After beating Missouri on the road Saturday, the Florida Gators (12-6, 2-3) return to Gainesville on Wednesday to host the Mississippi State Bulldogs (13-5, 2-3).
Using the College Basketball Power Index, ESPN predicts the winner and margin of every matchup in the country. According to Wednesday’s projections, Florida has a 67.8% chance to win on Wednesday with an expected 5.1-point margin of victory. The game also earned a matchup quality rating of 85.3, good for the sixth-best number on the night.
“BPI is a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of performance going forward,” the site reads. “BPI represents how many points above or below average a team is… Game predictions account for opponent strength, pace of play, site, travel distance, day’s rest and altitude, and are used to simulate the season 10,000 times to produce season projections.”
The Bulldogs are ranked just one spot below the Florida Gators on the Basketball Power Index at No. 34 in the country. Still, there’s about a 0.5 point difference between the two teams, which is significant.
Make no mistake, this is a big game for the Gators. It will be of the Quadrant 2 variety, and Florida hasn’t performed well against Quadrant 1 opponents this year. If Florida is going to make the tournament without winning “the big one,” then it will have to get the job done regularly against other second-tier teams in the conference.
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