Saint Francis University (2-9) at #18 University of Florida (6-4)
Date | Time	Wednesday, December 17, 2025 | 6:30 p.m.
Location	Gainesville, Fla. | Exactech Arena at Stephen C. O'Connell Center
Television	SEC Network (Rich Hollenberg, play-by-play; Patric Young, analyst)
Live Stats	Sidearm
Printable Notes	Saint Francis | Florida
Stats	Saint Francis | Florida | NEC
Social Media	@RedFlashMBB  | #BELIEVE | @RedFlashMBB | Facebook

 

Saint Francis Probable Starters
Pos.	No.	Name	Ht.	Wt.	Yr.	PPG	RPG	FG%	Note
G	0	Chris Moncrief	6-6	190	Sr.	3.5	1..0	33.3	Dished out four assists at Temple
G	2	Zion Russell	6-2	185	R-Sr.	11.3	4.5	36.8	Averaging 12.0 ppg in three games against Power 5 teams
G	F	Skylar Wicks	6-6	190	R-Sr.	18.8	7.8.5	42.4	Averaging 20.8 ppg and 7.5 rpg against Power 5 teams
G	15	Victor Payne	6-4	190	So.	5.8	3.9	36.8	Career-high 15 points in last game in Sunshine State
F	21	Gestin Liberis	6-9	225	R-Jr.	5.5	4.7	52.4	Grabbed a least five boards in last six games
Top Players Off the Bench
Pos.	No.	Name	Ht.	Wt.	Yr.	PPG	RPG	FG%	Note
G	1	KJ Swain, Jr.	6-1	165	R-Sr.	2.3	0.9	28.6	Career-high seven assists in last home game
G	3	Brandon Russell	6-5	185	Fr.	3.5	1.7	26.1	Career-high 7 pts, 8 rebs, 6 asts in last home game
G/F	4	Ralph Martino, Jr.	6-6	180	So.	5.7	2.3	56.5	Leads team in field goal percentage
G	7	Paris Papadatos	6-4	185	Fr.	9.0	1.8	46.4	Current NEC Rookie of the Week
F	20	Cam Tweedy	6-6	240	R-Sr.	4.7	3.2	52.4	Grabbed his 200th career rebound on Sunday
G	55	Ahmad Harrison	6-1	190	Sr.	6.6	1.6	40.5	Ranks fifth in NEC in steals

SELECT GAME NOTES VS. FLORIDA (FULL GAME NOTES PDF) 

FRANKIES TIDBITS IN A FLASH
• Saint Francis concludes its three-game road trip, and its nine non-conference road games away from Loretto at Florida on Wednesday. The Red Flash wraps up non-conference play at home against Robert Morris on Saturday.
• This is the second time Saint Francis will travel to Gainesville and the first time in 31 years. There is a common bond between the meetings in the head coach's last name, McConnell. Tom McConnell was the head coach of the Frankies in 1994-95, and his son Luke is in his first season as the head coach in 2025-26. Luke was five when the two teams tangled in 1994.
• Luke McConnell and Florida head coach Todd Golden will battle for the first time against one another as fellow head coaches, but this is not the first Golden-McConnell clash. McConnell was the Director of Basketball Operations for the Red Flash, and Golden was the Associate Head Coach at San Francisco in 2017-18.  Saint Francis opened the 2017-18 season at Golden's alma mater, Saint Mary's, and then the Dons beat the Red Flash 75-63 on November 13, 2017.
• The Frankies opened the McConnell era against an SEC team at Oklahoma on November 3 and will close out the road portion of the non-conference schedule at another SEC school, Florida.
• Saint Francis is 0-10 against the SEC: LSU (0-3), Ole Miss (0-2), Florida (0-1), Oklahoma (0-1), Tennessee (0-1), Texas A&M (0-1), and Vanderbilt (0-1). It is also the first time the Red Flash has played a pair of SEC teams. McConnell has battled Oklahoma as a head coach and faced Texas A&M as an assistant coach.
• Florida will be the first team Saint Francis will face on a schedule as the defending NCAA national champion. The Red Flash also faced Virginia on December 1, 2020, after the Cavaliers won the 2019 national title. Virginia was technically the defending NCAA national champion after winning the 2019 title, with no national title game in 2020 due to COVID-19.
• While Florida is the defending NCAA National Champion, Saint Francis has faced the four NIT Champions in program history after facing Holy Cross (1955), Duquesne (1956), Xavier (1959), and St. Bonaventure (1978) in the year following their title run. Holy Cross was not in the regular season, but in the NIT, and in 1959, Xavier was the only team to defeat a defending national champion.
• The game marks the final game of four against a Power 5 Conference team after playing Oklahoma, TCU on November 6, and Xavier on December 1.  It will be McConnell's fourth game as a head coach against a power coference team, but the Red Flash played 24 Power 5 teams while he was an assistant coach from 2014-25, and he was on staff for wins against Pittsburgh (80-70, November 25, 2020) and Rutgers (73-68, December 20, 2014).
• It is the second consecutive year Saint Francis will play four Power teams after playing Clemson, Penn State, Georgetown, and Maryland in 2024-25.
• While people in Florida might be complaining that it is 56 degrees in Florida on Monday, it was 10 degrees in Loretto with snow, causing delays to the local school district. The team is traveling from Philadelphia to Florida and will gladly trade the 36-degree high on Wednesday for the scheduled high of 74 in Gainesville, with its second trip to the Sunshine State in 21 days.

