Depending on the expert you trust the most, the Florida Gators are either a team just a couple of wins away from securing their spot in the big dance or a team with a lot of work to do based on the weak RPI of the Southeastern Conference. Billy Donovan knows he can’t shelter his team from television and sports talk radio airwaves with their constant barrage of who should, who shouldn’t and who could get into the NCAA Tournament, but he can help the Gators keep everything in proper perspective.
“If you’re a team that’s definitely in the tournament everybody wants to be talking about where you’re going to be seeded and if you’re not they’re talking about the bubble,” Donovan said Thursday afternoon. “So you’re going to have to talk about the future in these situations regardless of whether you’re in or out but the reality is that all that stuff that takes place when it takes place, we have no effect on that unless we take advantage of the opportunity we have on Sunday.”
Sunday, the Gators (21-7, 8-5 SEC East) play host to Tennessee (17-10, 8-5 SEC East) in a game that has far reaching implications. Both Florida and Tennessee have been eliminated from the race for the SEC championship — LSU needs only one win or one South Carolina loss to clinch — but both teams are fighting to get into the NCAA Tournament and both teams are still in contention for the Eastern Division championship. South Carolina (20-6, 9-4 SEC East) leads the division, but Florida, Tennessee and Kentucky are all one game behind and all have three regular season games remaining.
Tennessee comes into this nationally televised game Sunday at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center (2 p.m., CBS) with its backs to the wall. The Vols were thought to be a Final Four contender when the season began, but with 10 losses on their resume and the Southeastern Conference with a low conference RPI (SEC ranks sixth in the latest Pomroy Rankings) it might take a three-game sweep in the last nine days of the regular season to get invited to the NCAA Tournament. Anything less than three wins and the Vols have work to do in the SEC Tournament in Tampa (March 12-15).
The Gators also have to look at this as a three-game season but they might have some wiggle room. Based on their recent history (NCAA titles in 2006 and 2007, plus a run of nine straight NCAA Tournament bids that ended last year), the Gators might only need to win two out of their last three to get in but there are no guarantees. If the SEC were ranked higher in the RPI rankings, it might be impossible to say no to a team with 23 regular season wins and 10 wins in a conference that tends to do very well in NCAA Tournament play.
But this isn’t years past. The SEC is viewed as the weakest of the power conferences so there is a possibility that the league will get only three or four bids instead of the typical five or six.
Donovan knows RPI is a factor in how many teams from each league get into the tournament but he’s not sure that it’s an accurate measure, particularly since so much emphasis is given to games played in November and December.
“I think in any system where you’re selecting something and you’re involving computers and personal judgment and things like that whether it’s the BCS or the NCAA Tournament, there is always a level of scrutiny about who was left out or who should be or who shouldn’t be in,” Donovan said. “No one is ever going to be happy but I do think one of the things that happens early on is your league RPI is pretty much relegated to what you do in November and December as a league and it’s really difficult once your league starts to improve your RPI.
“That’s probably not the fairest assessment of what teams do growth wise from January to the end of February. There are teams that get better. Half of our league is so young and teams have gotten better and they’ve improved but I don’t know how you can measure that until maybe some of our teams in our league play teams later on in March.”
LSU is probably the perfect example of how the RPI rewards teams for their early season schedule and not for what they’ve done lately. The Tigers are 24-4, 12-1 in the SEC West and they are one of the hottest teams in the country. They’ve won their last nine games overall and since a loss to Alabama on the road in their first conference game, the Tigers have reeled off 12 straight league victories. Yet because of a very weak pre-conference schedule that included 11 teams with an RPI of 190 or higher, LSU has an RPI of 38 and wouldn’t be a top four seed in any region if Selection Sunday were this weekend.
“I’m not that big on the RPI and I know it’s a huge measuring stick but it’s hard to gauge how a team has improved,” Donovan said.
Because the RPI and national perceptions of the caliber of teams in the SEC might be unfair, there is only one solution.
“My message to all those guys is that is why that’s why they play the games,” Donovan said.
Play and win and the Gators solve their own problems. If they win out, they make it an easy decision for the people on the selection committee. If they lose games, the RPI becomes a determining factor.
Ensuring that the Gators keep it all in proper perspective, Donovan resorted to a time tested method that he has used in years past. Sometimes keeping a team focused requires a bit of creativity and it never hurts to have a crack video staff at your disposal.
“I took a tape and I actually did this with teams in years past of ‘all the experts’ prognosticating who was going, who’s not going and who’s where and showed who’s wrong,” Donovan said.
All the experts can do right now is guess. All the Gators can do right now is focus on the next three games and win them.
GAME NOTES: Senior Walter Hodge needs only 10 points to become the 44th member of the 1,000-point club … Sophomore Nick Calathes has scored in double figures in 56 of the 64 games in his Florida career including 25 times this season. Calathes has scored in double figures 16 straight games … The Gators are 15-0 at home this season and they have won 17 straight games in the Stephen C. O’Connell Center … The Gators average 81.6 points per game at home and only 71.6 on the road.