Florida vs. No. 21 Tennessee

 
* When: Saturday, noon (ET)
* Where: Exactech Arena/O’Connell Center / Gainesville, Fla.
* Records: Florida (10-5, 1-1) / Tennessee (11-4, 1-1)
* Series/Last meeting: Tennessee leads 82-61. The Gators and Volunteers split two regular-season meetings in 2025, both teams winning by blowouts on their home floor (UF by 30, UT by 20), only to face off in the championship game of the Southeastern Conference Tournament last March 16 on a far-from-neutral floor in Nasvhille. Florida defeated Tennessee 86-77, capturing the tournament for the first time in 10 years. The Gators surged in front midway in the first half and led for over 36 minutes. Senior guard Walter Clayton Jr. scored 22 points, with four 3-pointers, on his way to tournament Most Valuable Player honors. Will Richard added 17 points. UF beat UT 39-25 on the glass and went 25-for-29 at the free throw line. 
* TV: ESPN (Dan Shulman and Jay Bilas)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD / Stations list
  (with Sean Kelley, Patric Young and Steve Egan) 
* Ticket info

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Projected Starters

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Alex Condon	F	6-11 / 230	Junior	14.8 pts / 8.6 reb / 3.8 ast
Rueben Chinyelu	C	6-10 / 255	Junior	10.5 pts / 10.3 reb
Thomas Haugh	F	6-9 / 215	Junior	17.5 pts / 6.8 reb
Xaivian Lee	G	6-4 / 185	Senior	11.7 pts / 4.3 reb
Boogie Fland	G	6-3 / 185	Sophomore	10.8 pts / 2.3 reb

Tennessee	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Nate Ament	F	6-10 / 207	Freshman	14.7 pts / 6.5 reb
Felix Okpara	C	6-11 / 243	Senior	7.1 pts / 5.3 reb
DeWayne Brown II	F	6-8 / 251	Freshman	5.6 pts / 4.2 reb
Bishop Boswell	G	6-4 / 204	Sophomore	5.8 pts / 3.883 reb
Ja’Kobi Gillespie	G	6-1 / 188	Senior	18.7 pts / 2.8 reb / 5.7 ast

The Setup

Florida and 18th-ranked Tennessee meet in a match-up of two teams expected to contend for the Southeastern Conference title. Both took some lumps while playing rugged non-league schedules and both lost their SEC openers on the road, only to bounce back with home wins Tuesday night. … The Gators are coming off a 92-67 defeat of Georgia, while the Volunteers defeated Texas 85-71. … From 2016 to 2022, the Vols won eight of 10 in the series, but the Gators have taken three of the last five, including both home meetings during that span. … UF has won 14 in a row at the O’Dome and is 29-2 there over the last three seasons.

Tale of the Tape

Florida	Statistics	Tennessee
84.8	Scoring	83.4
.457	Field-goal percentage	.493
.277	3-point percentage	.350
71.2	Scoring defense	65.7
.407	Field-goal percentage defense	.382
.316	3-point percentage defense	.291
13th	KenPom.com overall ranking	16th
29th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	38th
8th	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	14th
71st	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	228th
22nd	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	24th
14th	Overall strength of schedule ranking	81st

 

The Breakdown

About the Gators: The win over Georgia was just the second Quadrant 1 victory, per the NCAA Evaluation Tool, in their six opportunities. This one marks a chance at a third (with two more coming next week). … UF is up to No. 8 in overall defensive efficiency and still sits second nationally in offensive rebounding (44.2%) — its plus-16.2 rebounding margin leads the country — and a solid 41st in 2-point shooting percentage (57.9%). … In going 6-for-25 from the 3-point line against Georgia, the Gators actually decreased the nation’s worst 3-point shooting percentage among power five conference teams. UF is now at 27.7% through nearly half the season. … Forward Thomas Haugh was named to the Top 25 of the Wooden Award’s midseason watch list. Why not? Against Georgia, Haugh scored 21 points and grabbed 12 rebounds for his third double-double of the season and seventh of his career. He also had five assists, four blocks and three steals over 36-plus minutes. Haugh leads the SEC in minutes played at 33.7. … Forward Alex Condon flirted with another double-double, but finished with 21 points on 9-for-12 shooting and eight rebounds. … Center Rueben Chinyelu continues to lead the SEC in rebounding and is at 62.4% from the floor. … UF’s starting backcourt, point guard Boogie Fland and Xaivian Lee, are a combined 37 of 148 from the arc. That’s 25.0%. Fland went 0-for-3 against Georgia and has missed his last 13 attempts from distance spanning four games. That said, Fland probably had his best all-around performance in running the team, finishing with eight points, eight rebounds, six assists, a steal and three turnovers, as UF shot 46.7% for the game. Lee was 2-for-9 overall, missed four of his five 3s to finish with six points, three rebounds and five assists. … Backup 7-1 center Micah Handlogten (5.2 ppg, 6.9 rpg) had his fourth double-digit rebound game off the bench with 11, including six on the offensive end. … Backup guard Urban Klavzar (8.8 ppg) went 3-for-7 from deep and is now at a team-high (by far) 36.4%. … Backup guard Isaiah Brown (4.3 ppg, 2.8 rpg) had his best and most meaningful minutes in a UF uniform, finishing with nine points, six rebounds and three blocks. The coaching staff has been waiting for that version of Brown to show up and will give him a chance to prove he can be consistent and make the right play. 

