The Florida Gators men’s basketball made a statement run over Thanksgiving, taking down Wake Forest, 75-58, and Wichita State, 88-51, en route to an ESPN Events Invitational championship. As a result, the Gators jumped up to No. 18 on the ESPN Basketball Power Index.
Note: The BPI is updated daily; however Gators Wire provides weekly updates as not to overwhelm fans with constant changes.
Florida’s BPI is 15.8, further broken down as 9.1 (15th) on offense and 6.8 (35th) on defense. All three of those figures are up from our last update (13.5, 8.5 and 5.0). The Gators jumped up two spots in the offensive rankings and 30 on defense.
“The College Basketball Power Index (BPI) is a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of performance going forward,” ESPN explains. “BPI represents how many points above or below average a team is. Strength of Record (SOR) is a measure of team accomplishment based on how difficult a team’s W-L record is to achieve. 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.”
ESPN BPI Projections
ESPN now projects Florida to finish the season with a 22.3-8.7 overall record (2.7 more wins than last week) and a 10.2-7.8 record in conference play (1.2 more wins) based on results to date and BPI-based projections for remaining scheduled games. The Gators have 3.2% odds to win the conference, up 2.2% a week ago.
Florida faces the 24th-toughest schedule moving forward with many of its weakest opponents in the rearview mirror. As expected, the SEC slate will be a gauntlet.
NCAA Tournament/Resume
The 8-0 start has the Gators ranked 12th overall in strength of record, which translates to a No. 3 seed if the season were to end today — up from 14th and a No. 4 seed a week ago.
Florida finally faces some decent competition in the non-conference schedule, which has the strength of schedule rankings up to No. 133 from No. 225, and it faces a trio of top-100 opponents over the next few weeks. The Gators haven’t faced a “quality opponent” (top 50 in BPI) yet.
ESPN gives Florida 0.7% odds of winning the NCAA Tournament and 2.4% odds of making it to the championship game. A Final Four appearance (7.0%) or Elite Eight appearance (15.6%) are more realistic now, as are the odds of a Sweet 16 (35.7%) and Round of 32 appearance (69.6%).
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