Florida basketball earned an 87-76 win on Saturday down in Sunrise against the Richmond Spiders in the Orange Bowl Classic to improve to 6-3 this season. With two victories already this month, Todd Golden’s gang has four more non-conference matchups remaining before the Southeastern Conference schedule begins in January.
The latest win gave the Gators a modest boost in the NET rankings, improving from No. 47 to No. 43 — a tidy four-spot jump. The Dayton Flyers sit just ahead of them at No. 42 while the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs are right behind at No. 44.
The Orange and Blue are now 1-2 in Quadrant 1 games while 0-1 in Q2, 2-0 in Q3 and 3-0 in Q4. Richmond was No. 104 heading into the game but fell 10 spots to No. 114 after its loss.
As a reminder, the NET rankings are a fully objective measurement of outcomes. It not only considers coarse details like win-loss, but also takes into account game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses.
Here’s how the quadrant system breaks things up:
- Quadrant 1: Home 1-30, Neutral 1-50, Away 1-75
- Quadrant 2: Home 31-75, Neutral 51-100, Away 76-135
- Quadrant 3: Home 76-160, Neutral 101-200, Away 135-240
- Quadrant 4: Home 161-353, Neutral 201-353, Away 241-353
Next up for Florida are the East Carolina Pirates, who are currently ranked No. 270 in the NET, in this year’s Florida Tip-Off in Lakeland on Thursday, Dec. 14. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET and the game can be followed on the SEC Network.
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