No. 14 Florida, sitting alone atop the Southeastern Conference, will try to duplicate its defensive effort from the weekend when they travel to play high-scoring Georgia on Wednesday night in Athens, Ga.

The Gators (17-6, 8-2 SEC) shut down Texas A&M’s prolific, frenetic attack and rolled to an 86-67 road win on Saturday. The Florida defense, No. 2 in the SEC at 71.2 points, put the clamps on the Aggies, who entered the game leading the SEC with 92.0 points per game.

The Gators limited Texas A&M to 17.1% shooting in the first half that included 23 consecutive missed shots – highlighted by five blocked layups as the Aggies went 10:25 between baskets.

Florida needs to bring the same defensive effort against Georgia (17-6, 5-5), the SEC’s new leader with 91.9 points per game. The Bulldogs are coming off an 83-71 win at LSU that ended a three-game losing streak.

The Gators have won four straight conference road games, something they had not done since 2017.

“Obviously, we’re really pleased where we are right now, but we’ve got eight more league games left and a lot can happen,” Florida coach Todd Golden said. “There’s a lot of teams with three and four losses and it’s all about us taking care of our business. We’ve got to take one game at a time, as cliche as that sounds.”

Florida’s Rueben Chinyelu leads the SEC in rebounding (11.5 per game) and double-doubles (14). Thomas Haugh, who scored a game-high 22 against the Aggies, ranks seventh in the SEC with 17.8 points per game.

“The great thing about being in this position is we don’t have to worry about anybody else,” Golden said. “Just see what’s in front of us, one game at a time. And we’ll be ready to go against Georgia on Wednesday.”

Georgia is coming off one of its best defensive efforts of the season. The Bulldogs forced 14 turnovers and limited the Tigers to 5 of 23 (21.7%) from 3-point range.

“I thought we were pretty sharp for 40 minutes defensively,” said Georgia coach Mike White. “Proud of the effort. A lot of carryover from practice. These guys worked hard and their attention to detail was pretty good against an LSU team that’s capable of beating anyone in our league. That was a big win for us.”

White said the Bulldogs need to continue to get better on the boards. Florida leads the nation in rebounding margin (plus-15.2 per game) and owns a height advantage over the Bulldogs, who outrebound foes by just 1.5 per game.

“We made a significant improvement with our desire to compete on the glass,” White said. “Now here comes another SEC opponent who is prolific at rebounding the basketball. If we can just stay in the fight. We can’t get demolished on the glass. We’ve got to keep it close.”

The Bulldogs continue to share the offensive load. On Saturday it was Kanon Catchings, who finished with 23 points, including five 3-pointers — tying his career high in both categories. He averages 11.2 points to join Jeremiah Wilkinson (17.1), Blue Cain (13.2) and Marcus “Smurf” Millender (11.7) in double figures.

Florida leads the series 127-102, but Georgia is 62-47 in games played in Athens. That includes an 88-83 win on Feb. 25, 2025, that marked the Gators’ last loss on their way to the NCAA title.

–Field Level Media

The Los Angeles Clippers’ impressive climb up the Western Conference standings, from 15 games below .500 to a spot squarely in the play-in tournament, outwardly seemed undone by the jettisoning of James Harden and Ivica Zubac at last week’s trade deadline.

Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard and his unyielding teammates appear to believe otherwise.

Behind another sensational performance from Leonard, the Clippers thumped the Minnesota Timberwolves 115-96 on Sunday despite the absences of Harden and Zubac, as well as the players they received back in those separate trades.

The Clippers anticipate Darius Garland, Bennedict Mathurin and Isaiah Jackson will make their debuts Tuesday in the first of back-to-back road games against the Houston Rockets.

Leonard posted 41 points, eight rebounds and four steals in the road victory over Minnesota, marking his career-best fourth 40-point game this season. Despite being short-handed and presumably disinclined to make a playoff push following the departures of Harden and Zubac, the Clippers proved they have plenty of fight remaining for the stretch run of the regular season.

“We’re always ready to go,” Clippers forward John Collins said. “We’ve got great guys ready to step up and take advantage of their opportunity, as well as Kawhi Leonard. What more can I say?”

A sweep of the two-game set in Houston would lift the Clippers to a .500 record at the All-Star break. Such a mark seemed improbable in mid-December, but moxie is difficult to measure.

“We’ve got a good group,” Leonard said. “Guys are levelheaded, they love to play basketball, so we’re just going out and competing every night. That’s all we’re doing.”

The Rockets are also seeking to carry momentum into the break. After dropping consecutive home games to the Boston Celtics and Charlotte Hornets last week, Houston rallied to claim the finale of a three-game season series with the Oklahoma City Thunder 112-106 on Saturday.

The Rockets have displayed a tendency to play to the level of their competition this season, often saving their best for their most challenging opponents. Houston has labored against inconsistency, with vacillating effort and intensity addressed during last week’s back-to-back.

“That was the message even before the Charlotte game,” Rockets coach Ime Udoka said. “We wanted to play well these last five, didn’t do so in those first two, but it was good to get back to playing with the effort and intensity it takes to win a game against Oklahoma City.

“And that’s the case with the Clippers. We want to finish on a good note. We got two days off to recover really quickly, get this back-to-back in, and obviously, it’s a race to the finish, those 29 games. Good to get us into the All-Star break on the right foot and then build off of that.”

Against the Thunder, the Rockets received critical contributions from Tari Eason and Jabari Smith Jr., who combined for 48 points and 18 rebounds in support of the All-Star tandem of Kevin Durant and Alperen Sengun.

If the Rockets are to meet their lofty preseason expectations, they will require similar efforts from their role players during the closing sprint to the playoffs.

“We’re going to have to deal with that throughout the rest of the season,” Durant said of the attention opposing defenses focus on himself and Sengun. “It was a good test for us.”

–Field Level Media

MILAN — The U.S. and Canada will be “out for blood” as they renew their rivalry at the Milan Cortina Games, U.S. veteran Alex Carpenter told reporters on Monday, with an upcoming group stage game that has the feel of a championship contest.

The only teams to take the top of the podium since the women’s ice hockey tournament joined the Olympic program 28 years ago, the arch-rivals meet at Santagiulia arena on Tuesday in what is expected to be a preview of the gold medal game.

“As soon as we get on the ice here or any other international event, we’re all out for blood,” said the alternate captain Carpenter, who helped the United States past Switzerland 5-0 on Monday with one goal and one assist.

The prolific scorer has recorded a goal in all of the United States’ Group A games so far in Milan and is part of a team hungry for revenge after Canada denied them the gold in Beijing four years ago.

Buoyed by a group of young talent, including defensive standout Laila Edwards, the Americans have only had one goal scored on them since they arrived in Milan, as they previously beat Czech Republic and Finland in the tournament.

They expect a tougher fight against Canada, whose 5-1 win over Czech Republic on Monday was overshadowed by injury concerns for their “Captain Clutch” Marie-Philip Poulin.

The game against Canada will be the last for the United States in the group stage, while Canada are set to play Finland on Thursday.

All five teams from Group A will advance, with their seeding in the last eight depending on placings in the preliminary standings.

“The stakes are higher, the intensity is higher. But we’ve just got to remind ourselves it’s still hockey and we do pretty good at hockey,” said Edwards.

“I think when we just stick to our brand, we’re intimidating.”

–Reuters, special to Field Level Media