All season long, it has felt like two steps forward and one step back for the Gators as they try to defend their national title crown from last season. As Saturday’s loss to Auburn showcased, every time this season it feels like Florida has real momentum, they lay an egg and come tumbling right back down.
The Gators are currently No. 19 in the AP top 25, and while ESPN’s current Bracketology thinks higher of them than that, it’s the continual feeling that Florida is on a treadmill that seemingly limits just how far Florida will go in March.
Florida stays a No. 4 seed in Bracketology
ESPN’s newest Bracketology dropped, and even after the loss to Auburn, the Gators are still sitting tight as a No. 4 seed. In a vacuum, it’s not the worst spot for Florida to settle into because this also has them playing in Tampa, where it would have a distinct home-court advantage.
In the current mock bracket, Florida would feed into a potential 4/5 matchup against Virginia, and even though Virginia has a better NET rating than Florida right now, the Gators would be considered the favorites, thanks in part to a superior KenPom rating.
But as Florida has struggled to maintain enough momentum to move up beyond a No. 4 seed, this is where their road could really get dicey if it were to make the Sweet 16. Right now, the four projected No. 1 seeds Florida would feed into in the Sweet 16 are Arizona, Duke, UConn, and Michigan. Florida did take the first three of those down to the wire during non-conference play, but the Gators also had to stage comebacks in those three games just to have a shot at the end.
And it’s games like the losses to TCU, Missouri, and Auburn that paint a picture that Florida doesn’t have the consistent shot-making needed to survive game after game to navigate the four games between the Sweet 16 and winning a national title.
Make no mistake about it, that making the Sweet 16 wouldn’t be the worst result in the world, given that Florida has only advanced past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament twice since 2015. But until Florida can string together consistent results without laying an egg every five games, the Sweet 16 might just be the ceiling for Florida in 2026.