Florida Basketball is a full blown locomotive heading into SEC play

When the formal non-conference schedule for Florida Basketball came out, there was always the possibility of navigating the slate without a loss.

But it is one thing to navigate a slate of games you are favored in; it is another to win every game with such assertion that Vegas can't keep up no matter how hard they try. And on Sunday afternoon, Florida put an exclamation mark on their non-conference slate with a beatdown of Stetson to enter SEC play 13-0.

Florida Basketball: One last tune-up

Stetson was an NCAA Tournament team last season after winning the Atlantic Sun Conference, but that didn't leave oddsmakers impressed as 38.5 points favored the Gators, their largest spread of the season.

Once the Gators put their foot on the gas four minutes into the game, they were a full-blown locomotive that Stetson was merely a spectator to. Alijah Martin had 18 points, Will Richard had 17 points, and Walter Clayton only needed 12 points for Florida to still find a way to cover the massive spread Vegas had set.

It was largely a slam dunk party throughout, with Richard getting the signature moment in the second half with another poster-worthy dunk.

Florida will now enter SEC play undefeated with an average margin of victory of 23.9 points, 3rd best in the country. This margin is bound to go down, but as we noted last week, the Gators haven't finished a season with an average scoring margin in double digits since their 2016/17 Elite Eight run.

Up next is Kentucky, an up-and-down squad with wins over Duke and Gonzaga but losses against Clemson and Ohio State. The SEC as a whole will be unrelenting as Tennessee and Arkansas are the next two after that.

Florida won't navigate the SEC undefeated, at least probably not, but they have shown reasons to believe a deep run in March is likely as games will ramp up in intensity moving forward.