Coach White loves a challenge and with one of the toughest schedules in the country you know you’re also going to see some of the best player. In addition to the buzzsaw that is the SEC, a league that could easily have 8 or 9 teams in the NCAA Tournament, the Gators have one of the most challenging non-conference slates in all the land. With the preseason AP Poll released yesterday we now see that the Gators will play 9 teams listed in the top-25 with a handful of games against other teams receiving votes. I thought I’d go through the schedule and point out some of the toughest players the Gators will go up against to help familiarize everyone with the talent we’ll see. For this article I decided to just do the best players from our non-conference opponents as I know most of you will be familiar with some of the great players from the SEC like Grant Williams, Daniel Gafford, or Tremont Waters and I wanted to put more of a spotlight on some of the players you may not have watched as much in the past.
Terance Mann
Florida State
His inclusion in this list isn’t just because of the way he carved the Gators in last year’s meeting, it’s also because I truly think he’ll be the best player on a Florida State team ranked 17th in the AP Preseason Poll. At 6’6” and 200 pounds he’s got an ideal frame on the perimeter and he uses it to protect the ball as he darts by smaller and less athletic defenders. His 63.5% shooting percentage from 2-point range is an indication of how he can get to the hoop and finish and the Gators will be in tough to stop him. He’s not a great shooter from outside yet but entering his senior season he might finally find the touch. If he does, watch out.
Christian Keeling
Charleston Southern
Keep an eye out for this guy as he could sneakily be the best under-the-radar player the Gators see. A 6’4” guard from Augusta, he has dominated the Big South Conference in his first two years of college basketball and could even be primed to take another step from an amazing sophomore season where he averaged 17.6 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 2.0 assists per game. Not yet a great three-point shooter, he’s slippery off the dribble to get space and will definitely be the focal point of Charleston Southern’s attack.
Pookie Powell
La Salle
Not just on this list for his incredible name, Powell is a talented guard whose raw potential would have you thinking he’d probably be playing somewhere other than La Salle. The 80th ranked player in the 2013 class, he initially played at Memphis before things didn’t work out and he decided to transfer to La Salle. As you can probably tell from the fact he was in the 2013 class, the 2 redshirt years he has taken means he is an old college player and veterans like him are the kinds of players that can win you basketball games. Averaging 16.9 points and 4.2 rebounds last year he’s a productive point guard despite being undersized and in his final hoorah of college basketball I’m sure he’ll have the game against Florida circled.
Aaron Calixte
Oklahoma
Luckily for Gator fans Trae Young is gone and it means Oklahoma has a lot less weapons in the arsenal. So few weapons, in fact, that I think their best player might be Aaron Calixte, a graduate transfer from Maine who comes in to likely be the focal point of their offense. A 5’11” point guard, he doesn’t let that small frame keep him from filling it up as he scored 16.9 points per game last season. A 90% free throw shooter he’s more than willing to take it to the cup and get sent the line where he’ll almost inevitably punish you. Another impressive stat is that he averaged 0.9 blocks last season, which for a 5’11” guard is amazing.
JT Escobar
North Florida
This was a tough one to pick as the Ospreys are returning all five of their top scorers last year and they all averaged between 11.3 and 13.8 points per game. For that reason, I could have focused on Ivan Gandia-Rosa, Garrett Sams, Noah Horchler, or Trip Day (another incredible name) but instead I chose JT Escobar, their fourth leading scorer at 11.5 points per game, because I think he could be one of the best three-point shooters in college basketball this upcoming season. At 6.5 attempts per game last season he was a 42.5% 3-point bomber and when you watch the way the ball leaves his hand you could think he might climb even higher this year. The balanced attack of the Osprey offense generates a lot of open looks and with the team returning pretty much everyone the offense should look even better and Escobar might shoot the long ball even more efficiently.
Sagaba Konate
West Virginia
The best shot blocker in the country. There’s not anything else to be said. Okay, that’s not exactly true, as for all the talk about his defense the fact he 10.8 points per game probably gets overlooked, but his shot blocking is absolutely absurd and no one can deny a dunk like Konate. Averaging an astonishing 3.2 swats per game the Gators are going to have to be aware of the great wall of Konate when they attack the hoop. What’s amazing about Konate is that he’s not that big at 6’7” with a 7’0” wingspan and doesn’t have an astronomical vertical jump, it’s mostly his immaculate timing when he goes up with two hands that results in his incredible blocks. Will any Gators challenge him at the rim? Tough to say, so we’ll have to watch to find out.
Cassius Winston
Michigan State
Cassius Winston shot 49.7% from three last season which just isn’t fair. He also distributed the ball really well with 6.9 assists per game and when you put those numbers together you can see why he’ll need to be a focus for the Gators. Truly one of the most efficient players in college basketball, the loss of Miles Bridges and Jaren Jackson Jr. to the NBA means Winston will be shouldering a lot of the load for Coach Izzo. We’ll have to see whether his pinpoint accuracy translates into the O’Dome when the Spartans come to town.
Ross Cummings
Mercer
Oh man, this one was tough to figure out. The Mercer Bears lost all five of their leading scorers leading to their best returner being Ross Cummings, a 6’3” guard that averaged 8.7 points last season. He was a great 3-point shooter at 43.2% and he’s going to need to keep that up if the young Bears team is going to have success this year.
Dinero Mercurius
Florida Gulf Coast
The Eagles are another team that last a lot of production with some outstanding players in Brandon Goodwin, Zach Johnson, and Christian Terrell all either graduating or transferring. Dinero Mercurius will be hoping to pick up the slack and his 41.4% 3-point stroke and 92.3% rate from the free throw line show how disciplined he is as a shooter. Mercurius has utilized the NCAA transfer rules to their full extent as he started at USF, transferred to the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley but never played, went to Daytona State Community College, and finally transferred to Florida Gulf coast. At 24 years old, watch for him to be a veteran leader for the Eagles.
Kamar Baldwin
Butler
One of my favorite players the Gators will see this year, Baldwin comes off a season where he averaged 15.7 points, 4.9 rebounds, 3.2 assists, and 1.5 steals. He’s an electric guard, the kind you probably imagine when you think of Big East basketball and to me he’s a player who embodies the league super well. He’s going to pressure your defense whenever he’s got the ball and really make his defender work, and he’s not going to make things easy on the other end either as he’s an excellent perimeter defender. I was shocked to see he played 34 minutes per game last season as when you watch him play there is an intensity that I have no idea how he keeps up for that many minutes. With the Gators potentially even seeing Butler twice this season due to the Battle 4 Atlantis and the game they have scheduled in Gainesville, Kamar Baldwin is a name you might get very familiar with.
Desmond Bane
TCU
The 20th ranked team in the preseason AP Poll, TCU is a talented group that has a host of players I could have chosen but I decided to go with Desmond Bane. A 6’5” wing, I see him taking the place of Kenrich Williams, a slightly bigger wing whose great season got him to the NBA this summer. Bane averaged 12.5 points and 4.1 rebounds last season but his most impressive number is definitely the 46.1% mark from three. The Gators really struggled with bigger wings last year and Bane is the exact archetype of a player that could give them fits this season. I also wanted to include Jaylen Fisher as a player to watch out for. The initiator of their offense, TCU looked a lot worse after Fisher had a season-ending injury and if he’s back to full health he could do a lot of damage for the Horned Frogs.