Florida men\u2019s basketball takes on Miami in the Jacksonville Hoops Showdown on Sunday. The No. 10 Gators enter the matchup at 2-1, while the Hurricanes are unranked, but have won their first three games.<\/p>\n
Expectations were high for the defending national champions going into the season. But Florida has met those high expectations thus far.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Gators opened the season with a disappointing loss to No. 13 Arizona. However, they followed the disappointing start with wins against North Florida and Florida State. Yet even those two wins left something to be desired for Gators fans as Florida\u2019s flaws were on full display in each.<\/p>\n
Struggling with the 3-pointer has been a theme for the Gators this season after it was one of the team\u2019s greatest strengths last year. The team is sorely missing their guard trio of Walter Clayton Jr., Alijah Martin and Will Richard from a year ago. The Gators are just 21.1% from the 3-point line compared to a 35.5% mark last season. \u00a0In its most recent win against FSU, Florida shot 6-31 from the line.<\/p>\n
The Gators have also seen a slight dip in their free-throw percentage, dropping from 71.8% to 66.7%.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole team is in a slump shooting the basketball,\u201d coach Todd Golden said. \u201cI think we can be better than that, and I\u2019m confident we will be.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0Xaivian Lee has had a troubling start to his time with the Gators. The transfer from Princeton is averaging only 11 points per game (PPG) and is 6-29 from 3-point range this season, good for 20.7%. Last season with Princeton, Lee was top 5 in the Ivy League in PPG at 16.9 and top 15 in 3-point field goal percentage with 36.6%.<\/p>\n
However, it\u2019s not all bad for the Gators as several contributors stepped up to keep them afloat during this stretch.<\/p>\n
Thomas Haugh has adjusted very well to his larger role on this year\u2019s team. The junior leads the Gators in PPG with 19.7 and 3-point percentage at 31.3%. He is coming off a double-double against FSU, where he put up 20 points and 13 rebounds. He is the sparkplug for the Gators\u2019 offense, and they would be in a much worse position without him.<\/p>\n
The returning junior Alex Condon has also been a boon to the Gators this season. Condon is second on the team in PPG with 15.7 while also grabbing eight rebounds per game. He secured his first double-double of the season during the win against North Florida and looks to put up many more throughout the season.<\/p>\n
The Gators\u2019 biggest strength this season is their rebounding ability. The Gators average 21 offensive rebounds per game, which ranks third in the NCAA, and 32.7 defensive rebounds per game, which ranks 23rd in the country. Overall, they are tied for 3rd in the league in rebounds per game. Micah Handlogten and Reuben Chinyelu have both dominated the glass for the Gators, grabbing 10.3 and 8.7 rebounds per game, respectively.<\/p>\n
While the Gators look to live up to their national championship season, Miami looks for any improvement after a disastrous 2024-25 season. The Hurricanes finished last season 7-24. The 24 losses were the most in program history.<\/p>\n
The Hurricanes are 3-0 to start the season, but have yet to play a Power Four opponent. They will have a challenge with their first Power Four opponent being the reigning national champions.<\/p>\n
New coach Jai Lucas looks to make a statement in his first game against both a Power Four and a ranked team. With a top 20 recruiting class last offseason, he has new weapons to help him pull off the upset.<\/p>\n
Malik Reneau, a transfer from Indiana, is a big piece in Miami\u2019s improvement. Reneau leads the team in PPG at 21.3, while also shooting 33.3% from 3-point range and averaging six rebounds per game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Other key players on Miami are guard Tre Donaldson and center Ernest Udeh Jr.. Donaldson, a transfer from Michigan, is second on the team in PPG with 16.3 and leads the team in assists per game with an average of six. Udeh, a transfer from TCU, leads the team in rebounds per game with 9.<\/p>\n
As a team, Miami averages 96.3 PPG, a massive improvement from last season\u2019s 74 PPG. They average 63.7 points allowed per game, another improvement over their average of 80.6 from last season.<\/p>\n
Despite the rivalry between the two schools, this is the first time the teams have met since 2019. Throughout their histories, the teams have played each other 69 times, with the Gators winning 46 of those matchups. The most recent matchup ended in a 78-58 Gators win. The Hurricanes are separated from their last win against the Gators by just short of a decade. Their most recent victory in the series came in December 2015.<\/p>\n
While they have yet to play at the highest level, Miami shapes up to be a much better team than last year and a real challenge for a struggling Gators squad looking to play up to its potential.<\/p>\n
Category: Basketball<\/a>, College Basketball<\/a>, Gator Sports<\/a>, Gators Men’s Basketball<\/a>, NCAA<\/a>, SEC<\/a>, Uncategorized<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida men\u2019s basketball takes on Miami in the Jacksonville Hoops Showdown on Sunday. The No. 10 Gators enter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[31016,31012,31017,116,118,31018,117,31019,5079,31020,9724,31021],"class_list":["post-47913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-florida-gators-basketball","tag-gators-basketball","tag-gators-basketball-preview","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-hoops-showdown","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-miami-basketball","tag-miami-hurricanes","tag-uf-gators-basketball","tag-university-of-miami","tag-university-of-miami-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}