With just two weeks until Selection Sunday, it’s crunch time for a Florida Gators basketball team that is firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble.
Various national and local media have been floating their takes about whether or not it’s a team that’s currently in an at-large position, so I thought it was time for an objective look at where the Gators currently sit in bracketology as of right now*.
*The evening of February 27th. Some numbers could change minorly by the time you read this.
When it comes to NCAA Tournament seeding and selection, the most important number is the NCAA’s proprietary NET ranking system. Because it’s proprietary we don’t know exactly what makes up the formula but they have said that it takes in both results of games as well as efficiency numbers. For that reason, and we’ve seen this in Florida’s case, a team can win a game but still drop in the NET, and they can lose a game but still rise.
Currently, the Gators are 51st in the NET.
That, simply put, is not favorable. The NET has only been in place for a couple of years, but in its brief history high major teams generally need to be in the thirties (the high thirties, to be more accurate) to be considered for an at-large spot. Does that mean they wouldn’t put in a team that’s 51st or in, say, the forties if the Gators improved a few spots in the final weeks? Not necessarily, and the fact it has only been around for a couple of seasons means there simply isn’t a lot to go on.
The NET is the official sorting tool of the NCAA, so being 51st can’t feel good for the Gators. It’s a tool that’s trying to rank teams as accurately as possible, so in one way you could say that the NET suggests the Gators are the 51st best team in the country and, well, that doesn’t constitute an NCAA Tournament team.
Using the NET, the NCAA breaks down games into four quadrants with the first quadrant being the highest quality games and the fourth quadrant being the lowest quality games. Here is Florida’s record in each quadrant:
Quadrant-1: 2-8
Quadrant-2: 4-2
Quadrant-3: 5-0
Quadrant-4: 7-1
There are two very notable takeaways from Florida’s resume. First, the poor record in quadrant-1 opportunities. People skeptical of high major teams they deem to be overrated will point to records like Florida’s and say that they had 10 quality win opportunities and only won two of them (Ohio State and Auburn), suggesting that they have had all kinds of opportunities and squandered them. Looking at teams projected to be around the bubble, many of them have four or more quadrant-1 wins. For the Gators, that isn’t a good sign.
Then, there is a huge black eye on the resume. The quadrant-4 loss.
That, of course, was the blowout loss the Gators suffered at home to Texas Southern. A quadrant-4 loss is the worst possible loss you can take, and it’s very rare for the top teams in college basketball and very rare for teams that make the NCAA Tournament. In fact, in the short history of the NET only one team has suffered a quad-4 loss and made the NCAA Tournament. Once again, we have an issue that is very concerning to Florida’s NCAA Tournament hopes.
Currently in the NET there are actually five teams higher than Florida that have suffered a quadrant-4 loss. Those teams are BYU, North Carolina, Boise State, San Francisco, and SMU. Other than BYU, all these teams are in the NCAA Tournament picture. This is good news for the Gators, as in the past couple of years there have been only one or two teams in the top 50 of the NET to take a quad-4 loss. With multiple this season Florida’s quad-4 loss doesn’t look as bad as it would have in recent seasons. However, it’s still a black eye, and if the Gators are getting considered against a team that doesn’t have one of those losses, it could very well end up being the difference.
When looking at Bracketology, the best practice (in my opinion) is not to look at one single bracketologist, but looking at all the best ones in the country. This is easily accomplished with Bracket Matrix, a composite of the top 112 performing bracketologists from the year prior. That’s a healthy sample size, and combining all their work gives an accurate picture (something that is proven when you look back at their projected bracket versus what the true bracket ended up being).
According to Bracket Matrix the Gators are…
…out.
Specifically, they’re the 6th team out.
What’s great about Bracket Matrix is that you can also see the individual bracket of each of the 112 contributors, and looking at that you can see that Florida is in only 10 of the 112 brackets.
So, there is clearly some work to be done.
Another (free) online tool that is a great resource is Bart Torvik. Torvik has a couple elements that are extremely interesting, starting with a “similar resumes” tool. This is exactly what it sounds like–it takes a team’s current resume and looks for historically similar resumes and says if those similar teams made the NCAA Tournament and if they did–how they performed.
Looking at Florida’s similar resumes there are 11 over the last decade, and only 3 of those 11 teams made the NCAA Tournament.
3 of 11 is interesting, because it’s similar to another interesting tool Torvik has–tourney odds. This tool is exactly what it sounds like–the projected odds a team has of making the Big Dance.
Torvik currently gives the Gators a 34% chance of making the NCAA Tournament (and a 1.6% chance of winning the SEC, for whatever it’s worth..) which, when looking at Florida’s resume, seems accurate.
One more extremely cool tool that Torvik has is a “rooting guide,” which tells you what teams you should be cheering for to win or lose to help a team make the NCAA Tournament. You can find that tool on Florida’s team sheet should you go looking for it.
However you slice it, the Gators are not in a great position as it stands and have some serious work to do in the remainder of the season if they want to hear their name called on Selection Sunday. Luckily for them, they’ll have opportunities to better their fate.
Vanderbilt has been sneakily rising in the NET and are currently 75th, meaning there is a chance it ends up being a quadrant-1 game for the Gators and will at worst be a quadrant-2. Of course, their final game of the regular season against Kentucky will unsurprisingly be a quadrant-1 game that if they win could instantly put them in the field. That doesn’t even count the SEC Tournament where they’ll have more chances.
So, if the Tournament started tomorrow, I don’t think you could make an argument in good faith that the Gators would be in the field. However, they have chances to control their own destiny, and that starts on Tuesday against the Commodores.