About the Volunteers: It’s their 11th season under future Hall-of-Famer Rick Barnes, who has 847 career wins in his five stops since 1987, including a 243-113 record at Tennessee that includes two regular-season SEC championships, one league tournament title, seven NCAA berths, with four Sweet 16 runs and one to the Elite Eight. In his 37 years — at George Mason, Providence, Clemson, Texas and Tennessee — Barnes has reached the Final Four just once, doing so in 2003 with the Longhorns. His teams are always among the toughest, most physical and best defensive squads in the country. This one is no different. … Tennessee’s season started ultra-soft, but then came a run of six straight power conference games over which the Vols went 3-3, with wins over Rutgers and No. 3 Houston on neutral floors and 11th-ranked Louisville at home. The three losses, consecutive, were to Kansas, Syracuse and No. 14 Illinois. … UT leads the nation in offensive rebounding at 45.2%. The team is also 11th in effective field-goal percentage (44.7) and 27th in 2-point defense (45.6). The Vols also guard the 3-point line at 29.1%, which is 18th nationally, but also won’t matter against the league’s worst 3-point shooting team. … When we last saw Ja’Kobi Gillespie, the Maryland point guard was being ushered out of the Sweet 16 by the Gators in San Francisco. He’s currently fifth in the SEC in scoring (18.7 pg), third in assists (5.7), 11th in 3-point percentage (36.4), with only four players in the league with more than his 43 makes. UT is Gillespie’s third school in as many seasons, having spent his freshman and sophomore seasons at Belmont. … The numbers, including being 24th in the SEC in scoring at 15.4 per game, aren’t eye-popping for forward Nate Ament, but the McDonald’s All American, is showing up in all 2026 mock drafts as not only a lottery pick, but maybe a top five guy. Ament isn’t a great shooter, but at 6-10 and 207 he attacks the paint, draws fouls and is an elite defender. … Ament is not the only freshman in the starting lineup. Forward DeWayne Brown is at 66% from 2 (without attempting a 3 this season) and tied for the team lead in rebounds. … Center Felix Okpara swats nearly 9% of shots taken while on the floor. … Backup “bigs” JP Estrella (10.5 ppg, 5.0 rpg) and Vanderbilt transfer Jaylen Carey (9.1 ppg, 6.5 rpg) both offensive-rebound at better than 20% in their reserve minutes. Estrella is shooting 69.9% from the floor and Carey ranks fourth in the nation on the offensive glass. … The Vols are 2-3 in Quad 1 games. 

 

Numbers of Note 

* .935 — Florida’s home winning percentage the last three seasons, based on the aforementioned 29-2 mark dating to November 6, 2023. The Gators’ lone losses over that time came in their ’24 SEC opener against Kentucky, falling 87-85, and in ’25 with an 83-82 defeat against Missouri. 

* 2 — Where Barnes, with those 847, ranks in career victories among the nation’s active Division I coaches, behind only Arkansas’s John Calipari and his 889.

* 2011 —The last year these two teams played a game when the final score was within one possession. The date was Feb. 12. The place was the O’Dome. The coaches were Billy Donovan and Bruce Pearl. The final score favored Florida 61-60, thanks to junior point guard Erving Walker’s driving lefty layup with 14 seconds to go. Walker finished with a team-best 16 points to help the Gators sweep the regular-season series between the teams. The average margin of victory (for either team) in the 23 games since is 11.8, with just eight games inside double figures and the largest victorious margin being five points (3 times). Of the last five meetings, UF won its three by 13, 30 and nine points, while UT won by two, 19 and 20, respectively.

 

Bottom Line

Arizona, Duke and UConn were high-end tests, but Tennessee is always the most physical team Florida faces during the season. We’ll know a lot more about the Gators after this one.  

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