Florida suffered its first loss of the season on Wednesday night against the Oklahoma Sooners. It struggled to shoot the ball with consistency in that game, and OU had a tremendous offensive game in a 74-67 win.
Still, that loss, which is a Quadrant 1 loss, likely won’t impact Florida too much come March. And in the latest bracketology update from ESPN’s Joe Lunardi, it didn’t drop the Gators from the five-seed line.
He has the team playing 12-seeded Ohio, the projected automatic qualifier from the MAC. Florida is in the East Region, where the top seed is Duke (who it could play in the Sweet 16). A win in the first round would set up a matchup with either No. 4 Michigan State or Rick Pitino’s 13-seeded Iona squad.
As far as the rest of the SEC goes, the league has six teams on the top-five seed lines: No. 3 Arkansas, No. 3 Tennessee, No. 4 Kentucky, No. 4 Alabama and No. 5 Auburn in addition to UF. Additionally, LSU is a six seed and Mississippi State and Texas A&M are in the First Four Out and Next Four Out, respectively.
Florida has a chance to finish non-conference play with a very good record, and if it can keep up the success in SEC play, it could rise even further.
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