Baylor @ Florida preview

Last Meeting ( Jan 27, 2018 ) Baylor 60, Florida 81

Although it has yet to claim the top spot in the coaches' poll, Baylor has still managed to reach rare air during its long winning streak. The second-ranked Bears set their sights on a 16th consecutive victory Saturday when they take one of the best defenses in the country on the road to visit Florida as part of the Big 12/SEC Challenge.

Baylor hung on at home against Oklahoma on Monday to win six straight Big 12 games in the same season for the first time in school history, forcing a miss on a potential go-ahead 3-pointer by the Sooners with six seconds left to pull out a 61-57 victory. The Bears' 6-0 start in conference play is their first such run since they won their first 10 Southwest Conference games in 1948 en route to their only appearance in the national championship - a runner-up finish to Kentucky. The Gators are on the verge of wrapping up what will likely be their most difficult three-game stretch of the season - a run that began with last Saturday's 69-47 home rout of No. 16 Auburn. Florida nearly rallied from a 10-point deficit with just over a minute remaining Tuesday at LSU (the lone remaining unbeaten team in SEC play), but the comeback attempt fell just short in an 84-82 defeat.

TIME: 8 p.m. ET. TV: ESPN

ABOUT BAYLOR (16-1): The Bears overcame a season-low four-point performance in Monday's victory from the third-leading scorer in the Big 12 in Jared Butler (16.1 points), who missed his first 10 shots and finished 2-of-13 from the floor, including 0-for-6 beyond the arc. “(Butler has) bailed us out of situations many times before, so it’s our job to bail him out of situations the same way he does for us," said junior guard MaCio Teague, who tallied a team-high 16 points despite making four of his 13 field-goal attempts. Freddie Gillespie (9.9 points, 9.3 rebounds, 2.2 blocks), who is tied for second in the Big 12 with seven double-doubles after posting 12 points and a career-high 15 boards Monday, leads the conference with 4.2 offensive rebounds per game and 10 double-digit rebounding efforts.

ABOUT FLORIDA (12-6): Virginia Tech graduate transfer Kerry Blackshear Jr. (team-high marks of 14.8 points and 8.7 rebounds) ranks second in the SEC with eight double-doubles and has recorded two performances of exactly 24 points and 16 boards in the Gators' last three home contests. Andrew Nembhard (11.0 points, 6.1 assists) produced 15 points and 10 assists Tuesday to become the first Florida player with multiple points/assists double-doubles in a season since Nick Calathes in 2008-09. Fellow sophomore guard Noah Locke (10.5 points) extended his streak of burying at least one 3-pointer to 15 games - the longest such run by a Gator since at least 1996 - and is 27-of-52 beyond the arc over his last nine outings.

BUZZER BEATERS

1. Baylor's 5-1 record in the Big 12/SEC Challenge is the best mark by any team in either league.

2. The Gators are averaging 83.4 points over their last seven contests after failing to top 83 points in any of their first 11 games.

3. The Bears boast the country's sixth-best scoring defense (Big 12-low 58.5 points) and have forced at least 15 turnovers in 10 of their 17 games.

PREDICTION: Baylor 69, Florida 64