College Basketball Game of the Week: Arkansas at Florida

This week's game of the week brings us to Gainesville where Florida will be playing trying to build on their current three game home win streak. During those three recent home games Florida has outscored their opponents by an average of 15.6 points. Florida began the season sluggish losing to Arizona, Duke and UConn but have since trended in the right direction. They’ve had to overcome the departures of three key guards from last season's National Title team but have still been able to maintain a top 5 KenPom ranked defense currently sitting at 4th. Arkansas comes in with the 4th ranked KenPom offense but 50th defensively. They score the 8th most points in the country at 89.9 ppg and are top 50 in assists per game. Florida leads the SEC 12-2 with Arkansas 2 games behind. A win here for Arkansas could move them within 1 game of being at the top of the SEC a year after reaching the Sweet 16 in upset fashion. Arkansas seems to be trending in the right direction and could be in for more success this season going into March. 

Most would agree that Florida has an elite frontcourt filled with returners from last season's title team. Most would also agree that Arkansas has the advantage in the backcourt with two freshmen averaging 15+ ppg and shooting over 40% from three. Something's got to give in this matchup between two teams who rank top 5 offensively and defensively respectively. Currently Florida holds a 3-seed in Joe Lunardi’s most up to date bracketology while Arkansas comes in as a 5-seed. The winner of this game could really move up in seeding considering the level of competition.