Florida Versus Texas Southern Preview

Following a tough loss on the road to Oklahoma the Gators will get the chance at a get right game on Monday night at home against the Texas Southern Tigers. With the loss to Oklahoma the Gators are now 6-1, still a rather impressive record given the quality of their non-conference schedule. Additionally, the loss was in Norman, Oklahoma, meaning it’s not going to be a loss that hurts the Gators on their resume come March.

 

Texas Southern is 0-7 on the season, though they might very well be the top winless team in the country. This record doesn’t have as much to do with the quality of the Tigers team as it does the plight of a college program outside of the power structure. A HBCU from the Southwest Athletic Conference, Texas Southern is tasked with funding most of their basketball budget, as well as the budget of many of their non-revenue sports. So, they play as many “buy games” as possible–traveling on the road to play schedule fillers for bigger conference opponents. For this reason, the Tigers will not play a single non-conference game at home.

 

Due to the nature of these buy games they aren’t playing similar tier competition–it’s all high level conference opponents. Texas Southern has already played Oregon, Saint Mary’s, Washington, Air Force, NC State, BYU, and Louisiana Tech, and after playing at Florida they’ll go to Cincinnati and TCU before starting SWAC play.

 

All of that to say–this team is much better than their 0-7 record would suggest.

 

Texas Southern is coached by a name that might be familiar to you, Johnny Jones, who coached from 2013-2017 at LSU. Having started his coaching career in 2000 he’s an experienced bench boss who knows SEC basketball and has had a number of battles with the Gators.

 

Speaking of experience, the Tigers are just that. Astonishingly, Texas Southern has 10 seniors and 2 juniors on the roster making them one of the oldest and most experienced teams in college basketball. That experience has helped them in some of their early season contests, hanging for much of the game with Washington (72-65) and NC State (65-57). With so much age and experience, and the fact that they have already battled with so many quality opponents, they’re not going to come out scared when the ball tips in Gainesville. 

 

If there is one thing that keeps Texas Southern in the game with high major opponents, it’s their size and athleticism in the frontcourt which is on the level of some high major teams. Joirdon Karl Nicholas (6’9”, 220), John Walker (6’9”, 200), and Brison Gresham (6’9”, 240) all have legitimate size and length (and are all, of course, seniors) and they are given the green light to offensively rebound on every shot, and they do it well. The Tigers are 19th in the country in offensive rebounding percentage, something that is nothing short of incredible given the competition they have played. Oregon, Saint Mary’s, and BYU are three of the best defensive rebounding teams in the country and Texas Southern was still able to cause havoc on the offensive glass and that is something the Gators will have to be aware of. Florida isn’t great on the defensive glass as it is so running into a team like Texas Southern that will relentlessly get on the glass could cause some frustration.

 

Part of the reason Texas Southern goes so hard on the offensive glass is that they struggle mightily to shoot from the outside so they know they’ll have plenty of misses to try and go get. They have shot a dismal 25.6% from three this season, and you can tell their lack of confidence in those shots by the fact that they’re 351st in the country in three-point attempts. There are plenty of players the Gators can sag off and dare to shoot, though I’ll be interested to see if that’s a strategy they’ll want to play. In a game against a lower conference opponent the Gators might still be more interested in habits than trying to win by as much as possible, and they’ll see a lot of excellent shooting teams in the future so they may want to simply continue to build the defensive building blocks for games against those style of opponents.

 

One player who can shoot the ball for the Tigers is 5’10” junior PJ Henry. He hasn’t taken many attempts (19) but has hit 42% of them. While the low number of attempts speaks a bit to his reluctance in taking them, he has at least shown when left open he can hit them. 

 

Defensively, Texas Southern is a man to man team that likes to play aggressively and try to run opponents off the three-point line, funnelling them into the paint where their lengthy big men can contest shots. Right now the defensive numbers aren’t great for the Tigers but given how they have played one of the hardest schedules in the country you can’t put too much stock into them.

 

For Florida, this game will be all about bouncing back from what was a frustrating at times performance against Oklahoma. Their offense particularly failed them in that game and building up rhythm on that side of the floor is a definite priority as they move through the rest of their non-conference schedule. 

 

This game takes place on Monday, December 6th at 6 PM ET and will be shown on SEC Network+.

 

Eric Fawcett
Eric is a basketball coach and writer from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. His work has been found at NBA international properties, ESPN, Bleacher Report, CBS Sports, Lindy's and others. He loves zone defenses, the extra pass, and a 30 second shot clock. Growing up in Canada, an American channel showing SEC basketball games was his first exposure to Gator hoops, and he has been hooked ever since. You can follow him on Twitter at @ericfawcett_.