No. 7 Florida at Texas
* When: Wednesday, 7 p.m. (ET)
* Where: Moody Center / Austin, Texas
* Records: Florida (21-6, 12-2) / Texas (17-10, 8-6)
* Series/Last meeting: Tied 4-4. The two last met on Jan. 18, 2025 at Gainesville, where the Gators rolled to an 84-60 victory behind 49% shooting and 44 points in the paint. UF grad guard Alijah Martin scored a game-high 22 points, grabbed six rebounds and dished four assists. He did his damage inside and out, converting a trio of 3-pointers, but also attacking the basket for two old-time 3-point plays. Backcourt mate Walter Clayton Jr. added 19 points, with forward Alex Condon posting a double-double of 11 points and 12 rebounds.
* TV: ESPN2 (Tom Hart and Dane Bradshaw)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD / Stations list
(with Sean Kelley, Brian Hogan and Steve Egan)
* Ticket info
Projected Starters
UF guard/forward and scoring leader Thomas Haugh
Florida
Position
Height / Weight
Class
Statistics
Alex Condon
F
6-11 / 230
Junior
14.0 pts / 8.0 reb
Rueben Chinyelu
C
6-10 / 255
Junior
11.5 pts / 11.8 reb
Thomas Haugh
F
6-9 / 215
Junior
17.3 pts / 6.2 reb
Xaivian Lee
G
6-4 / 185
Senior
11.3 pts / 3.7 reb / 3.9 ast
Boogie Fland
G
6-3 / 185
Sophomore
11.1 pts / 2.5 reb
Texas
Position
Height / Weight
Class
Statistics
Camden Heide
F
6-7 / 215
Senior
6.7 pts / 2.8 reb
Matas Vokietaitis
C
7-0 / 255
Sophomore
15.7 pts / 6.9 reb
Dailyn Swain
F/G
6-8 / 225
Junior
17.9 pts / 7.3 reb / 3.3 ast
Tramon Mark
G
6-5 / 210
Senior
13.0 pts / 3.5 reb
Jordan Pope
G
6-1 / 180
Senior
13.0 pts / 2.0 reb
The Setup
Moody Center (capacity 10,763) on the campus of the University of Texas, opened in 2022 and cost $320 million.
No. 7 Florida and Texas square off in a game with significant postseason ramifications for both teams. … The Gators are coming off a 94-75 road triumph at Ole Miss that marked their seventh straight victory. UF has positioned itself — with a two-game cushion atop the standings on Arkansas, Tennessee and Alabama — to win the program’s first Southeastern Conference regular-season title since 2014, as well as lock up very high and favorable seeds in the SEC and NCAA tournaments by stacking a few more wins. The Longhorns had a five-game win streak snapped Saturday by a 91-80 loss at Georgia and, for now, sit precariously on the right side of the NCAA bubble, while in a four-way tie for fifth place in the conference standings with Vanderbilt, Kentucky and Missouri. Whereas UF has all but assured itself of a double-bye in the SEC Tournament, UT is virtually locked into a second-day game. … The game will mark Florida’s first conference road date at Texas. The Gators are 1-2 all-time against the Longhorns in Austin, wth their last trip there an 85-82 loss on Dec. 9, 1997 when point guard Jason Williams scored 31 points, with five 3-pointers, to go with six assists and five steals in defeat.
Tale of the Tape
Florida
Statistics
Texas
86.4
Scoring
85.1
.473
Field-goal percentage
.497
.301
3-point percentage
.354
71.2
Scoring defense
75.4
.404
Field-goal percentage defense
.441
.319
3-point percentage defense
.358
5th
KenPom.com overall ranking
32nd
16th
KenPom.com offensive efficiency
6th
4th
KenPom.com defensive efficiency
118th
27th
KenPom.com adjusted tempo
227th
7th
NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking
39th
4th
Overall strength of schedule ranking
32nd
The Breakdown
Texas guard/forward and scoring leader Dailyn Swain (3)
About the Gators: They fell shy of the No. 2-seed line in the NCAA’s first bracket reveal, but two losses by Houston, as well as singles by Illinois and Iowa State put a little less distance between the Gators and a trio of teams considered among the small group leading the national conversation. UF’s seven-game winning streak in SEC play is the program’s longest over the last nine seasons, with the six consecutive road victories the longest in the last 12. … Golden’s next win will be his 98th at Florida and would pull him even with Joe Mauer (1951-60) at No. 6 on the program’s all-time list. He’s easily on track to become the first UF coach to reach 100 victories in his first four seasons. … UF’s best offensive performance of the SEC season (57% from the floor, season-high 11 makes from 3 at 50%) didn’t help its KenPom numbers. Same with a defensive display that limited the Rebels to 41% and just two of 16 from deep. The Gators, though, did move up two spots in the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET), due to those aforementioned defeats by other teams, and sit 8-5 in Quadrant 1 games, with two more this week (three more by the end of the regular season). … In conference, UF ranks No. 1 in defense, effective field-goal percentage, defensive rebounding and 2-point defense. … The Gators turned the ball over 19 times at Ole Miss, but nine came in the first half, compared to just six through the first 16 minutes of the second before emptying the bench. … Forward Alex Condon was fantastic against the Rebels, with 24 points, six assists, just one turnover and a plus-20 on-floor score. He’s at 61.1% from 2 on the season. … Thomas Haugh came one rebound from a double-double with 20 points and nine boards. He needs one point to become the 59th player in program history to reach 1,000 for their career. … Guard Xaivian Lee had his first double-double as a Gator with 11 points and 10 assists. … Center Rueben Chinyelu was limited to just three points and six rebounds, but his next board on the offensive end will be 115th and eclipse the single-season school record he holds jointly with Dwayne Davis (1988-89). … Boogie Fland was at 12.1% from the arc in SEC play, but went 3-for-6 against the Rebels to take his in-league numbers to 8-for-47 and — in a perfect orange-and-blue world — infuse the point guard with a jolt of confidence. He shot 34% from deep at Arkansas as a freshman last season, so his potential from out there is on record. … Urban Klavzar, after going 4-for-5 from deep, is at 40.1% on the season and 43.8 in SEC play. He’s 19-for-37 during the win streak (51.4%).
