Despite a lack of name recognition, Savannah State’s women’s basketball team is not to be taken lightly.
The Gators know that perhaps better than anyone, as they went into Savannah early last December and were handed a 68-58 loss at the hands of the Tigers.
This year, the Tigers will travel to Gainesville to take on the Gators in the O’Connell center tonight at 7.
Despite only two starters remaining from the team that beat Florida less than a year ago, UF coach Amanda Butler knows that Savannah State is going to be a challenge.
"(We’ve) had a couple days here to now get ready for Savannah State — a very tough, scrappy team that’s coming off a fantastic season last year and an NCAA tournament appearance," she said.
"That’s a team that has our full attention right now."
The Gators are actually the middle of a Southeastern Conference sandwich for the Tigers, as Savannah State is coming off a loss at home to Auburn and will travel to Starkville, Mississippi, for a game with the Mississippi State Bulldogs on Sunday.
"We don’t expect them to come in here and be shy or timid," Butler said.
"They’re gonna come in despite the loss and there will be a little bit of confidence of we’ve already faced a team like you, meaning from the same conference. I think they’ll really try to draw confidence from that."
In addition, last season Savannah State had perhaps one of the most daunting non-conference schedules in the country. It included games at Arkansas and Auburn in addition to two top-ten teams in Florida State and South Carolina.
So unlike the Kennesaw State team that rolled in this past Saturday and got beat handily by the Gators, Savannah State is battle tested.
But the Gators are also battle tested, having already beaten a top-10 opponent in Florida State this season.
That win, as well as the win against Kennesaw State, was an all-around team effort that was led by junior forward Ronni Williams and newcomers Tyshara Fleming, Simone Westbrook and Eleanna Christinaki.
Williams has been playing on another level following the season opener, in which she got into foul trouble early on and, as a result, played severely limited minutes.
Butler said that she did talk to Williams about foul trouble, but also doesn’t want to limit her aggressiveness.
"We weren’t gonna coach with foul fear and we didn’t want Ronni to play with foul fear," she said in response to how Williams has stayed out of foul trouble since the opener.
As for the trio of newcomers, Westbrook is second on the team, averaging 10.7 points per game so far, Fleming is third in rebounds per game with 5.3 and Christinaki had 13 points, seven assists and four steals in the upset over FSU.
Butler isn’t surprised at all with how well the three of them have played, but did note that consistency is far more important than what they’ve shown in the season’s first three games.
"Despite the statistics, I think the challenge for all three of them is gonna be kinda what I mentioned at the beginning. It’s consistency and not having great games and then having drop-offs, so having great games and then sustaining a high level of energy and a high level of high performance," she said.
While the Tigers may not have the prestige of Florida State, Butler said that staying focused on preparation for the upcoming game hasn’t been a problem.
It’s part of a game-by-game attitude that she and her staff have worked hard to instill in this year’s squad.
"Our preparation for Savannah State is the most important," she said.
"It’s the biggest game of the year now."
Follow Ethan Bauer on Twitter @ebaueri
UF's Ronni Williams shoots during Florida's 82-72 win over Florida State o Nov. 15, 2015, in the O'Connell Center.
