What's the ideal SEC Tournament Bracket for Florida Basketball?
By Will Thomas
Florida basketball is now firmly in the NCAA Tournament picture and is playing its remaining games with the hopes of improving its seed for the big dance.
In Joe Lunardi's most recent Bracketology, the Gators came in as a six seed, but that was before they blew out Alabama on Tuesday night.
With only one more game against Vanderbilt in the regular season, Florida's best shot to improve their seed is at the SEC Tournament next week in Nashville.
As we start to get a clearer picture of how the SEC will be seeded next week, what would be the ideal bracket for the Gators as they aim to make a run?
Florida basketball: No such thing as an easy path
There has never been such a thing as an easy road to the conference championship. Every team is playing for their lives, and in this year's SEC, there are no less than six teams with a legitimate shot at winning the tournament.
However, there are definitely some preferred routes that the Gators could draw for next week.
As the bracket currently stands with one game left, Florida is the 6-seed in the SEC and would play the winner of Georgia vs Missouri in their first game on Thursday night.
The Gators have already beaten both of those teams and would feel confident going head-to-head with either one.
Assuming Florida wins game one, they would then play the three-seed. The problem is that the teams from second to fifth are all tied in the standings, so we won't know who that will be until this Saturday night.
If every team No. 2-5 wins and the current standings hold, Florida would face Auburn, a team they crushed in Gainesville earlier this year. But it would be hard not to feel good about UF's chances against any of these teams.
Florida split the season series with Kentucky and Alabama and were a few less turnovers away from taking down South Carolina on the road.
Moving on, if Florida takes down the three seed in that game, which for our case right now we'll say is Auburn, they'll then play the two seed, which figures to be either Kentucky or Alabama.
The best news for Florida is that they won't need to face Tennessee before a hypothetical Conference Championship Game. And as we talked about earlier, there will be plenty of confidence in Florida to take down any of the other teams seeded ahead of them.
If the Gators are able to make a run to the title game, where in all likelihood they would face Tennessee, Florida would likely earn a 5-seed with a possibility to jump up to a 4-seed regardless of the result.