Florida Versus Vanderbilt Basketball Preview

Coming off their most disappointing effort of the season against Tennessee the Florida Gators (18-3, 5-3 SEC) will get a chance to bounce back February 4th when they head back to Gainesville to host the Vanderbilt Commodores (16-5, 4-4 SEC). 

 

Currently the Gators sit 5th in the SEC behind Auburn, Alabama, Missouri, and Texas A&M, with Tennessee and Ole Miss right behind them at 5-4. If Florida is going to keep pace with the top of the league a home game against Vanderbilt is the type of game they need to handle, though it won’t be an easy task against a Commodores team that is playing much better than was expected before the season.

This is the first year of the Mark Byington era at Vanderbilt after he was hired away from James Madison after an outstanding 2023-24 season. With Vanderbilt having a string of unsuccessful seasons the roster was gutted from transfers and graduations leaving Byington without much to build off of. While he was able to bring in some proven pieces there still wasn’t high expectations for the Commodores who were picked in the preseason media poll to finish dead last in the 16-team SEC.

 

Using the low expectations as fuel the Commodores came together in the non-conference season and found some chemistry with all the new pieces and came into the SEC with a cohesive plan of attack. While they dropped a couple of tough games early to the Mississippi schools they bounced back with wins over South Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky (three teams that have given the Gators issues) and all in all they sit at a respectable 4-4 in league play. That’s good enough for 9th in the league standings right now and while there is a lot of season left they have almost ensured that they will finish significantly higher than expected in the preseason and will even be in the mix for an NCAA Tournament berth. 

 

There are a boatload of new names on the Vanderbilt roster that you might not be aware of, so here is a breakdown of the notable transfers that Byington has brought in.

Jason Edwards is a shifty point guard who came from North Texas, one of the best mid-major teams in the country.

 

AJ Hoggard is a big, physical point guard who played four years at Michigan State, and you might remember him from a time when Florida heavily recruited him in the portal.

Jaylen Carey is a physical post player who played last year for Byington at James Madison and followed him to Nashville.

 

Devin McGlockton is another physical post player who played for two years at Boston College who brings some shooting ability from deep. 

 

Tyler Nickel is a long wing on his third high-major program after stints at North Carolina and Virginia Tech.

 

MJ Collins is a slashing wing, also from Virginia Tech.

 

Grant Huffman is a long point guard who struggles to shoot but is an excellent passer. He last played at Davidson.

 

Chris Manon is a tough defensive wing who transferred from Cornell.

 

Okay, you got all that straight?

It’s a ton of names, and it speaks to just what Byington had to build. There are no returning players that get regular minutes in Vanderbilt’s rotation so everything you’ll see on the court Tuesday is completely new and fresh, but Byington has brought the group together to have success. Part of the reason they were able to build up some chemistry was a very soft non-conference schedule that didn’t allow them to build up much of a resume but did allow them to gain confidence and the strategy appears to have worked as they have competed admirably in the difficult SEC so far.

When you look at what has been successful for Vanderbilt it has largely been their ability to score, and a big reason why they’ve been able to score is that Byington went all-in on ball handling in order to have as many players capable of dribbling and passing on the floor as possible. Jason Edwards, AJ Hoggard, Grant Huffman, MJ Collins, and Tyler Tanner (a freshman and the only non-transfer to play regular minutes) are all players who played point guards at their previous locations and would be considered “traditional” point guards with their styles of play. This means that Vanderbilt has three point guards on the floor at most times and at minimum two, so they always have multiple options to initiate offense and create shots. This many ball handlers makes them lethal in transition with so many players capable of playing with the ball in their hands and making the correct pass, particularly with mobile bigs like Jaylen Carey and Devin McGlockton running the floor for the option of hit aheads that turn into dunks. Vanderbilt also rarely turns the ball over due to their multiple ball handlers on the floor so defenses never really have the chance to get steals that turn into transition attempts the other way.

Byington’s prioritization of ball handling isn’t without its costs, however. You see, point guard was a difficult position to fill in the transfer portal this year and the top names were extremely expensive and difficult to acquire. The kinds of point guards that were more available to a program like Vanderbilt were the ones with a notable wart–shooting. Many teams are scared of having point guards who can’t shoot which meant AJ Hoggard, Grant Huffman, and MJ Collins, all players who are below average shooters–didn’t always get the looks from top programs. Byington saw this as an opportunity to grab some players that had size and ball handling talent despite the poor shooting and went all in on the strategy with multiple of these takes. This means that Vanderbilt is not a good three-point shooting team by any stretch ranking 209th in the country in three-point percentage and teams can sag off multiple Commodore players in order to protect the paint. 

 

While the offense has been really solid, defensively Vanderbilt is not at the same level. The Commodores have good size in their backcourt but are small everywhere else, often playing 6’7”, 230 pound Devin McGlockton at center. They also aren’t particularly athletic, something that hurts them in some individual matchups on the wing with the top SEC scorers. At guard Jason Edwards is an excellent defender on the ball who is quick and feisty, but some of the bigger guards can struggle to contain the speed of the smaller point guards in the SEC.

Vanderbilt has been a fascinating team with their roster built from scratch and the way they play so many point guards at once and it’s resulted in a quality start to the SEC season. The unique style of play will be a change for Florida who will hope to find some scoring juice after struggling to create against Tennessee.

 

Florida and Vanderbilt tip off Tuesday, February 4th at 7 PM ET and it will be televised 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_.