Florida basketball is currently putting the finishing touches on a fine regular-season schedule, but unfortunately, hit a roadblock on Saturday afternoon in Columbia where the South Carolina Gamecocks mounted a second-half comeback to emerge with the 82-76 victory over the Gators.
In ESPN’s latest Basketball Power Index update following the loss, the Orange and Blue rose a spot since our previous update, now sitting at No. 27 overall; that nestles them between the No. 26 TCU Horned Frogs and No. 28 Dayton Flyers. However, it also represents a two-spot drop from Saturday’s pregame rankings.
Florida’s BPI rating — a measurement of a team’s true strength moving forward — fell 0.1 points to 11.6 since the last update. The offensive BPI rose 0.1 points to 8.3 while the defensive BPI fell 0.2 points to 3.3.
The win-loss projection fell to 21.3-9.7 as did the prediction for the conference schedule, which fell to 11.3-6.8. ESPN gives Florida less than a 0.1% chance to win the Southeastern Conference while the remaining strength of schedule ranks at No. 63.
The Gators return home for a rematch against the Alabama Crimson Tide on Tuesday, March 5, inside the O’Connell Center. Tipoff is slated for 7 p.m. ET and the game will be broadcast on ESPN.
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