This is a crucial week for the Gators basketball team. After starting conference play 0-3, they picked up their first win at South Carolina on Saturday. They’ll host a pair of middling teams this week in Mississippi State and Vanderbilt.
Then, they’ll have an extraordinarily tough stretch of games next week. They’ll play their rescheduled game at Ole Miss and then play at No. 24 Tennessee less than 48 hours apart. They’ll then return home and play Oklahoma State in the SEC-Big 12 Challenge.
If they take care of business against Mississippi State and Vanderbilt this week, they’ll enter that gauntlet with momentum and a chance to pad their postseason resume.
If they slip up once or twice this week, however, next week could be the beginning of the end for this team.
That’s what makes their game against Mississippi State on Wednesday evening so important.
“It felt great [to beat South Carolina],” guard Phlandrous Fleming said. “I felt like we got back into our identity when we played great defense. We still have some things to work on, but getting that win feels good.”
For that good feeling to still be there around 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, they’re going to have to outbattle a big and tough Bulldogs (12-4, 3-1 SEC) squad. They’ve got five players on their roster who are 6-foot-9 or taller and four players who weigh at least 230 pounds. The Gators, by contrast, have just two players taller than 6-foot-9 who play on a regular basis, and seven of their top-10 players weigh less than 210 pounds.
Mississippi State coach Ben Howland has assembled a squad that looks more like a tight end room than a basketball team.
They’ve used that size to rank second in the SEC in both total rebounding margin and in offensive rebounding percentage. That’s a major concern for a UF team that has given up 20-plus offensive rebounds in half of its league games and needs to generate second-chance points because of its poor shooting percentages.
This game could come down to which team is able to control the tempo. The Bulldogs like to play in the halfcourt and wear teams down with their physicality. They rank 310th out of 350 teams in KenPom.com’s adjusted tempo rankings. The Gators, meanwhile, would prefer to speed things up a little, force a bunch of turnovers and get some easy buckets to jumpstart their offense.
While Mississippi State plays mind-numbingly slow, their strength is actually their offense, which is a bit rare for a team that plays at their pace. They’re shooting 47.3 percent from the field, which is second in the conference behind Kentucky. They’re taking more than 68 percent of their shots inside of the three-point arc, another rarity in the analytics-driven world of jacking up as many threes as possible.
Point guard Iverson Molinar is the engine that makes them go. He ranks third in the SEC in scoring at 17.9 points per game and ranks seventh with 4.4 assists per game. He’s in the running for All-SEC and possibly even All-America consideration. He’s only shooting 30.2 percent from long range, though, as he does most of his damage with drives to the basket.
“He’s very, very athletic,” Fleming said. “He’s good with the ball. His ball-screen reads are great. He’s the engine of their team. To me, they compare him to Russell Westbrook, and I can see it. I can see it a lot. So, we’re going to have to contain him. We’re going to have to get the ball out of his hands as much as possible so he doesn’t have to make reads or even score the ball.”
His backcourt mate, Shakeel Moore, is averaging 10.8 points per game and is shooting 35.6 percent from three.
Those are two very different – but highly effective – guards that the Gators (10-6, 1-3) will need to defend at a high level.
And then there are the Bulldogs’ bruisers in the frontcourt. Tolu Smith has only played in six games due to a fractured pinky toe but is averaging 12.8 points and 7.2 rebounds and is shooting better than 61 percent from the field. He killed the Gators to the tune of 27 points, 14 rebounds and three blocked shots on 11-for-13 shooting in Mississippi State’s win in Starkville last year.
North Carolina transfer Garrison Brooks mans the other forward spot and is averaging 11.1 points and 6.9 rebounds and is shooting a respectable 31.6 percent from deep.
“I’m sure [Smith’s] had this one circled,” UF coach Mike White said. “He was unbelievable against us last year. And you add the progression with D.J. Jeffries. Cameron Matthews has gotten better. Garrison Brooks, the addition there, another high, high-level frontcourt guy. Shakeel Moore has been another really good addition for them. The sheer speed, the quickness, has a little confidence, plays with a swagger and has a nice stroke.
“You’ve got a guy in Rocket Watts who is probably due to break out at some point here in league play. And Molinar is one of the best guards in the country, period. They’re really good, a tournament team that is physical, they pound you inside and terrific on the offensive glass. They play within themselves, with a good pace offensively and with role definition.”
While the Bulldogs have been very efficient on offense, they’ve struggled a bit on the other end. They rank just seventh in the league in scoring defense (64.7) and 10th in three-point defense (33.6 percent).
The Gators should get pretty good looks from beyond the arc, but they’ve got to knock them down at a higher rate than they have recently.
It would also help for the Gators to take care of the basketball. Even in their win over South Carolina, they turned it over 15 times. They’re now averaging 13.5 turnovers in league play.
Because of the limited number of possessions that Mississippi State’s games typically have, they probably won’t be able to overcome a dozen or more turnovers. This isn’t a team that’s easy to go on a 14-2 run against.
“It’s an adjustment,” Fleming said. “Coach wants us to, of course, not turn the ball over and value possessions because we’re a great offensive team. We have a lot of offensive weapons, but we can’t use them if we turn the ball over. We have gotten into playing off two [feet] more. Playing off two, not deciding before we make the move. We have to settle down and make a decision after the fact we get off two and settle down. We’re trying to turn the ball over less because we have a lot of different pieces that can score the ball.”
After not winning a game in more than three weeks, the Gators are feeling good about themselves heading into the Mississippi State game following their win at South Carolina.
Now they’ve got to make sure that they take another step forward and get another win. It’s only going to get harder next week.
“We just got this first win over South Carolina, so we just want to build off of that, have high spirits in the locker room, on the court,” Fleming said. “So, we’re feeling good, and I’m feeling good.”