If Florida Basketball can avoid potholes, the road to March seems clear

Heading into its matchup against Auburn, Florida Basketball was in a weird position. While the Gators were one of only seven schools to have not lost to a team outside of Quad 1, they also only had one victory against a Quad 1 team.

So after blowing out Auburn on Saturday, the Gators have another quality win to bolster its tournament resume. And given its remaining schedule, the road to March for Florida seems to be crystal clear.

Florida Basketball: The Home Stretch

After clobbering Auburn, the Gators are now 16-7 and are now 2-7 against Quad 1 opponents as judged by the NCAA Net rankings.

Just as important, Florida is 14-0 against teams in Quad 2 through 4 and are one of only seven teams to have avoided a "bad loss" this season.

As a reminder, the Quad System is defined as follows:

• Quadrant 1: Home 1-30, Neutral 1-50, Away 1-75
• Quadrant 2: Home 31-75, Neutral 51-100, Away 76-135
• Quadrant 3: Home 76-160, Neutral 101-200, Away 135-240
• Quadrant 4: Home 161-353, Neutral 201-353, Away 241-353

With that in mind, here is what lays ahead to close out the regular season:

• Vs LSU (Quad 3)
• At Georgia (Quad 2)
• At Alabama (Quad 1)
• Vs Vanderbilt (Quad 4)
• Vs Missouri (Quad 3)
• At South Carolina (Quad 1)
• Vs Alabama (Quad 1)
• At Vanderbilt (Quad 3)

So of Florida's last eight games, three are considered a Quad 1 game. If Florida can pick up just one win among those three and avoid being upset in any of their other five games, it would have the Gators finish the regular season 22-9 with three Quad 1 wins and zero bad losses.

That should be enough to get Florida safely into the NCAA Tournament for the first time in three seasons given that ESPN's Joe Lunardi had them on the plus side of the bubble even before their win over Auburn.