Florida vs. Georgetown, Game Thread: Can the short-handed Gators hold back the Hoyas?

Florida's first game in the 2014 Battle 4 Atlantis tips tonight at 9:30 p.m. Eastern on something called AXS TV — which you will have to find on your cable or satellite box, to be sure, though channel listings are below — as the Gators take on Georgetown.

And that's a recipe for defeat, especially given the Gators' deficiencies up front. Monster center Joshua Smith — whom you may remember as a tree in UCLA colors that Erving Walker memorably fired a shot over in the 2011 NCAA Tournament — should have his way in the paint with Jon Horford and Chris Walker, who will each give up at least 100 pounds to Smith. And Georgetown's wings — D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera and freshman star L.J. Peak among them — would have been a tough matchup for Florida even if Eli Carter and Dorian Finney-Smith had been fully healthy enough for this game.

As it is, both Carter and Finney-Smith are set to play, though how much either or both can do remains to be seen. Carter's foot injury is the more recent malady, but Finney-Smith might not be able to do much of anything with his off hand if he's wearing the same brace tonight that he wore while sitting the bench against Miami.

Florida's going to fight gamely, I think, but unless Michael Frazier II is hot from distance in a foreign gym or Kasey Hill steps up his play significantly, I think this could very well be a loss, and predicted as much in the previewing I did with SB Nation's Georgetown blog, Casual Hoya.

Georgetown's beaten three nobodies by about 15-20 points each this year; Florida fell to a really good team, Miami, by two, but that was when the Gators had more warm bodies available. I think Joshua Smith is a huge issue for the Gators, even though Florida neutralized him when he was a UCLA freshman in what seems like a game from another lifetime, and I think Georgetown wins a close one, 68-63.

I wrote that a couple days ago. And I stand by it.

As for the really important part of this post: Here are the AXS TV channel listings for tonight's game.

• Advanced Cable Communications: Channel 679
• AT&T U-verse: Channel 1106
• Atlantic Broadband: Channel 501
• CenturyLink Prism: Channel 1105
• Cox Communications (in the Gainesville/Ocala area): Channel 199
• DirecTV: Channel 340
• DISH: Channel 167
• Home Town Cable Plus: Channel 372
• Verizon FiOS: Channel 569
• WOW!: Channel 918