No. 10 Florida vs. Merrimack

 
* When: Friday, 7 p.m. (ET)
* Where: Exactech Arena/O’Connell Center / Gainesville, Fla.
* Records: No. 10 Florida (3-1) / Merrimack (2-3)
* Series/Last meeting: Florida leads 1-0. The Gators won the lone meeting 77-57 on Dec. 5, 2023, behind 26 points from junior guard Walter Clayton Jr., along with freshman forward Alex Condon’s first career double-double of 12 points and 16 rebounds. 
* TV: SEC Network+ (Ryan Urquhart and Mark Wise)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD / Stations list
  (with Sean Kelley, Brian Hogan and Steve Egan) 
* Ticket info

---

Projected Starters

 

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Alex Condon	F	6-11 / 230	Junior	16.5 pts / 8.5 reb
Rueben Chinyelu	C	6-10 / 255	Junior	9.5 pts / 9.0 reb
Thomas Haugh	F	6-9 / 215	Junior	19.0 pts / 8.5 reb
Xaivian Lee	G	6-4 / 185	Senior	9.5 pts / 5.0 reb / 5.0 ast
Boogie Fland	G	6-3 / 185	Sophomore	11.2 pts / 3.2 reb

Merrimack	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Todd Brogna	F	6-7 / 220	Junior	6.2 pts / 4.4 reb
Ernest Shelton	F	6-3 / 180	Junior	21.0 pts / 3.4 reb
Andres Marrero	G	6-3 / 200	Graduate	9.6 pts / 1.8 reb
Tye Dorset	G	6-3 / 175	Sophomore	8.8 pts / 2.6 reb
Kevair Kennedy	G	6-2 / 175	Freshman	13.2 pts / 5.6 reb / 3.4 ast

The Setup

After facing three power conference opponents in the season’s first four games, the 10th-ranked Gators get a visit from the Merrimack Warriors, out of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, in a game that will double as “Championship Ring Night” for the sold-out O’Dome crowd. All of the nearly 10,000 fans will get replica versions of the team’s 2025 NCAA championship rings, courtesy of Meldon Law. Members of the 2024-25 team — including Clayton, Will Richard and Alijah Martin at their respective NBA outposts — were presented their real rings earlier in the week alongside their NBA teams, while the current players got theirs Wednesday night during at dinner at Coach Todd Golden‘s house. UF is coming of Sunday night’s 82-68 defeat of Miami in Jacksonville, where the Gators were led by an overpowering performance from its front court and career-high 15-point effort from guard Urban Klavzar off the bench. Merrimack opened the season with three losses, but has won two straight, most recently Wednesday with a 75-62 victory at home against Maine.
 

Tale of the Tape

 

Florida	Statistics	Merrimack
87.8	Scoring	69.6
.442	Field-goal percentage	.385
.237	3-point percentage	.326
75.3	Scoring defense	78.0
.368	Field-goal percentage defense	.480
.274	3-point percentage defense	.316
8th	KenPom.com overall ranking	263rd
17th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	254th
6th	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	254th
8th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	283rd
N/A	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	N/A
59th	Overall strength of schedule ranking	168th

The Breakdown

About the Gators: They have been elite defensively and on the glass, but the offense remains a work in progress, as the starting backcourt has struggled to make shots. The starting front court of Alex Condon, Rueben Chinyelu and Thomas Haugh combined for 52 points on 20-for-35 shooting (5-for-10 from 3) in the win over the Hurricanes. Condon (19 points, 10 rebounds) and Chinyelu (16 points, 10 rebounds) each had a second straight double-double (following the same feat five nights earlier against Florida State), giving UF three straight games with two players posting double-doubles. That’s a first for the program in at least 30 years. … Florida is shooting 59.5% from the 2-point area (51st nationally), but 23.7% from the 3-point line, which ranks 345th nationally. … UF is the No. 12 rebounding team in the country, getting back 43.8% of its shots. … Backup guard Urban Klavzar broke out of his early season shooting funk by dropping four of seven from deep against the Hurricanes. Meanwhile, the struggles continued for the transfer backcourt of Xaivian Lee (17.6% on a team-high 34 attempts) and Boogie Fland (11.8%) after both went 0-for-5 last time out. Haugh leads the team in 3-point percentage at 36.4. … Backup center Micah Handlogten (7.5 ppg, 8.8 rpg) left the UM game in the first half after taking a forearm to the head and will not expected to play Friday, but is expected back next week. … Reserve guard Isaiah Brown (3.0 ppg, 3.2 rpg) scored only two points in a career-high 19 minutes against the Canes, but got praise for playing the right way. He appears to have moved ahead of freshman CJ Ingram in the rotation. Ingram played just one minute against FSU and was a DNP/Coaches Decision against UM. 

About the Warriors: They’re in the seventh season under Joe Gallo, with winning records in all but one of them. … The Warriors opened the season with three losses, including a 95-57 blowout at Auburn, but have scratched together consecutive wins against Boston U and Maine. … The five starters (four of them guards) have accounted for 74.4 of the team’s minutes through five games, with only one backup averaging at least 12 minutes off the bench. UF’s size (even with Handlogten out) and tempo should be able to take advantage of that lack of depth. … Merrimack’s lack of size makes it one of the nation’s worst defensive rebounding teams (just 42.7 percent). As such, they stay in a wing-extended 2-3 zone defense the entire game and dare opponents to make 3s, which as it turns out (at least currently) will be a pretty solid strategy in facing the Gators. … The Warriors may lack inside threats, but they have one of the best 3-point shooters in the country in Ernest Shelton, a transfer from Division II Gannon (Pa.) College, who has converted 21 of his 44 attempts for 47.7%. Against BU, Shelton dropped a school-record nine on 12 attempts on his way to 33 points. … Point guard Kevair Kennedy, a high school teammate of Shelton’s in Philadelphia, isn’t a 3-point threat (just three attempts thus far), but he’s a top-50 player at drawing fouls. Kennedy and Shelton have shot half of Merrimack’s 120 free throws this season and combined to make 86.3% at the line. … Guard Andres Marrero transferred from LaSalle. 

 

Numbers of Note 

* 1 — Power conference teams (out of 79) shooting worse than Florida’s 23.7% from the 3-point line. That team is Georgetown, which sits at 23.2%, which is 349th in Division I.

* 2 — Teams in the nation that have at least two players averaging at least 8.5 rebounds, which is half of UF’s four players (Condon, Chinyelu, Haugh and Handlogten) who averaging at least 8.5. Both of those two teams are low-major programs (Presbyterian and Robert Morris). 

* 19.7 — UF offensive possessions that have ended in a turnover. That ranks 260th nationally and is far below the Gators’ standard.  

 

Bottom Line

After this low-major speed bump, the Gators go on an ambitious and challenging run where they could face three ranked opponents (two in the top five with Duke on the road and Connecticut at Madison Square Garden) over four games. 

Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu. Find his story archives here.