Florida Basketball: Jumpman Invite huge for Gators NCAA hopes

Florida basketball returns to action tonight in the Queen City to take on the Oklahoma Sooners as part of the Jumpman Invitational. Following a dominant win over the Ohio Bobcats, the Florida Gators will have a huge chance tonight to bolster in resume for the NCAA tournament.

Florida Basketball: Preview by numbers

KenPom Rankings

Beating Ohio by itself isn’t that special of an accomplishment. But beating Ohio 82-48 was an impressive feat that the computer rankings have taken notice of. According to TeamRankings.Com, the Gators’ odds of landing an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament went up 15% following the win over Ohio, the second largest jump in the country.

Tonight, Florida basketball will have a test a bit harder than Ohio. Oklahoma comes in 8-3 and is 38th in the KenPom computer rankings. All other metrics have this game as a toss-up as well. Vegas has Florida has a 3.5 favorite and ESPN’s matchup predictor has Florida has a 54% favorite.

While Florida doesn’t have a bad loss on its resume, it still doesn’t have a high-quality win. Beating Oklahoma would help fix that.

Percentage of Points from Free Throws

Oklahoma’s offense averages under 70 points per game, yet its points per possession is on par with Florida’s and is ranked 53rd in the country (Florida is 59th). This is the byproduct of Oklahoma being one of the slowest teams in the country in terms of getting a shot up. The Sooners average the 7th fewest possession per game with 65 possessions per game, compared to Florida basketball usually getting 74 per game.

As a result of their slow style, Oklahoma also sits near the bottom of the country in field goals attempted which is a big reason why they sit towards the bottom in free throw attempts and points made from free throws.

The translation to all this is that if someone like Colin Castleton picks up two early fouls, Todd Golden can opt to be a little more aggressive with keeping him out there knowing the number of situations where someone could pick up a foul will be reduced.

Defensive Rebounding Percentage

Both squads collect their opponent’s missed shots 78% of the time and are both towards the top of the country in this metric. Both teams also aren’t great at getting offensive rebounds. Florida basketball is 207th by getting an offensive rebound 25% of the time. Oklahoma sits near the bottom of the country in this metric at 339th by getting their own miss just 19% of the time.

So, in a game that Oklahoma is going to want to slow down, combined with two teams that rebound opponent misses very well, the one or two extra offensive rebounds that analytics would say Florida is projected to get over Oklahoma tonight might just be the difference in game that is expected to be tight to the wire.

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