It was a rough afternoon in Knoxville for Florida basketball, where the Tennessee Volunteers handily dealt with the Gators on Tuesday, 85-66. The Orange and Blue struggled out of the gates, unable to catch up with the Vols and their tenacious defense inside Thompson-Boling Arena.
In ESPN’s latest Basketball Power Index update following the loss, Florida remained at the same spot as our last update at No. 35 overall, now sitting between the No. 34 Dayton Flyers and No. 36 Xavier Musketeers.
Florida’s BPI rating — a measurement of a team’s true strength moving forward — fell 0.3 points to 9.6. The offensive BPI remained at 6.8 and the defensive BPI fell 0.3 points to 2.8.
The win-loss projection fell to 18.8-12.2, with a slightly lower 8.8-9.2 prediction for the conference schedule. ESPN continued to give Florida a 0.2% chance to win the Southeastern Conference while the remaining strength of schedule ranks at No. 45.
Florida remains on the road for its next matchup, traveling to Columbia, Missouri, to take on the Missouri Tigers on Saturday, Jan. 20. Tipoff is slated for a late 8 p.m. ET start and will be broadcast on ESPNU.
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