It was expected that Florida would be one of the last teams in action before the Selection Show on Sunday, but after an unexpected loss to Vanderbilt to end their SEC Tournament the Gators now get an extra day off to prepare and wait for their seed and opponent.
Heading into Selection Sunday, the Gators should almost certainly be a 1-seed. This was pretty much sealed in the regular season when UConn, a team that the Gators were chasing down, took a devastating quad-3 loss to Marquette that likely took them out of the running for the final 1-seed behind the three locks in Duke, Michigan, and Arizona. With the win against Kentucky the Gators almost certainly locked up the final 1-seed, though now there will be some heat coming from a team that isn’t UConn, but Houston.
In terms of Florida’s case with UConn it was largely resume versus predictive metrics. This is oversimplifying, but just for the purposes of being concise–UConn has better wins, but Florida was much better in the metrics. This battle has likely been won by the Gators even if UConn were to win the Big East Tournament, so if you want to be particularly in the clear–cheer for St. John’s to win.
Houston, however, is much closer in the metrics after surging through the Big 12 Tournament. Like Florida, Houston didn’t have a bunch of marquee wins in non-conference play but was able to do great work in the league. As of writing this article the Gators are 4th in most of the teamsheet metrics, but Houston is just behind at 5th–and if they were to beat Arizona for the Big 12 Championship they could jump Florida.
It’s also worth noting that Houston doesn’t have any losses outside of quad-1, with the Gators having one quad-2 loss that makes for a blemish.
The strongest case for Houston right now is their “Wins Above Bubble” rating, something that the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee has noted is one of the most important metrics (you may have seen it used as a defense for why Miami OH should be an at-large team). Going into Saturday’s action Houston was actually ahead of Florida in this metric, and if they were to win the Big 12 Tournament would of course clear them even further.
Needless to say, you’ll want to cheer against the Cougars.
To be clear–even if Houston were to win the Big 12 Tournament the Gators would still be the likely final 1-seed, but the case for the Cougars has to be laid out. Something very much in Florida’s favor as well is the fact that the committee has historically really ignored conference tournament games on the Friday and beyond–something that has caught them all kinds of (rightful, in my opinion) criticism, but is something that could help the Gators and keep any enterprising committee members from making a case for Houston.
With a 1-seed the Gators will go to Tampa and play close to home, so if you’re in the area and haven’t yet got tickets for this session this could be the final time to get decently priced tickets before it’s officially announced on Sunday night and more Florida fans flock to the box office.
Right now the projected 16-seeds that the Gators could play are LIU, Southern, Howard, Queens, UMBC, and Queens, so you can expect to see one of these opponents.
