Florida might have familiar faces in different places for the rest of the season.
Coach Billy Donovan said he’ll try a few combinations to replace 6-foot-7 forward Will Yeguete, who likely will miss the remainder of the season after breaking a bone in his left foot in Tuesday’s win over Auburn.
Yeguete is one of Florida’s best rebounders and an active and versatile defender.
“It’s a six-week injury. He’s done,” Donovan told gatorzone.com. “We’re going to have to do some different things.”
The most drastic move could involve SEC freshman of the week Bradley Beal, who is 6-3, going from guard to small forward. Other options include Casey Prather, Cody Larson and Scottie Wilbekin playing more at forward.
Beal and Yeguete are tied for the team lead in rebounding with 6.3 per game, and 6-9 Patric Young has averaged 6.2.
Yeguete missed time with a concussion earlier this month, so the Gators understood what to do when he left with 11:16 remaining in the game.
“We had practiced that so, [Wilbekin] knew where he was going in certain areas of the floor offensively,” Donovan told the website. “We’re going to have to do the same thing.”
Hot shot
Vanderbilt’s John Jenkins led the SEC in scoring last season and is doing it again, but he acknowledged he has never shot as well as he did last week.
Jenkins was 13-for-16 from the floor (81.3 percent), 10-for-12 from the 3-point line (83.3 percent) and 18-for-21 from the free-throw line (85.7 percent) as he averaged 27 points in victories over Mississippi and Georgia.
“I don’t know where it came from. I would shoot 20 [times] a game [in high school] — never just 16 in two games,” Jenkins told The (Nashville) Tennessean. “I’ve tried to eliminate all the bad shots because it just turns into making me look stupid, really.”
Jenkins entered this week averaging 20.1 points and could become the first player to lead the SEC in scoring in consecutive seasons since LSU’s Ronnie Henderson in 1995 and 1996.
Have not
Frankie Sullivan leads Auburn in scoring with 12.3 points, but has made only 38.5 percent of his shots.
He was 2-for-10 from the field in Tuesday’s loss to Florida and is 12-for-37 combined in the past three games.
On a roll
- Kentucky's Terrence Jones has scored in double figures in six of the past seven games and had his first double-double of the season with 15 points and 11 rebounds in a win over Mississippi.
- B.J. Young became the third Arkansas freshman to score 30 or more points when he had 31 in a loss to Florida. He has averaged 23 points the past four games and 20 points against ranked opponents to lead the Razorbacks with 15.1 points per game.
- South Carolina's Malik Cooke scored 17 points in a loss to LSU on Saturday to surpass 1,000 for his career. The senior entered the week with 1,011 points.
Local ties
Nick Jacobs’ importance to Alabama became greater when Alabama coach Anthony Grant suspended forwards JaMychal Green and Tony Mitchell earlier this month.
The 6-8, 250-pound freshman, who played at South Atlanta High, played a career-high 36 minutes against Mississippi on Feb. 4 before scoring 14 points — his high against a SEC opponent — against LSU on Feb. 11.
Jacobs’ six-game starting streak ended when he missed Saturday’s win over Tennessee while recovering from root canal surgery. Grant said Jacobs, who has averaged 5.7 points and 3.6 rebounds, should be able to play against Arkansas on Thursday night.
Around the conference
Auburn’s Kenny Gabriel and Chris Denson were both injured in Tuesday’s loss. Gabriel hurt his back, and Denson hurt a knee. ... Mississippi State’s Rodney Hood injured his knee in the first half of Tuesday’s loss to Kentucky and didn’t return. The Bulldogs used just six players in the second half. ... Kentucky has made at least one 3-pointer in 815 consecutive games, the third-longest streak in the country.
Must-see TV
- Mississippi State at Alabama, 6 p.m. Saturday (ESPN2)
Despite its problems this season, Alabama is in a position to wrap up the fourth seed for the SEC tournament and the first-round bye that comes with it. Mississippi State’s once-promising season is slipping away on its four-game losing streak.
Quotable
“As soon as we came out of the locker room, coach [Donovan] really gave it to us, and we knew we had to step up our play or it would be bad. The game wasn’t going our way, so we knew we just had to listen to him and had to pick it up.” — Florida’s Erving Walker on what was said at halftime of Tuesday’s win against Auburn.
By the numbers
13 Kentucky's biggest deficit of the season. Mississippi State led the Wildcats 41-28 in a game that Kentucky won 73-64 on Tuesday
50 Percentage of 3-pointers Mississippi State made in the first half (6-of-12) against Kentucky.
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