AN SFU WIN WOULD
• Be the team's first win against a ranked opponent (and third in program history) since defeating No. 13 St. Bonaventure on January 25, 1959 
• Be Saint Francis' first win against an SEC team 
• Be the team's first win on the road in 2025-26
• Be the squad's first win in the Sunshine State since defeating Jacksonville 78-76 in the CollegeInsiders.com Tournament on March 14, 2017
• Give Luke McConnell his first win as a head coach against a Division I opponent after two wins against Division III teams
• End a two-game losing streak

AGAINST THE RANKS
• The 18th-ranked Gators mark the first ranked opponent Saint Francis will battle since facing No. 25 Miami on this date in 2022. On that day, the Red Flash had a two-point lead and the ball in the closing seconds of the first half before the Hurricanes stole the ball and scored a layup to go into the locker room tied at 37.
• This will be the first time head coach Luke McConnell will play a ranked opponent as a head coach, but he was on the bench as an assistant coach for 13 games against a ranked team.
• Florida was also ranked the last time the Frankies played the Gators on December 30, 1994, when they were No. 13. It will be the fifth time Saint Francis will play a ranked SEC opponent: Tennessee (No. 6, 1969), LSU (No. 14, 1978; No. 10, 1984), along with the two meetings against Florida.
• The Gators also become the 12th school that have been ranked and the Frankies have played multiple times: Duquesne (8), Pittsburgh (7), Notre Dame (5), Georgetown (4), George Washington (3), St. Bonaventure (3), Dayton (2), Miami (2), Ohio State (2),  Providence (2). and Syracuse (2). 
• Saint Francis is 2-61 all-time against teams in the AP Top-25, and Florida will be the highest-ranked team the Red Flash has played since facing Virginia in the contest in 2020.
• Saint Francis is looking for its first win against a ranked opponent since defeating Saint Bonaventure 92-81 on January 25, 1959. 
• The biggest upset in Red Flash basketball was an 82-72 win led by Maurice Stokes on January 8, 1955, against second-ranked Duquesne. Kind of like Wednesday's game in Gainesville, the game in 1955 was a David-versus-Goliath type of clash. The Dukes had won 14 straight in the series, and the oddsmakers thought that Duquesne would have won by 20 points. Stokes had 24 points, and the loss kept the Dukes from ascending to the No. 1 ranking after the top team in the country also lost that night.