About the Longhorns: They’re in the first season under Sean Miller, one of 16 active coaches in Division I with more than 500 wins, but with some obvious baggage during his rule-breaking days at Arizona. Miller, who was a standout point guard at both UCLA and Pittsburgh in the late-80s and early 90s, got his first head-coaching post at Xavier in 2004 and guided the Musketeers to four NCAA tournaments in five years before heading to Arizona in 2009. Miller won 302 games with the Wildcats over 12 seasons, with seven NCAA berths, multiple Pac-12 titles and top-10 finishes until he was fired for his implication in the FBI recruiting sting scandal. Miller sat out the ’21-22 season before resurfacing back at Xavier, where he guided the Musketeers back to two NCAAs before bolting after three seasons for the Texas post following the firing of Rodney Terry last March. … Miller is 1-0 against Golden, courtesy of Xavier’s 90-83 defeat of the Gators in first-round play of the PK85 at Portland on Nov. 24, 2002, when both coaches were in the first seasons at their respective venues. … UT lost the first four games it played against current KenPom top 20 teams (Duke, Virginia, UConn, Tennessee), but once league play began had big wins against Alabama on the road and Vanderbilt at home. After winning five straight, the Longhorns took a step back in the loss at Georgia, falling behind by 18 in the first half and allowing the Bulldogs to shoot nearly 60% overall and 55 from the 3-point line. … Texas is an elite offense (only Illinois, Purdue, Alabama, Arkansas and Michigan rate better), but their KenPom defensive rating of 118th is second-worst in the SEC behind only Oklahoma (162nd). … Guard/Forward Dailyn Swain came with Miller from Xavier. He’s at 20.5 points per game, 37.8% from distance in SEC play, excels at drawing fouls and is one of the rare good defenders on the team. He had 34 points against Mississippi State, 29 against Kentucky and 30 against Auburn, but all in losses. … Center Mata Vokietaitis, transfer from Florida Atlantic, has not attempted a 3, but he’s super-active around the rim at 63.2% from the floor. … Sixth-year Tramon Mark and Jordan Pope are guards with similar offensive skills and numbers. Mark, in his second season since transferring from Arkansas, has struggled from 3 this season (28%), but he’s at 57% from 2 and takes nearly a third of the team’s shots. Pope, who hit three 3s the last two games, scored 42 in a game last season. … Guard Camden Heide is fifth in the nation in 3-point percentage at 49.4%. He’s taken 83 shots from the arc and just 26 inside it. … Backup guard Simeon Wilcher (6.9 ppg) is 44 of 46 at the free-throw line (95.7%).
Numbers of Note
UF guard Mike Rosario (3) lit up the old Erwin Center in Austin 13 years ago.
* .710 —Miller’s all-time winning percentage, based on a 504-206 record over 21 seasons. He ranks 15th among active coaches in career victories, having passed Billy Donovan (502) on the list two weeks ago.
* plus-28 — Lee’s assists versus turnovers during the Gators’ seven-game winning streak, based on 41 assists to just 11 turnovers. That’s a nearly 4-to-1 ratio.
* 2013 — The last year the Gators played in Austin. The date was March 24. The place was the old Erwin Center, former home to the Longhorns and infamous for its bat problem. The occasion was the NCAA Tournament Midwest Region second round. The opponent was Minnesota. No. 2-seed UF, two days after dispatching of Northwestern State 79-47 in opening-round play, used a red-hot first half of 65% shooting to take a 21-point lead and behind 26 points from fifth-year senior guard Mike Rosario held off the 11th-seeded Gophers for a 78-64 victory to advance to the “Sweet 16.” Rosario, in his second UF season after transferring from Rutgers, had his finest game in a Florida uniform, burying six of nine from the 3-point line. Senior forward Erik Murphy added 15 points and four rebounds.
Bottom Line
The Gators can draw one win closer to clinching at least a share of the SEC title (not that sharing it is on their minds).
Email senior writer Chris Harry at [email protected]. Find his story archives here.
