If you just look at Missouri’s record and statistics, the Gators shouldn’t have anything to worry about when the teams play on Wednesday afternoon in Columbia.
The Tigers are one of only two SEC teams to have an overall losing record. They rank last in the conference in scoring and 13th in shooting percentage. They’re 12th in scoring defense and 13th in field goal percentage defense. They have the worst assist-to-turnover ratio in the league.
Frankly, Missouri just isn’t very skilled. They don’t have anybody who’s going to draw much attention from NBA scouts.
Still, coach Mike White knows that this is a dangerous team.
Missouri led No. 1 Auburn at home for most of the night before falling by one point last week. They beat a ranked Alabama team that the Gators lost to. They went into Oxford and beat Ole Miss by 25 points. In that same situation, the Gators lost by 16 points.
So, while this isn’t a team that will play in the postseason, they are an improving bunch that are still giving their best effort for coach Cuonzo Martin.
Then there’s the recent history between these two teams. In Florida’s last trip to Columbia, the Tigers made 61.5 percent of their shots and won by 16 points. Last year, Missouri came into the O’Connell Center and stole a 72-70 win in UF’s home finale.
White is preparing his team for another hard-fought battle.
“The Missouri team’s incredibly tough and physical and disciplined and defending at a high level,” White said. “Very capable team that almost knocked off the No. 1 [team] in the country in the not-too-distant past and a team that came down last year and got us, and we struggled to have success last time we’re up there as well. So, we’ve got our guys’ attention, of course.”
This could be another game where the Gators’ lack of size and depth in the frontcourt hurts them. Center Colin Castleton will miss the sixth consecutive game with a left shoulder injury, though he is starting to do some non-contact stuff in practice. His replacement, Jason Jitoboh, was recently released from the hospital following a season-ending eye surgery.
Meanwhile, the Tigers have a couple of bruisers in the frontcourt. Kobe Brown is built like a defensive end at 6-foot-8 and 255 pounds. He leads them with 13 points per game, and he ranks fourth in the SEC in rebounding (8.5), including fifth in offensive rebounds (2.45).
Ronnie DeGray has good length on the wing and is 14th in the league in offensive rebounding at 2.2 per game.
It’ll be paramount that UF’s frontcourt players – Anthony Duruji, CJ Felder and Tuongthach Gatkek – match their physicality yet also stay out of foul trouble.
Then there’s 6-foot-9 Trevon Brazile, who is Missouri’s best three-point shooter a 35.3 percent. He also leads them with 2.4 blocks per game. One of the Gators’ forwards will need to stay with him out on the perimeter, which means that whoever is inside with Brown will have to do an excellent job of guarding him with very little help.
In the backcourt, Amari Davis is averaging 10.3 points per game, while Jarron Coleman is having a solid all-around season, with 10.1 points, 3.8 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game.
Offensively, the Gators will continue to be a work in progress. Castleton was their best offensive player, so they often dumped it inside to him on the block and played through him. Then, when he got injured, they took advantage of Jitoboh’s skill as a screener and played through him.
Without either of them, they’ve had to score almost exclusively through threes and dribble drives. Neither of those things are their strength, though they did play well in the second half of their comeback win over Oklahoma State.
“We’ll go to Colombia, see what works, what doesn’t work,” White said. “We’ll try to make some adjustments on the fly, of course. What we try to execute, how we play offensively may look different in a couple of weeks.
“We’re just different offensively, of course, but we can rally around that. We can find different ways, other guys get opportunities. It’s one of the beauties of the game of basketball; there’s a bunch of different ways to do it. And we’re searching a little bit right now, of course.”
With the Gators searching for ways to generate offense without an interior threat and the Tigers being a defensive-oriented program, White is expecting a hard-nosed, physical game.
“[Martin’s] teams are going to defend at a high level,” White said. “They’re going to execute. I think it’s the program as much as anything. He’s got some good individual defenders, but the toughness that they play with, again, you’ve got to have connectivity defensively as well. They can move their feet. They’ve got girth, too. They’ve got some strong guys that take pride in it, and they’ll fight you for every inch on the court. We try to pride ourselves on a lot of similar stuff, and I’m sure we’ll all see a couple good defenses getting after it [on Wednesday].”