The Florida Gators basketball team (7-3) is set to take on the Jacksonville University Dolphins (5-7) in a Christmas appetizer on Tuesday night. The Gators are coming off a hard fought 72-70 win over Oklahoma State. This is also the first time Florida returns home to the Stephen C. O’Connell Center since a grueling road stretch consisting of Oklahoma State, No. 17 Miami and No. 1 Michigan State, a feat not seen in consecutive Florida games since 1998 and was never done in non conference regular season play under Billy Donovan.

Back on the friendly floors of the O-Dome, the Gators now prepare for their final test before Christmas break.

Fighting Distractions

The holiday itself can be a distraction for teams; something head coach Mike White is aware of is game planning for.

“I think you’ll see a lot of crazy scores this week,” said White.

“A lot of teams will play a game and make you think ‘wow, what were they thinking, those guys have checked out, those guys are mentally at home already’ and some teams will just play really well for whatever reason.”

A victim of this exact thing has in fact been the Florida Gators basketball team. White wasn’t around for that 68-71 OT loss on December 20, 2010 but he made sure to remind his current team of it recently.

“In fact JU I think came here a couple of years ago, five years ago and got a win here. So we reminded our guys of that yesterday in film, we talked about it before we even got into their roster and actions and anything like that, these types of situations and how fragile these types of situations are. It’s got to be more about us and our mentality and we look forward to a break; these guys need a break but the break doesn’t start until this game is over and we need to handle this situation with maturity.”

Point Guard Shuffle

With Kasey Hill finding productivity coming off of the bench, Mike White is now playing with new “rotations” so to speak with his point guards on the floor. A lot of this has swung on sophomore Chris Chiozza who has lit up offensively on the floor during the second half for the last two games, but also been a huge presence defensively with four steals in Florida’s latest match-up.

“To me, especially going through a transition and especially when you really you don’t know what you’re going to get because we have the unique makeup of this roster with the seven new guys, we base playing time by ear during the game based on productivity,” explains White.

“So if Kasey continues to play really well and [Chiozza] continues to be really consistent then we’ll play those guys more and more together. But KeVaughn Allen and Brandone Francis-Ramirez, I’m sure those guys would want something to say regarding that because KeVaughn is coming off his best game and Brandone is coming off probably his best practice in a month so those are good problems to have. At some time in the year maybe we can play three guards, maybe we can play three little guys, not be quite as good on the offensive glass but be a better ball handling, maybe a better shooting team if those guys are in a rhythm making shots. But I’m open for whatever, whatever helps us win that game.”

Ten games in, the duo of Chiozza and Hill are averaging 14.7 points and six assist between them.

Freshman KeVaughn Allen is coming off his best game of the season (11 points, 2 steals and an assist) just days after Mike White said he expected to see the young guard break through. Now White is asking the same of redshirt freshman shooting guard Brandone Francis-Ramirez who so far is averaging 2.7 points per game.

“I haven’t as his head coach figured out a way to help it carry over to a game so I’m searching and Brandone’s searching and I know he’s a better shooter than how he’s shot in games,” says White.

“You hope the way Brandone shot the ball [Monday in practice] will carry over and he’ll get a couple of open looks against JU, they go down for him and maybe his confidence just increases because of it. It’s going to happen for him and for us at some point, we all certainly hope it’s sooner rather than later.”

Game Notes

Florida and Jacksonville meet for the 37th time. UF holds a 31-5 record all-time vs. the Dolphins, including 15-2 at home.

The Dolphins trio of Kori Babineaux (17.5 ppg), Marcel White (17.1) and Darius Dawkins (15.7) have scored 65.2 percent of Jacksonville’s points this season.

As a team, JU has hit 109 3-pointers, which account for 34.2 percent of the team’s made field goals, and the Dolphins are shooting .394 from beyond the arc. Comparatively, the Gators are shooting .286.

Florida’s scoring defense is currently best in the SEC at 60.5, a definite advantage over the Dolphins 76.

The Florida Gators take on the Jacksonville Dolphins in the Stephen C. O’Connell Center on Tuesday December 22. Tip off is set for 7pm on the SEC Network + and as always, make sure you’ve joined GatorCountry.com for full coverage.