Florida Basketball claimed they came into the SEC Tournament with a chip on their shoulder after getting snubbed from a handful of awards earlier in the week. Talk can be cheap sometimes, but two games into their stay in Nashville, the Gators have backed up their talk and have plenty around America, thinking they can win it all in San Antonio in April.
But before they can cut the nets in San Antonio, they are going to try to cut the nets in Nashville. Standing in their way is the team that handed the Gators their worst loss of the season.
Florida Gators: Two Down, One To Go
Spread | Over/Under | Moneyline |
|---|---|---|
Florida (-5.5) | 143.5 Points | Florida (-260) |
When Florida blew out Tennessee by 30 when the Volunteers were the No. 1 team in the country, the Gators set all kinds of records during that January 7th game.
Tennessee returned the favor on February 1st with a 20-point blowout of their own that held Florida to an anemic 44 points.
In both games, the losing team had their single worst shooting performance of the year, and while the opposing defense played a role, it is also true that the losing team missed some wide-open shots that might have created a different narrative.
However, the fact that the winning team had 73 and 64 points, respectively, is part of the reason Vegas has this game at a shockingly low 144 points over/under.
But part of the other reason why the over/under is so low is that compared to the track meet that Missouri and Alabama like to engage in, Tennessee is more of a fan front porch sitting.
Alabama, for example, leads the country with 78.8 possessions per game. Tennessee is meanwhile 311th and averages 67.5 possessions per game.
But this is also where Florida's ability to match any style of play should pay dividends. If Tennessee wants to slow things down, Florida has the personnel to match whatever the Volunteers want to do.
As much as anything, this game might come down to whose legs enable them to actually make shots. Florida has the edge in this department too as Walter Clayton led the way for Florida in playing time for the Gators on Saturday, yet still played just 30 minutes. Tennessee, meanwhile, had three players in the top 31 minutes.
If Florida is locked in and has their legs under it, they have the tools to pull away late. For those reasons, we are predicting: