GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Defending national champion Florida spent the past few weeks chasing a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
The fifth-ranked Gators openly talked about it — and certainly played like it.
Now they seemingly have it.
Florida enters the Southeastern Conference Tournament with what appears to be a tightening grip on the fourth and final No. 1 seed for the Big Dance. It’s a position few would have imagined coach Todd Golden’s group
would be in following a 5-4 start that included a loss to TCU.
“All of our advanced metrics are top four, for the most part,” said Golden, whose team will begin SEC play Friday. “We didn’t play our best basketball in November. But a lot of the numbers are pointed to (a 1 seed) now. We got a lot to work on, though, before we can really plant our flag on that.”
The Gators closed the regular season with an 11th consecutive victory, 84-77 at Kentucky on Saturday. Florida swept both meetings with the Wildcats and led all 80 minutes, providing more evidence that the Gators are capable of repeating despite losing starting guards Walter Clayton, Alijah Martin and Will Richard as well as top assistants John Andrzejek (Campbell) and Kevin Hovde (Columbia).
During their current streak, the Gators (25-6, 16-2 SEC) are winning by an average of 21.7 points. Seven of their 11 wins have been by at least 19 points.
The late-season surge put Florida in the mix behind presumable top-seed locks Arizona, Duke and Michigan.
“Transparently, probably tough to catch Arizona, probably tough to catch Duke at this point,” Golden said. “Michigan is probably in there. But that fourth one’s open.”
Before losing to Marquette on Saturday, UConn had a case to get a No. 1 seed over Florida since the Huskies won a head-to-head matchup in early December at Madison Square Garden. But the Gators have grown considerably since that one-point loss in New York City.
“That was a long time ago,” Golden said. “That’s part of the body work, but it’s not all the body work. ... All we can continue to do is kind of focus on ourselves and keep winning. If we do that, then we’re going to apply pressure on the committee to make a tough decision.
“What we’ve been able to do in the SEC, if we’re able to finish the right way, I think we’ll have some other feathers in our cap that we could sell to the committee.”
If the Gators win the SEC Tournament for the second time in as many years, they probably won't have to do any campaigning.
They rank fourth in the NCAA Net, with an 11-5 record in Quad 1 games. No one else in the top 10 has more than eight wins. Advanced analytical sites such as Ken Pomeroy (fourth) and Bart Torvik (third) also have them ranked highly.
“I think we just got to keep winning,” Golden said. “Keep winning and we’ll figure it out. I don’t know what exactly that looks like or if we could afford to lose one or not. There are too many things that can happen between now and Selection Sunday to say that.”
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