trinity Baptist was returning 6’9” forward Stephon Payne who was huge on the interior with 18 points and 13 rebounds. He was an important player last year averaging 7.3 points and 6.1 rebounds, but if Jacksonville’s opener was any indication he’s going to take on a bigger offensive role this season. One of the issues for the Jacksonville roster is that they are young in the frontcourt without a lot of depth, so Payne is going to be a huge piece against the Gators and if he were to get into foul trouble or simply when he has to rest the Dolphins will suddenly look to 6’7” Zimi Nwokeji or skinny 6’9” Donovan Rivers which is going to be a Florida advantage. Leaking offensive rebounds has been an issue for the Gators and keeping Payne from getting easy second chance opportunities will have to be a focus.
One of the biggest stories for Jacksonville in the offseason was their ability to retain guard Robert McCray. McCray averaged 18.4 points and 2.9 assists per game last season, which in today’s climate usually means a jump up to a higher level in the transfer portal–particularly when they have size like McCray (6’4”) and a reliable jumper (36% from three). Shockingly, Jacksonville was able to keep McCray from leaving and he now returns to be a top projected player in the Atlantic Sun. Because of his mix of skill, size, and shooting ability, McCray is the kind of player you don’t often see at the low-major level and he’s someone who could give the Gators problems. Slowing down the versatile McCray will be at the top of Florida’s scouting report, and limiting him could mean the Jacksonville offense could be in trouble. McCray can be turnover prone, and the Gators will look to generate defelections against him that turn into points on the other end. The McCray experience could largely be defined by his performance last year against Purdue where he efficiently scored 22 points on one of the best teams in the country (9-14 shooting), but did it while turning the ball over 9 times. In fairness to McCray he is tasked with trying to create a lot out of nothing which can lead to turnovers–but there are few players in the country given enough rope to turn the ball over that much in a single game.
Mincy’s defensive philosophy is all about packing the paint, something he has had to do given the smaller players he is generally getting at Jacksonville. Because of this the Dolphins give up a ton of three-pointers and they’ll hope their opponents have an off-shooting night. The Gators are more than willing to let threes fly and they’ll be able to get shots whenever they want against the conservative Dolphins defense so they’ll have to remain disciplined and make sure they still work for quality looks as opposed to settling for threes that will always be there.
Florida will be looking to limit their turnovers from the season opener which should be possible against the conservative Dolphins defense, and they’d also like to get a bit more offensive consistency from their frontcourt. This stretch against Jacksonville and Grambling State should give them an opportunity to gain some momentum, but they also can’t take anything for granted given the young season.
Florida and Jacksonville tip off November 7th at 8 PM ET, and it will be televised on SEC Network+.