Riding high after their 4th win in a row the Florida Gators (22-3, 9-3 SEC) set their sights towards a home game with the Oklahoma Sooners (16-9, 3-9 SEC), a game they’ll need to take care of if they still want a chance at the regular season title.
Currently the Gators sit third in the SEC with their 9-3 record but gained some ground yesterday as Alabama (in second place) lost to Auburn (in first place). Auburn is still two games up on the Gators at 11-1, though they have a much more challenging schedule than the Gators remaining and Florida would have the tiebreaker after beating the Tigers head to head. It’s still unlikely that the Gators would be able to grab the SEC regular season crown but it’s certainly not impossible, but in order to do so they’ll need to control games like this against the Sooners.
After Saturday’s slate of games Oklahoma now sits 14th in the SEC in their first season since making the transition from the Big 12. Their most recent loss was a heartbreaker to LSU (15th in the SEC) where Oklahoma led for much of the second half, including being up by 5 points with 40 seconds left–a situation that normally ensures an easy victory. However, that wasn’t the case and the Sooners let LSU fight their way back and win which gave Oklahoma their 4th consecutive loss and 5th in 6 games. The crushing loss was an unfortunate microcosm of a season, and the last couple of years, that haven’t gone well in the Porter Moser era. This is Moser’s 4th year at the helm for Oklahoma and up until now the Sooners have gone 23-43 in conference games (mostly Big 12, now SEC) which isn’t a particularly positive sign, and questions have started to be asked around Norman if a change should be considered.
One of the issues facing Oklahoma is the ability to bring in talent relative to the league and when you start to see where the Sooners got their players you can see why they aren’t in the upper echelon of skill and athleticism in the SEC.
Duke Miles came from High Point and Brycen Goodine came from Fairfield as solid mid and low-major players, while Mohamed Wague (Alabama), Glenn Taylor (St. John’s), and Kobe Elvis (Dayton) came from better programs, but weren’t players with huge roles.
Leading the way for the Sooners is returning forward Jalon Moore, a 6’7” face up power forward who has had a productive season averaging 17.2 points and 5.8 rebounds. Moore is a difficult cover for just about any post player even in the SEC as he has great foot speed and agility while not giving up much strength making him a challenging off the dribble driver. Moore is also knocking down 40% of his threes making him an even more challenging player to contain and he’s going to present some major issues for the Gators who want to play big in the frontcourt. Florida has had some issues with this style of face up forward this season and Moore might be one of the best in this archetype so he’s certainly a player to watch out for.
One of the positive stories of Oklahoma’s season has been the fantastic freshman campaign of Jeremiah fears who is averaging 15.2 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 3.8 assists in what has been one of the best first year seasons of anyone in college basketball in 2024-25. A point guard who stands at 6’4” and 185 pounds he has excellent size for the position to go alongside an electric first step and a great handle and when he’s “on” it seems like he can get to the rim whenever he wants. The length is also impactful on the defensive end where he has averaged 1.7 steals per game and will often gamble in passing lanes and risk fouls to try to create extra possessions.
Offensively Oklahoma isn’t flashy but they move the ball well and are constantly looking for driving lanes and they can feast on defenses who are lazy and don’t move on the flight of the ball to get set. The constant downhill drives means the Sooners draw a lot of fouls and this is where the Gators will have to be disciplined in order to not get into the bonus early to give up free points.
Generally speaking the offense for the Sooners has been solid but what has let them down this season and has led to their poor results has been the defense. This is where their inability to bring in a bunch of SEC-caliber athletes has hurt them, as they are a team that generally stays out of rotation and plays smart and with effort, but they simply don’t have the length and athleticism to hang with a lot of their opponents. Porter Moser has always been a defensive-minded coach who has had success getting a lot of teams to guard, but this simply has not been a year where the defense has clicked and Oklahoma has given up a ton of points. Florida’s offense has been humming recently and the Sooners will be in tough to slow down the attack, and could particularly struggle with Florida’s length and physicality.
Injury wise, Florida still doesn’t know if they’ll have Alex Condon or Sam Alexis. Condon likely could go if he truly wanted to grit through the pain but Florida would rather have him sit out once again in order to be at full health down the stretch. The severity of Alexis’ injury isn’t yet known, but the return of Handlogten might mean Alexis could be in tough to get significant minutes even if he is healthy.
KenPom predicts a 14-point win for the Gators which speaks to the kind of game this could be, but Florida will need to avoid this landmine if they want to have a chance at an SEC regular season championship and if they want to hold on to a projected 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Florida and Oklahoma tip off on Tuesday, February 16th at 7 PM ET and it will be televised on ESPN 2.