Florida Basketball: Gators to face #8 Texas A&M in second round

Florida basketball to take on #8 Texas A&M in the second round of the SEC tournament

With March Madness just around the corner, we first have the tournaments for each conference, including the SEC.  14 teams duking it out for a spot in March Madness, all of whom have to make it through at least 3 games to get into the big tournament.  With this, the first game for Florida basketball has been announced for the SEC tournament, which will be against #8 seed Texas A&M.

The seeding came down to a tiebreaker for the 5th through 9th seeds as they were in a five-way tie conference record-wise for those spots all at 9-9.  This left Florida at the bottom possible spot out of the tiebreaker, which gives them the hardest matchup of the bunch as well playing the 8th seed rather than the 10th through 14th.  With this, we will be getting a rematch of a game that happened not even two weeks ago, where Texas A&M would prevail by 1 point.

Previous Matchup – Florida basketball vs Texas A&M

While the last game swung in the favor of A&M, Florida basketball kept it exceptionally close and made a comeback after going down 27-20 at halftime.  This bodes well for the rematch on March 10th, as if anything it should be an extremely entertaining matchup between the SEC rivals.

The main reason the Gators lost the last matchup?  Shooting efficiency.  Florida basketball shot 28.8% from the field that game, and 23.3% from 3, which led to them going down and not being able to stay on top despite a late push to take the lead.  Only two Gators really had any form of a redeemable performance that game.

Colin Castleton: 15 points on 5/10 shooting, 5/5 from the stripe, 15 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 blocks

CJ Felder: 7 points on 3/4 shooting, 5 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, 2 blocks

What to expect – March 10th matchup

What should everyone be expecting from this game in 4 days?  That is pretty hard to tell frankly.  Since their last matchup, Florida basketball has gone 3-2, beating Auburn, Georgia, and Vanderbilt.  On the other hand, Texas A&M has gone 4-1, only losing to Vanderbilt and beating Alabama and Georgia in conference games.

These two teams come in with very similar circumstances, with only a 1 game difference in overall record and the same conference record, while their last game ended 1 point apart.  This has the potential to become an all-time classic between the two teams, as despite neither being a high seed, it could be a very tight game coming down to the wire.  Overtime is definitely a possibility here and would make the game even more entertaining.  While Texas A&M has a home-court advantage, as well as the seed advantage, the two teams are so similarly matched that realistically it could come down to something as simple as those two factors.