Ole Miss will be a tougher task for Florida this go around
GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- This is not the Ole Miss team from a few weeks ago.
The Gators (14-8, 6-3) are set to journey to Ole Miss (11-11, 2-7) on Saturday to face a much stronger Rebels side than the one they faced on Jan. 14.
In that game UF went on to win 71-55 but the visitors were without their star player, Breein Tyree. Tyree is expected to play this weekend when Florida is in Mississippi.
He is averaging 18.9 points per game.
"Totally different team. We were fortunate to beat Ole Miss without two starters, Khadim Sy being out as well," Mike White told reporters on Friday. "Tyree is as good a player as there is in the SEC, scoring it off the bounce, catching it, creating it for himself, creating for others. He’s experienced. He’s competitive. He’s got a great feel. He’s got underrated speed. He’s one of these guys who looks like he’s playing the game ... the game is slow to him, but his first, second, third steps are really fast. He has the ability to fly by you. If you gap him a little bit, he can create that space to get a jumper off, really going either way."
"Yeah, big difference," point guard Andrew Nembhard said. "I mean, he’s the leading scorer in the SEC, scores like 22 a game, so I mean, he’s going to be a big factor. Obviously coming into the game, we beat them last time, but he didn’t play and their big man didn’t play, so totally different game plan for them."
Ole Miss is coming into the game on a high after upsetting South Carolina. Tyree scored 38 points in that win over the Gamecocks.
"We’ve got to do a great job of making things difficult for him on the ball and off the ball," White said. "Everything has to be contested and we’ll probably have to try different guys on him."
It's no secret that defensively Mike White's side have taken a few steps back this season.
"I can’t think of a guy that made a jump defensively lately," said White. "A lot of us have gotten better offensively and I think collectively we made a good jump offensively. Defensively we are making..we make too many mistakes. It’s got to be more important to us. Whether it is going in or not or we are in an offensive flow or not. The things we can control defensively at a higher rate we are not doing.
"I think you have too many guys that are hanging their hat on whether or not the ball is going in or not. And the ball going in being the only way they can help the team win."
Florida is set to face an elite scorer in Tyree. In its last outing, UF struggled to control Anthony Edwards, who finished with 32 points.
"Looking back at the last one, I’m not sure we had one guy who did a particularly good job on Anthony Edwards," White said. "We’ve got to get better in that respect. We have to find a lock-down guy. Maybe one guy, individually, can get into a rhythm vs Tyree, but going into it we’ll have different guys who will have different opportunities against him."
If Florida wants to turn around the season the time is now. Yes, they came back from a 22-point deficit against Georgia, however, the problem is they had to come back from a 22-point deficit.
This team will need to learn and grow from that win and improve their record on the road.
"Road wins are hard to come by, no matter who it is," said Kerry Blackshear. "They're a team that we've beat, but they're also gaining one of the best scorers in the country in their starting center, so we know we've got a challenge ahead of us. And I think coming off this win is good, but also we want to take the next step in our maturity."