Florida Missing Key Players for Big 12/SEC Challenge
Oklahoma State is set to face as depleted Florida team on Saturday in the Big 12/SEC Challenge as the Gators will be without multiple key players due to injury and illness.
Starting All-SEC center, and leading scorer, Colin Castleton is questionable today due to an injury that’s sidelined him for the past four games. His replacement, center Jason Jitoboh, will be out today following a season-ending eye surgery after getting poked in the eye rather brutally in the game against Tennessee earlier this week.
“These guys are sick for Jason right now, I mean sick for him,” Florida head coach Mike White said on Friday. “What this kid has overcome to put himself in a position to step in to replace the best big in our league and now he’s got a role a little bit. They’re really close with Jason. And now he’s out, it’s over for him this season. Who knows what it’s going to look like for Colin. It’s just been really hard.”
Forward CJ Felder’s status is also questionable due to a non-COVID illness. He missed the two games prior to the Tennessee game on Wednesday and played just a few minutes against the Vols.
The Gators will be looking for some solid play out of senior forward Anthony Duruji and senior guard Tyree Appleby. Appleby’s averaging 10.1 points and 2.3 rebounds a game this season, while Duruji’s averaging 9.8 points and 4.5 rebounds a game.
“I don’t think we’ll be posting up a lot,” White said. “We changed it on the fly coming out in the second half [against Tennessee], we did some stuff we hadn’t practiced offensively out of necessity. We practiced it a little bit better today and got a little bit better at it. Of course, we’ve got a ways to go. We’ve got to drive it better. We’ve got to generate some fouls driving to the rim. We’ve got to be better on the offensive glass. We’ve got to shoot it better. Turnovers have hurt us at times. We’ve gotten better in that area. Now our ball security and decisions are going to be more important. We gotta get a shot up because obviously our margin for error offensively is very different now.”
The Gators turned the ball over 13 times against Tennessee, with six coming from Duruji.
Tipoff is scheduled for 3 p.m. CT and will be televised on ESPN2.