With Florida’s NCAA Tournament situation in dire straits they’ll look to avoid the final blow to their chances by taking care of Ole Miss at home.
Florida (13-12, 6-6 SEC) is in need of some quality wins of the quadrant-1 variety to find a way into the NCAA Tournament picture and that won’t be the opportunity that awaits them on Wednesday with Ole Miss (10-15, 2-10 SEC). The Rebels have had a season full of disappointment that has them sitting 12th in the SEC with head coach Kermit Davis thought to have his seat rapidly heating up. This is year five of the Davis era and while they did get to the NCAA Tournament in his first year with a team he largely inherited, things have gone downhill since and he finds himself with the worst performing team of his tenure. This is despite the Rebels bringing back some promising pieces from last season, which makes things even more frustrating for Ole Miss fans.
Davis has found a way to stay in a lot of SEC games and the Rebels have suffered a few close losses that could have gone their way, but right now their only wins in the conference are against Georgia and South Carolina–two teams in the bottom half of the league. They hoped to build some momentum after the win against Georgia on the road two games ago, but any chance of that happening was extinguished with a loss to South Carolina who was able to get revenge after falling to the Rebels earlier in the season.
In non-conference play the Rebels had one of the worst losses a high major team suffered this season, losing to North Alabama, who is 252nd in KenPom, at home.
On the positive side, the Rebels were able to get a pretty impressive win in non-conference play beating a Florida Atlantic team that dispatched the Gators. It is worth noting that Florida Atlantic was without a key player, point guard Michael Forrest, but the Rebels won impressively by 13 points. There was some hope for the season back then for the Rebels, but they now find themselves simply looking to play spoiler against teams in the top half of the SEC.
Luck hasn’t been on the side of the Rebels this season, particularly with one of their most electric players who has struggled to see the floor due to injury. 5’9” Daeshun Ruffin has shown that he is a problem to opposing defenses when healthy, as you might remember from last season when he hung an easy 21 points and 6 assists on the Gators as a freshman. He has shown flashes of that same ability this year with an 18 point, 7 assist performance against Missouri, but unfortunately there haven’t been too many instances when he has been on the floor. Ruffin only logged 11 games this season and has stepped away from the team to manage both his physical and mental health and the Rebels haven’t been able to replace his incredible scoring and playmaking ability.
Shouldering most of the offensive load is guard Matthew Murrell who is currently leading the Rebels with 14 points, 4 rebounds, and 3 assists per game. Murrell is a physical, downhill guard who is excellent at getting to the free throw line, something he showed against the Gators last year where he had 20 points to help the Rebels win. The jumpshot hasn’t been kind to Murrell who is shooting only 29% from three after shooting 39% last season so he is primarily a slasher looking to get downhill which the Gators will need to be aware of.
Another player to be aware of is 6’8” forward Jaemyn Brakefield who is best at the three or four spot but has had to play some center for the Rebels as they lack size on the inside. Brakefield started his career at Duke and has a lot of talent and a good frame, and while he wasn’t ready to be a major contributor early in his college career he has shown steady improvement and is a useful SEC competitor currently averaging 10 points and 5 rebounds per game while shooting 37% from three. Brakefield is a savvy finisher around the rim who can finish in a variety of ways around the rim and the Gators will have to try and keep him from catching the ball deep in the paint.
Ole Miss is currently 158th in the country in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency metric so they haven’t exactly excelled on that end, particularly since Ruffin stepped away from the team. They are much better on the defensive end at 91st in the country and they can frustrate their opponents by utilizing different zone defenses and switching between them often, something even during a possession. They’ll mix in some 2-3 and 1-3-1 zones, something Kermit Davis has done ever since his time at Middle Tennessee State, and they are curveballs they throw out hoping that offenses will be confused in order to win them a possession here and there.
As of February 13th the Rebels are 126th in the NCAA’s NET Rankings. That makes this a low level quadrant-3 game for the Gators–one they absolutely can’t drop if they want any chance of making the NCAA Tournament as an at-large. As has been the case in most games this season, the key to the game for Florida is figuring out how to manufacture some points, particularly against an Ole Miss defense that’s going to throw out a lot of different looks. While Florida’s defense, which has been the backbone of the team, has started to look a little bit less dominant recently–it has been really quality offenses that have exploited them. Ole Miss, without star Daeshun Ruffin, isn’t as lethal and the Gators should be able to lock things down defensively–the question will just be whether or not they are able to put up points on the other end.
This game takes place February 15th at 6:30 PM ET and will be televised on SEC Network.