OKLAHOMA CITY — About 10 minutes after the initial excitement of making the NCAA Tournament wore off, Chandler Parsons came to a harsh realization about his team’s next opponent.
“Once I figured out where, when and who we were playing, I started watching film on [BYU] and realized just how good of a team they are, how good of a year they’ve had, how good Jimmer Fredette is,” Parsons said.
Back in the field of 65 for the first time since winning back-to-back national titles, 10th-seeded Florida (21-12) will take on No. 7 BYU (29-5) in the Ford Center in Oklahoma City today at 12:20 p.m. to kick off the first round of the Tournament.
The Cougars, who received their fourth-straight at-large bid this season, are led by Fredette, the 6-foot-2 point guard from Glens Falls, N.Y.
Fredette is averaging 21.7 points and 4.7 assists per game in his junior season, and his prolific scoring has drawn plenty of attention from UF coach Billy Donovan.
“We had a chance to see a lot of great point guards in John Wall and Devan Downey, and I don’t think either one of those two guys impacts a college game like Jimmer Fredette does,” Donovan said. “He has a totally different effect level on a game.”
Fredette has been hard to stop all year, and he is shooting 45.8 percent from the field, 44.8 percent from three-point range and 89.6 percent from the free-throw line.
Earlier this season, he set a BYU record by scoring 49 points against Arizona, and he scored 45 points on 23-of-24 shooting from the free-throw line last week in the Mountain West Conference Tournament.
“As much as I have great, great respect for Wall, Downey, (Dee) Bost and a lot of those other great point guards, those guys can’t get 50 in a college game like this guy can,” Donovan said. “They can’t get to the free-throw line 24 times a game. So this guy, to me, is one of the best-kept secrets in college basketball.”
Although Fredette has been a scoring machine for the Cougars this year, they have plenty of other high-percentage outside shooters alongside him. As a team, BYU is shooting 48.6 percent from the field and 41.9 percent from beyond the arc.
Of the BYU players who have taken more than 10 three-point attempts, the lowest-percentage shooter, Tyler Haws, is making 36.8 percent of his threes.
Parsons, the Gators’ most efficient shooter from beyond the arc, is hitting 36.7 percent of his three-point attempts.
“I’ve seen a lot of different defenses, but we have a very talented team,” Fredette said. “If they just try to take away me, we’ve got a lot of other guys who can score the basketball.”
Parsons said the keys to stopping the Cougars are taking away the three-point line and getting back in transition. UF struggled to defend from beyond the arc against Mississippi State in its last game, giving up 10 three-pointers on 20 attempts.
The most effective way to contain Fredette from going off against the Gators would likely be to put freshman guard Kenny Boynton on him, but Donovan said UF would have to do more than just that.
“Fredette has seen the best defenders on everybody’s team, and it’s not going to be Kenny Boynton’s job to stop him,” Donovan said. “We’ve got to do it collectively as a team.”
