Todd Golden has created a clear identity at Florida. While Walter Clayton Jr. was the team’s biggest star along its national championship run, the Gators are built around their supersized front court and interior dominance. Transfer point guard Xaivian Lee's struggles for much of the season, though he's been better lately, have only made that philosophy more obvious.
The Gators look to be surging at just the right time, but unlike last year, they don’t look bulletproof. Against Ole Miss on Saturday in Oxford, Florida has a chance to extend its lead over the rest of the SEC, and the viability of Golden’s three-big lineup with Rueben Chinyelu, Alex Condon, and Thomas Haugh will be tested once again.
Florida’s three-point shooting will be test if Ole Miss can keep the Gators off the boards
The big man is back in college basketball. Guard play determined championships in March for years, and it still played a major factor last year, but positional size has been crucial the past few years. Todd Golden knows that, but Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard has taken a different approach, playing quite a bit of small-ball in Oxford with the 11-15 Rebels, which are in 13th place in the SEC (according to CBBanalytics.com).
Despite Ole Miss playing just one true big, Malik Dia, more than 20 minutes a game, the Rebels do a great job funnelling opponents to the three-point line. The Rebels allow just 37.7 percent of their opponents’ points to come from the paint, while their opponents average a 42.9% three-point attempt rate.
Where Ole Miss’s lack of size shows up is on the boards, especially lately. For the year, Ole Miss is 15th of 16 SEC teams in defensive rebounding rate, and over the last five games, Beard’s team is allowing 17 second-chance points per game, which is in the second percentile in college basketball over that stretch.
That’s great news for Florida, which is second in the SEC in offensive rebound rate and 99th percentile nationally, averaging 16.9 second-chance points per game.
While Condon and Haugh’s size is massive for Florida’s rebounding prowess, Chinyelu leads the charge with a personal 18.6 percent offensive rebound rate; only Micah Handlogten is better, but in considerably fewer minutes. Chinyelu also leads the way with 130 second-chance points, averaging 5.0 second-chance points per game.
If Chinyelu and Florida’s bigs take over, Ole Miss won’t have a chance, and the betting odds reflect that with the Gators as 12.5-point favorites. If not, however, Ole Miss will test Florida’s three-point shooting, which has been the lone Achilles’ heel all season, ranking last in the SEC at 29.4 percent.
That percentage has ticked up slightly over the last five games at 31.2 percent, but if Ole Miss can keep Florida off the boards, that may not be efficient enough. Keeping Florida off the boards, though, is a near-impossible task.