College basketball is not exactly on the forefront of the national sports picture but there is always someone out there tracking the preseason progress of the top teams. CBS Sports writer Gary Parrish has been publishing his top 25-and-1 rankings on a weekly basis and has included the Florida Gators in all of his updates so far.
This time around, however, the Gators fell a notch from their spot in last week’s update, landing at No. 20 out of 26 ranked schools. The Orange and Blue are one of seven Southeastern Conference schools listed, including the Alabama Crimson Tide (No. 8), Auburn Tigers (No. 10), Texas A&M Aggies (No. 11), Tennessee Volunteers (No. 16), Texas Longhorns (No. 21) and Arkansas Razorbacks (No. 23).
“This ranking is based on Todd Golden’s Gators returning six of the top nine scorers — everybody besides [autotag]Zyon Pullin[/autotag], [autotag]Tyrese Samuel[/autotag] and [autotag]Riley Kugel[/autotag] — from a team that secured a No. 7 seed in the 2024 NCAA Tournament,” his blurb still reads.
“The transfer-portal additions of [autotag]Alijah Martin[/autotag] (FAU) and [autotag]Sam Alexis[/autotag] (Chattanooga) give Florida a pair of productive mid-major pieces, the former of whom helped Florida Atlantic make the 2023 Final Four.”
Florida ranks No. 28 in 247Sports’ college basketball transfer rankings having collected a trio of four-star recruits from the portal.
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