ABOUT THE GATORS
• Florida comes into the contest 6-4 after defeating George Washington 80-70 on Saturday.  The win ended a two-game losing streak for the Gators against No. 4 Duke 67-66 on December 2 and No. 5 UConn 77-73 on December 9. Florida has the ninth-highest strength of schedule, having also opened the regular season against top-ranked Arizona on November 3.
• Xaivian Lee paced the Gators against the Revolutionaries with 24 points. Thomas Haugh added 19 points, and Boogie Fland posted 12 points. 
• Haugh leads the Gators with 18.6 rebounds and 7.0 rebounds per game. Alex Condon is second on the team with 13.9 points and 9.0 rebounds per game, while Fland (12.0 ppg.) and Lee (11.0 ppg.) are also averaging double figures. Rueben Chinyelu is almost averaging a double-double with 9.8 points and a team-best 10.7 rebounds per game. 

LAST TIME WE MET
• No. 13 Florida defeated Saint Francis 87-72 on December 30, 1994. The game was tied at halftime at 38.
• Terrence Martin and Rob Wooster paced the Red Flash with 14 points apiece, while Saint Francis Athletics Hall of Famer Eric Taylor had 11 points against the Gators. 
• Dan Cross paced Florida with 21 points. Andrew DeClercq (12 points), Greg Williams (12 points), and Dametri Hill (11 points) also found double figures. 
• Saint Francis was coached by Tom McConnell, and Florida was led by Lon Kruger. Both of their sons would go on to be head coaches, and both sets would coach at the same school. Tom McConnell (1992-99) and current Saint Francis head coach Luke McConnell both coached at Saint Francis, while Lon Kruger (2004-11) and his son Kevin Kruger (2021-25) would both coach at UNLV. 

LAST TIME OUT
•  Temple defeated Saint Francis 95-67 on December 14. It was the Red Flash's first game back since taking a week off for final exams.
• Redshirt senior Skylar Wicks powered the Red Flash in scoring with 22 points, while redshirt senior Zion Russell added 14 points and a career-best seven assists.

TRENDING UP
• Redshirt senior Skylar Wicks is averaging 19.0 points and 6.3 rebounds per game this season against Power 5 Conference teams, and he is shooting 42.3 percent from the floor (22-for-52), 44.4 percent from behind the arc (8-for-18), and 83.3 percent from the free throw line (5-for-6). Wicks had 20 points in his Red Flash debut against Oklahoma on November 3, 18 points against TCU on November 6, and 19 points at Xavier on December 1. In his career, he averages 20.8 points and 7.5 rebounds per game against power conference teams when he plays more than five minutes. The redshirt senior registered a career high against an NCAA Division I opponent of 26 points and 11 rebounds against Texas on November 6, 2023, with Incarnate Word. The disclaimer for more than five minutes per game applies because Wicks played five minutes against Arkansas with UTSA on December 1, 2024. 
• Wicks registered his fourth 20-point game with the Red Flash with his 22 points against Temple on December 14, the second-most points he has scored in a Saint Francis uniform. He is looking to notch back-to-back 20-point games for the first time since he turned the trick in four-straight games with Incarnate Word, November 14-25, 2023. It was his 13th 20-point game in his last three seasons. Wicks also has five double-doubles when he scores 20 points, including 24 points and 12 rebounds against Lehigh on November 18. 
• Not to keep the candle burning in this section about the redshirt senior, but Wicks finished his high school career at SURGE Christian Academy in Clearwater, Fla. (about two and half hours from Gainesville), and played one season in between Missouri State and Incarnate Word at the State College of Florida (JUCO) in Bradenton, Fla. (about two hours, 45 minutes from Gainesville).
• Redshirt senior Zion Russell, who is averaging 15.7 points per game after he is held to single digits, continued that trend with 14 points and a career-high seven assists at Temple. Twice this season, he has turned in consecutive double-figure performances and is looking for a third time on Wednesday against Florida. He is averaging 9.2 points per game in games after scoring 10+ points. Russell's seven assists marked the fifth time this season he has dished out four or more assists and the third time he recorded at least five dimes. Russell is also averaging double figures against Power 5 teams this season, with 12.0 points per game, with 15-point performances against Oklahoma and Xavier. 
• Redshirt junior Gestin Liberis might have had the thrill of his collegiate career at Temple, playing 10.9 miles away from his hometown of Havertown, Pa, which is west of the Temple campus (cue up "Fresh Prince theme song"). Liberis finished with eight points, six rebounds, and tied his career high with three blocks. The eight points were the third-most he has scored this season, and the six boards marked the sixth straight game he has posted five or more caroms. He has registered three blocks in a game three times this season, but that was the first time against a Division I opponent. In front of plenty of family and friends, the day was even more special with his brother working the game as part of the ESPN+ crew for Temple. 

