Florida Basketball: Three keys for the Gators against Richmond

Florida basketball is down in Sunrise for the Orange Bowl Basketball Classic. The Gators will take on the Richmond Spiders at 4 PM.

Coming off a sluggish win against Merrimack, Florida is looking to assert dominance as a 10.5-point favorite.

Florida Basketball: Spiderman

Pressure the shooters

Richmond comes into the game 5-4, but they are one of the better shooting teams in the country. The Spiders are ranked 19th in the country, with a shooting percentage of 49.8%. Florida is okay in this category, ranked 90th at 46%.

Richmond is prone to having some shots blocked, though, with 5% of their shot attempts being blocked this season. That’s only the 109th best in the country.

Pound the glass

One of Florida’s continued areas of strength is rebounding on the offensive side. The Gators are collecting 41.8% of their misses, 4th best in the country.

Richmond, meanwhile, isn’t an elite rebounding team. The Spiders are only rebounding opponent misses 72% of the time, 185th in the country.

Especially if the Spiders are maintaining their hot shooting, getting second-chance points is going to be massive for the Gators to try and pull away.

Force fouls

One of the other reasons why getting second chance points is so important is that in addition to Florida basketball having some struggles at the free throw line, and the Spiders rarely send their opponents to the free throw line.

Richmond, on average, only commits 14 fouls per game, the 19th best in the country. The Spiders are allowing 15.7 free throw attempts per game, 55th best in the country.