The calendar has turned to March, and if one hasn’t been paying attention, the Gators are surging at the right time. Since losing to Auburn on January 24, Florida has ripped off nine straight wins, with only one of those wins being less than ten points.
But while March Madness will encompass the last two weekends of March, the ultimate goal of the Final Four isn’t until April. And while things are looking up for the Gators to repeat, this is what needs to go well in March in order for Florida to still be playing once April rolls around.
Florida needs to win its next three games
The Gators close out the regular season against Mississippi State and Kentucky. The Bulldogs are terrible and shouldn’t be too arduous a test. Kentucky will be on the road and is the only team not to lose by ten points to Florida during this nine-game winning streak.
From there, Florida will have the No. 1 seed in the SEC Tournament. As of now, they would slot it against the winner against Vanderbilt and Texas A&M, though that is subject to change.
The reality is that Florida has a tough climb to reach a No. 1 seed, given their six losses and the fact they have a head-to-head loss against three of the projected No. 1 seeds (Arizona, Duke, UConn), but there is more and more momentum for Florida to get a No. 2 seed.
To lock up a No. 2 seed, Florida needs to win its next three games. At that point, Florida would be in the semifinals of the SEC Tournament, but the NCAA Tournament committee has shown in recent years that they don’t seem to care about conference tournaments unless you bow out super early.
It may seem like semantics of a No. 2 versus a No. 3 seed, but when thinking ahead to a potential Sweet 16 matchup of a No. 2 vs. No. 3, there is a clear decline with the potential No. 3 seed teams Florida could face if they are the No. 2 seed, compared to the other way around.
Urban Klavzar stays hot
Florida has been a bit better at shooting threes, and one of their not-so-hidden secret weapons has been Urban Klavzar. He’s been just a tick below 40% from three, and at some point during the tournament, the Gators are going to run into a team that can matchup size wise and/or is going to employ the Auburn game plan and say screw it, we are going to force Florida to shoot wide-open threes.
The thing for Klavzar is that last year, he was starting to get minutes in the rotation only to be shuffled out during the tournament. He seems to be in a much better place this year, and Florida is going to need him to continue to be an outlet from downtown to punish teams who want to collapse down low.
Make free throws
Lost in the shuffle of Florida’s inability to shoot threes and the fact that they still turn the ball over more than they would like is that Florida isn’t that great of a free-throw shooting team.
At 71.4% this season, Florida is just 224th in this category.
The problem is that in March, teams tend to start the foul fest to extend the game far sooner than they do in a regular-season game. Last year, Florida benefited in the Elite Eight from Texas Tech twice, missing the front end of a one-and-one.
If Florida wants to make it to April, there is bound to be a game where the Gators will be in a similar spot and will need to knock down their free throws to keep the dream of going back-to-back alive.