No. 17 Florida at Texas A&M

 
* When: Saturday, 8:30 p.m. (ET)
* Where: Reed Arena / College Station, Texas
* Records: Florida (16-6, 7-2) / Texas A&M (17-5, 7-2)
* Series/Last meeting: Florida leads 11-9. The Gators lost five straight in the series from 2022-24, but have won the last two. UF defeated A&M in the semifinals of the 2024 SEC Tournament at Nashville, then smashed the Aggies 89-70 on March 1, 2025 in Gainesville behind 25 points from senior guard Will Richard, plus sophomore forward Thomas Haugh’s 17 points. 
* TV: SEC Network (Eric Frede and Pat Bradley)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD / Stations list
  (with Sean Kelley, Brian Hogan and Steve Egan) 
* Ticket info

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Projected Starters

 

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Alex Condon	F	6-11 / 230	Junior	13.8 pts / 8.1 reb
Rueben Chinyelu	C	6-10 / 255	Junior	12.1 pts / 11.3 reb
Thomas Haugh	F	6-9 / 215	Junior	17.6 pts / 6.4 reb
Xaivian Lee	G	6-4 / 185	Senior	10.7 pts / 4.0 reb
Boogie Fland	G	6-3 / 185	Sophomore	11.4 pts / 2.4 reb / 3.9 ast

Texas A&M	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Rashaun Agee	F	6-8 / 231	Senior	14.2 pts / 8.7 reb
Ruben Dominguez	G	6-6 / 213	Sophomore	12.4 pts / 2.5 reb
Rylan Griffin	G	6-5 / 181	Senior	11.5 pts / 2.7 reb
Marcus Hill	G	6-3 / 192	Senior	10.7 pts / 3.0 reb
Jacari Lane	G	6-0 / 178	Senior	7.9 pts / 2.2 reb / 3.9 ast

The Setup

No. 17 Florida and Texas A&M meet in a game at sold-out Reed Arena laced with Southeastern Conference championship ramifications. Because the teams will play only once in the regular season, the winner not only assumes the top spot of the league standings, but will have the tiebreaker down the line relative to the conference regular-season title and SEC Tournament seeding. UF and A&M are a half-game ahead of third-place Kentucky and a full game up on Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Arkansas, who are locked in a tie for fourth. … The Gators, coming off their mid-week bye, have won two straight (and seven of eight), with those victories amassed by a combined 70 points; a 95-48 road blowout of South Carolina, followed by a 100-77 rout of 23rd-ranked Alabama last weekend. The Aggies, one of the biggest surprises in the nation, had their five-game winning streak snapped with Wednesday night’s 100-97 loss at Bama, which makes this game a short turnaround and prep. They’ve won 10 of the last 12, however. … UF coach Todd Golden is 2-3 against A&M, including 0-1 on the road. 

Tale of the Tape

Florida	Statistics	Texas A&M
86.3	Scoring	92.0
.469	Field-goal percentage	.475
.289	3-point percentage	.376
71.4	Scoring defense	77.7
.412	Field-goal percentage defense	.433
.332	3-point percentage defense	.324
7th	KenPom.com overall ranking	29th
13th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	32nd
7th	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	37th
57th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	24th
11th	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	36th
5th	Overall strength of schedule ranking	74th

The Breakdown 

About the Gators: They put together the two best all-around performances of the season in the same week, so now it’s about the Gators building on those efforts, but also not falling into the trap of thinking they’ve got it all figured out (see Auburn game of two weeks ago). In beating South Carolina by 47 on the road and Alabama by 23, the Gators combined to shoot 56.1 percent, defend at 35 percent and dish 52 assists to just 13 turnovers, including only two against the Crimson Tide. … UF leads the SEC in offensive and defensive efficiency in league play. The Gators also are second in 2-point field-goal percentage (58.6) and first in guarding the 2-point area (46.5). They’re 12th, however, at guarding the arc, from which A&M excels. … Florida is looking to win a fourth straight SEC road game, a feat that’s been accomplished only six times (the last in 2017) and would tie for the third-longest such streak in program history. … Forward Alex Condon combined for 35 points, 16 rebounds, 14 assists and four blocks in the two games last week and was named SEC Player of the Week. … Center Rueben Chinyelu combined for 28 points, 28 rebounds, four blocks and was named Naismith National Player of the Week. … Chinyelu leads the league in rebounding (including a SEC-best 4.2 per game on the offensive end), while Condon ranks third. Chinyelu is shooting 62% from the floor and 74.4 from the free-throw line in conference games. … Thomas Haugh, meanwhile, merely scored 40 points in the two wins and hit 16 of 28 shots, including five of 11 from distance. He still leads the SEC at 35.1 minutes per game in league play. … Point guard Boogie Fland also was phenomenal last week, but especially against the Tide in scoring 15 points, with eight assists and a school record-tying eight steals. In SEC play, Fland has 51 assists and just 14 turnovers. He’s also combined to go 0-for-10 from the 3-point line over the last five games and is shooting 13.3% from the arc in league play. Fland’s backcourt mate, Xaivian Lee, is 0-for-7 from 3 the last two games (26.1% vs SEC on the season), yet the Gators are playing their best ball to date. Imagine if some of those shots start falling. … Backup guard Urban Klavzar is at 11.0 points per game in SEC play and shooting 39.2% from distance. He’s also shown a mid-range game and become a threat to drive the ball (even toss lobs to rim-running bigs), thus expanding his game away from just a 3-ball sniper off the bench.

