Wednesday, February 26, 2020 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
Share:
By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Kentucky will have no worse than a two-game lead on its closest Southeastern Conference competitors once Wednesday's mid-week games are completed, meaning the Wildcats, with three games to go, are in the driver's seat to win a 49th regular-season league championship. It's not an automatic. UK's remaining games come with a high degree of difficulty, but the Cats are peaking at the right time, as in heading toward March.
Who else in the SEC can say that? Who else in the league can say they'll be playing in March (the "Madness" part, that is)?
Auburn, for sure. LSU, almost certainly. Florida? Well, that depends.
The Gators, who currently sit alone in fourth place in the SEC standings, have put themselves in position for a fourth straight NCAA Tournament at-large berth, but they need a couple more in the "W" column, and the first chance comes Wednesday night when UF (17-10, 9-5) gets LSU (19-8, 10-4) in a big one at Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center. The Gators will have more such opportunities the next few weeks.
"Our guys know the big picture. They know it," UF coach Mike White said Tuesday. "I told them [this week], for probably the third or fourth time, our spectrum is [that] we could potentially make a run in the NCAA Tournament or we could potentially not go to the NCAA Tournament. That's where we are. I think there are a bunch of teams like that. We're promised five more [games]. Who knows beyond that? This is the way I believe this team needs to play, so let's get on the same page. That's what we can control, right now."
[Read senior writer Chris Harry's "Pregame Stuff" setup here]
The Gators and Tigers played a tight one last month in Baton Rouge, La., where the home team squeaked by for an 84-82 win when UF forward Keyontae Johnson'slayup to force overtime was ruled to have come a fraction of a second after the final buzzer. That would have been a big road win for Florida, but instead the Gators need to protect their home floor against a team currently in a half-game behind Auburn for second in the league standings. A UF win would pull the Gators even with the Tigers in third place, while also adding a quality "Quadrant-1" win to the Florida postseason resume.
So what about that resume?
The Gators are on solid footing, as long as they take care of some business down the stretch; as in winning more games. Probably two. Last year, UF went on a late five-game winning streak, only to revert to an even later three-game losing streak (as in the final three regular-season games of the season), which necessitated a mini-run in the SEC Tournament, including a huge last-second upset of regular-season champ LSU, to secure the NCAA berth. The team made it despite a middling record of 19-15. That's because the UF played one of the more challenging schedules in the league, a choice the computers look at favorably. White would rather not leave it to that again.
Right now, the SEC appears to be a four-bid league, with the Gators as that fourth team, thanks to another ambitious non-conference schedule (the second-toughest in the conference). UF, though, can significantly enhance its postseason profile by capitalizing on three Q-1 opportunities (in four games) to finish the season. That's tied for the most such opportunities in the league alongside Tennessee, which gets a visit Saturday from Florida. The Gators also play at Georgia next week and finish the regular season at home against Kentucky.
When UF lost last weekend at UK, the Gators actually moved up in the NET from 35 to 33 after absorbing the Wildcats' high metrics.
Just guessing, but 19 regular-season wins against this schedule (one that figures to gain some power-rating points the next two weeks) would appear pretty safe. Repeat: That's only a guess.
The best way to remove the guess work is to take care of business, especially at home.
"We control our destiny, and that's a luxury we have as a team," UF grad-transfer forward Kerry Blackshear Jr. said. "We can decide whether we want to finish out in the NIT, not make a tournament, or make a run in the NCAA Tournament, and I think we do that day by day by competing against each other, learning from past mistakes that we've made, but also from our good experiences, too. Because I think we've shown that we can be a different team depending on each night, and we just want to make sure we reach our ceiling when it's time."
The time, frankly, is now.
CHARTING THE GATORS: SEC NET Equivalency
A Florida home win over LSU would be a fifth "Quadrant-1" victory for the Gators this season and further their cause in the NCAA Evaluation Tool metrics.
Here's a snapshot, based on Wednesday morning data, of where the SEC's 14 teams reside as far as their postseason resumes, per the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET), which puts premium emphasis on who you play, where you play and who you beat in ranking the nation's 353 Division I teams. A so-called "Quadrant-1" win can be gained three ways: beating a NET top-30 opponent at home; a top-50 opponent at a neutral site; or a top-75 opponent on the road. The NET scale drops for Quadrant-2 opportunities and so on. Whether a game is a Q-1, Q-2, Q-3 or Q-4 is a moving target over the course of the season, depending on where the opponent ranks. Example: LSU will come to the O'Dome as No. 29 in the NET, but if UF wins the Tigers may fall out of the top 30 because of the loss, but may move up because playing Florida on the road will pad their strength of schedule. Get it?
[Note: "SOS" reflects Strength of Schedule and includes overall and non-conference rankings]
