Though the Gators are focused on winning the SEC Tournament after locking up the regular season title, they’d be lying if they said they weren’t thinking about another position that they’re chasing–a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Following a beatdown of Mississippi State and setting up for the final game of the regular season, it’s time for another look into where Florida sits in bracketology.
What felt like just days ago we published a look at Florida’s bracket forecast, and based on the Selection Committee’s published seeds the Gators were the top 3-seed. At the time this was a completely reasonable position, and the discussion at the time was how the Gators were likely to end up on the 2-line, with an outside chance at a 1-seed–though the chance was slight.
In the subsequent days, things could not have gone better for the Gators. Four of the teams in front of the Gators, Houston, Iowa State, Purdue, and Illinois all took losses–a literal dream scenario for Florida that you could not have predicted. Now, looking at the top bracketologists in the sport–the Gators have jumped up not just to the 2-line, but to the top 2-seed. This is the official update of where Florida sits, and now the question is this:
Could the Gators earn a 1-seed?
As a reminder, three of the 1-seeds are pretty much on lock–Michigan, Arizona, and Duke could lose their remaining regular season and conference tournament games and still be a 1-seed, so there is really only one spot that the Gators are chasing.
That spot is occupied by UConn–and many people are starting to make the argument that Florida should be ahead of the Huskies. In a lot of ways UConn has found themselves in the same situation as the Gators–both the Big East and SEC were expected to be strong conferences but both have seriously underachieved, leaving Florida and UConn without as many marquee opportunities in league play to get big wins. However, the weaker conferences has allowed for a ton of wins, and just like the Gators are 15-2, UConn sits at 17-2 in the Big East (who has a 20 game league schedule).
Now, even though both conferences are down that doesn’t mean they are equal–and the Big East is worse than the SEC, so Florida’s conference accomplishments are higher than UConn’s.
While Florida was able to do more in conference, UConn was able to do much more in non-conference. The Gators’ non-conference resume is lackluster, but the Huskies were able to get wins over, well, Florida, as well as Illinois, BYU, and Texas. UConn is now 8-2 in quad-1 games, with more bulk at the top, while Florida has had a higher quantity of quad-1 wins going 11-5. Now, notably–UConn has a quad-3 loss which the Gators don’t, and Florida has a quad-2 loss while UConn is clean in that category.
In a lot of the predictive metrics, Florida has a clear edge. KenPom has UF at 4 and UConn down at 10, and the NET is similar with Florida at 4 and UConn at 8. For anyone looking to make a Florida over UConn argument–the predictive metric discrepancy is the strongest piece.
UConn does have one massive ace up their sleeve–Wins Above Bubble. This metric is probably the least talked about but clearly most important in the eyes of the committee–they have repeatedly talked about the importance of the WAB, and if you look at the initial top-16 team reveal you can see that WAB was arguably the most important metric. Similar to “wins above replacement” like you’d see in baseball and other sports, wins above bubble is the expected amount of wins a team would have over a bubble squad, and many bracketologists see this as the most accurate statistic for evaluating teams.
UConn is currently 4th in this category, while the Gators are 5th.
As you can see, this mirrors what most bracketologists are saying–UConn is the final 1-seed, while Florida is right behind as the top 2-seed.
Could the Gators catch UConn? Yes. As mentioned prior, the Big East is a down league, with the second best team, St. John’s, only 22nd in the NET. This realistically means that any loss UConn takes other than in the Big East title game, IF that game is against St. John’s, could end up dropping them in the metrics.
The SEC isn’t loaded with top teams either, but with UConn only able to beat, at best, the 22nd NET team–there are clearly more opportunities for Florida who could play Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Alabama, and Arkansas–all teams in the top 20.
Because UConn currently holds the spot, Florida will need to actively leapfrog them and that could mean winning out. If they do that, and UConn does the same while not playing as many tough teams in postseason play–the committee could have a very difficult decision on their hands.
Right now, the Gators just need to keep winning.