Castleton Preseason First Team SEC and UF Picked Seventh

Gators 7th in a 14 team league. Sounds about White.

 

Congrats to Castleton. Well deserved.

A little scary that we’re 7th pre-season in the conference. As I posted a while back (link below), Mike has never exceeded the media’s expectations. Not 1 single finish better than expected while a Gator coach. I sure hope this is the year.

Below Expectations | Swamp Gas Forums

 

It almost never turns out like that in the tournament. UF and UK are usually the ones to get the furthest and there might be one outlier like Tennessee, LSU, or TAMU each year that is a surprise SEC team that makes some noise alongside UF and UK.

 

That was in the Donovan era. Not so much now.

 

Florida will beat this prognostication by at least 3 spots.
Book it!
(Well - don't book. Just remember I said it. Well, only remember I said it if I am right.)

 

2021-22 Men's College Basketball Rankings for Preseason | ESPN

Dicky V's Top 40 (Florida at #32)
Dick Vitale's college basketball preseason Top 40 rankings for 2021-22

Judging by the preseason rankings, #16 Arkansas and #14 Alabama seem like the rising powers in the SEC along with #18 Tennessee, #22 Auburn, LSU and #10 Kentucky (the wildcats' ranking seems high considering last year's losing record). All of those teams have recruited well and had good NCAA runs last season and recently. For instance,

- Alabama made it to the SW16 (& lost to current #2 UCLA who had made the Final4 last season). In 2021, the Tide had also won both the regular season SEC & Tourney in dominating style.

- Arkansas made it to the E8 by beating the team (Oral Roberts) that Florida did not; the razorbacks lost to the eventual national champions, Baylor.

- Auburn made it to the 2019 Final4 and lost to the eventual national champions, Virginia, by one point (62-63).
- Tennessee had won the 2018 SEC title and made a SW16.
- LSU had won the 2019 SEC title.
- In the 2020 season that was cancelled, Kentucky had won the SEC title.

With new coaches, I believe that that there are several programs that have surpassed Florida in the last 2-3 seasons. Since the Gator's last E8 run in 2017, White's Florida teams have not won more than 14 SEC games and have averaged only 9-11 SEC wins a season. With the SEC loaded again with great competition, wins may be hard to come by for this program again.

Here are the recent SEC title winners:
Southeastern Conference Index | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com

 

You researched and typed all that just to prove my point.

 

Castleton named to Abdul-Jabbar watch list
Castleton named to Abdul-Jabbar watch list | GatorCountry.com