About the Aggies: It’s the first season under Bucky McMillan, now the odds-on favorite for SEC Coach of the Year, as well as a candidate for NCAA Coach of the Year. McMillan brought his 100-mph, pressing, 3-point bombing “BuckyBall” to A&M by way of Samford, which took a flyer on a wildly successful local prep coach in Birmingham and was rewarded with 99 wins, a Southern Conference championship and one NCAA Tournament berth over five seasons. McMillan and his uptempo style of play bolted last spring for College Station and replaced the plodding, defense-first system Buzz Williams ran for six years. Williams left for Maryland and only one player from A&M’s ’24-25 roster returned for ’25-26, making McMillan’s exploits all the more impressive. … The Aggies are off to the program’s best start since 2015-16 when they shared the SEC regular-season title with Kentucky. … A&M had a fairly soft non-conference campaign (wins over Florida State and at Pittsburgh; losses at Oklahoma State, against UCF and SMU on neutral floors), but won its first three SEC games, including a 90-88 road victory at Auburn, which stands as its best win to date. The Aggies, though, have been impressive throughout league play, with three road wins. … A&M, which ranks second in the league in points per game, uses a rotation of 11 and plays at one of the fastest paces in college basketball, with the average possession just 15.2 seconds. The Aggies shoot it well from 2 (56.7%) and deadly from 3 (37.6). They don’t turn the ball over a lot, but do create turnovers that kick in their fast, floor-spread transition game. They are not a big team (214th nationally in average height, compared to UF at 13th) , with only one player in the rotation over 6-8, and check in 175th nationally in defensive rebounding, which Florida will try to exploit. … Forward and Southern Cal transfer Rashaun Agee is a savvy, undersized “5” man in a four-guard system who makes 60.5% of his 2-point shots. … Guard Rylan Griffin came from Kansas, but played two seasons at Alabama before that. He’s one of the Aggies’ array of outstanding perimeter shooters at 44.6, which is best among the starters. Next is Ruben Dominguez (42.8), who last year was playing professionally in Spain. … Marcus Hill, on his third school in three years, is not great from the arc (22.9%), but is terrific as a driver, guard-poster and finisher (62.8 from 2). … Point guard Jacari Lane makes it all go, with a trio of backups in guards Ali Dibba and Pop Isaacs, plus 6-11 forward Zach Clemence, all at 39% from deep or better.

 

Numbers of Note 

* 1 —A&M players (Dominguez) who log at least 25 minutes per game. In contrast, Florida has four starters at more than 25 minutes per game (with a fifth, Chinyelu, at 24.6). The Aggies will try and run the Gators to exhaustion.

* 37 — Years since senior point guard and team captain Clifford Lett set the UF single-game record for steals in a game with eight, a mark that Fland tied last weekend against Alabama.

* 2020 — The last year the Gators won at College Station and it was their trio of sophomore standouts — point guard Andrew Nembhard, forward Keyontae Johnson and shooting guard Noah Locke — who led the way in a 78-61 road win. Nemhard scored 24 points and dished five assists. Johnson had a double-double of 10 points and 10 rebounds, plus a career-high six assists. Locke dropped five 3-pointers. Combined, the three hit 21 of 37 from the floor and eight of 15 from the arc. UF is 0-3 versus A&M on the road since.  

 

Bottom Line

Winner slides into the driver’s seat in the SEC. Will be an electric atmosphere inside Reed.  

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