LEAGUE LEADERS
• Redshirt senior Skylar Wicks leads the NEC in defensive rebounds (6.44) and ranks second in minutes per game (34.00), second in scoring (18.8 ppg.), third in rebounding (7.8 rpg.), third in free throw percentage (83.3), fourth in 3-pointers per game (2.44), eighth in 3-point field goal percentage (40.0), ninth in assists per game (2.78), and 10th in steals per game (1.33).
• Wicks ranks 26th in defensive rebounds per game. 49th in minutes per game, 73rd in rebounding, 75th in scoring and 89th in double-doubles (2) in NCAA Division I.
• Redshirt senior Zion Russell is sixth in assists per game (3.09),  fifth in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.31), and 17th in scoring (11.3 ppg.).
• Senior Ahmad Harrison is seventh in steals per game (1.45), while redshirt junior Gestin Liberis has jumped into ninth in blocked shots per game (1.00).
• Saint Francis ranks third in the NEC in free throw percentage (70.9), fourth in assists (14.09), fourth in steals (7.64), fifth in defensive rebounds (25.18) and fifth in rebounding offensive (36.5), fifth in offensive rebounds (11.36), fifth in defensive rebound percentage (0.703), fifth in offensive rebound percentage (0.298). 

IN THE SUNSHINE STATE
• Saint Francis is 2-8 in games played in the state of Florida. The Red Flash defeated Jacksonville 78-76 in the CollegeInsiders.com Tournament on March 14, 2017, and Stetson 70-60 on January 2, 1974.
• Saint Francis has also lost to both Jacksonville and Stetson, along with three times at the University of Miami and once at the University of Florida.
• The Red Flash are playing in the state of Florida for the third time in 21 days after playing in Coconut Hoops in Fort Myers, Fla., on November 24 and 26 against Belmont and Troy. The Frankies lost 94-57 to Belmont and 74-64 against Troy in the two neutral site games in Florida. The game against Troy was the most complete tilt the team has played against a Division I opponent this season.

ON THE ROAD
• Saint Francis is 0-8 away from Loretto, but has played two quadrant one teams (Oklahoma and TCU), two quadrant two teams (Belmont and Xavier), two quadrant three (Troy, Temple), and two quadrant four (Lehigh, Radford) teams on the road.
• The game against Florida will be its third game against a quadrant one team, but the Gators will be the highest-ranked team in the schedule (NET 22).
• It will be the third game this season, Saint Francis will face a NET ranking in the Top-75 (Oklahoma [NET 50, November 3], TCU [NET 65, November 8], and Belmont [NET 55, November 24]), while Xavier is almost in the Top-100 (NET 101, December 1).
• Redshirt senior Skylar Wicks leads the team with 19.3 points and 7.1 rebounds per game, while fellow redshirt senior Zion Russell is also averaging 10.3 points and 4.8 rebounds per game in eight games away from Loretto.
• Wicks has reached double figures in all eight games with four 20-point games and at least 14 points in all eight affairs. He also has at least five boards in seven of the eight games. Russell has reached 10+ points five times and posted a road-high 15 points twice, and 14 points once. Redshirt junior Gestin Liberis, sophomore Victor Payne, and freshman Paris Papadatos also have one double-figure point game on the road. 

ON THIS DATE
• Saint Francis is 3-10 on this date including 1-7 on the road
• The Red Flash defeated Duquesne 67-52 on this date in 2014. Earl Brown led the Red Flash with 16 points, while Ben Millaud-Meunier (14 points) also had double figures, and Ronnie Drinnon narrowly missed a double-double with nine points and 14 rebounds. The win ended an 11-game losing streak to the Dukes going back to the 1990-91 season.
FUN FACT...
• Saint Francis will play a power conference team on this date for the third time in the last four years. The Red Flash played at No. 25 Miami and went into halftime tied with the Hurricanes in 2023, while the Frankies played at Maryland last season.