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The Florida men’s basketball team finally gets to play a home game this season when they take on Arkansas Little Rock in the newly renovated Exactech Arena at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center on Wednesday night. After months of renovations that caused the Gators to travel for their “home” games since their NIT run during the 2015-16 season, they finally get to return in the newly renovated O’Dome.
Arkansas Little Rock (9-3) comes off a 63-48 loss against Oral Roberts. The Trojans won the Sun Belt Conference title this past season giving them an automatic bid to the NCAA Championship. UALR has experience with defeating teams in the Power 5 conferences, upsetting three seed Purdue during the Big Dance last season.
They return two starters from last season’s team and also have a brand new coach; Wes Flanigan was on the staff last year as an associate head coach and was promoted after head coach Chris Beard was hired by UNLV.
Four of their starters average in double figures. Guard Marcus Johnson Jr. leads the Trojans with 14.8 points per game with 3.2 rebounds. Jalen Jackson shoots 48 percent from the floor, 7-for-12 from deep, and 80 percent at the free throw line. Lis Shashi is nearly at double figures at 9.7 points per game as he shoots 44.3 percent from the floor and 76.6 percent at the charity stripe. He also gives the team size at 6″11″.
The Gators are coming off of a huge 87-46 win against Charlotte in the Orange Bowl Classic this past Saturday. Forward Devin Robinson earned the title of Most Outstanding Player at the Classic and added 15 points for the Gators in the game.
Probable starters for this game include Robinson, Kasey Hill at point guard, KeVaughn Allen who is actually from Little Rock, Arkansas at the guard position, Justin Leon at forward, and Kevarrius Hayes at the center spot.
The usual center, John Egbunu (9.0 ppg, 7.7 rpg) will be out for the second straight game due to a hamstring injury that happened in practice last week.
You can hear the game live on ESPN Gainesville 98.1 FM starting at 6:25 pm.
