Florida Gators dip to No. 7 in AP poll

An embarrassing road loss at Arkansas not only resulted in the Florida Gators’ first SEC setback, it also knocked them down five spots to No. 7 in this week’s Associated Press Top 25 poll.

It also means the Gators (19-3 overall, 9-1 in SEC play) will need a few teams ahead of them to fall id they are to get back in the conversation for a No. 1 seed come NCAA tournament time.

Indiana comes in at No. 1 followed by Duke, Miami, Michigan, Gonzaga and Syracuse as teams ranked ahead of Florida.

The only other SEC team in the Top 25 is No. 25 Kentucky. The Gators host the Wildcats (17-6, 8-2) at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center at 7 p.m. on Tuesday. The battle between the top two teams in the league will air on ESPN.

Missouri and Ole Miss are the only other SEC teams receiving votes. The Tigers actually would be No. 27 and are just 18 votes behind Kentucky. They were No. 21 in last week’s AP rankings.

mikecapshaw
Mike Capshaw brings a wealth of experience to the Gator Country team. He’s been overseeing all editorial aspects of GatorCountry.com and Gator Country magazine by managing our team of staffers, interns and freelancers. He is now moving into a bigger role as a reporter by covering the football and basketball beats as well as providing coverage of all sports on campus. Mike’s 15 years in the business has included more than six years of covering SEC sports and recruiting at a daily newspaper in Arkansas. He has also helped launch a newspaper, magazines, websites and even a sports talk radio show. Because Mike puts family ahead of his career, he left the place where he was established when his wife received an opportunity to further her career at UF. He took a leap of faith that he could find a job in the Gainesville area and worked for a year at a newspaper group before joining the Gator Country family in November, 2011. Mike has won Florida Press Association awards for Best Sports Game Story and Best Sports Feature Story in the past two years as well as a company-wide award at his former newspaper group that includes some 60 publications, for Excellence in Sports Reporting. You can follow Mike on Twitter at @MikeCapshawGC.