The college basketball season is slowly creeping toward the month of March. That means some crucial SEC matchups are closing in on Florida basketball. Most notably, Florida will take on the No. 25 Kentucky Wildcats (17-7, 8-3 SEC) tomorrow for the first time this season. Once again, a Top 25 team is standing in the way of Florida\u2019s positive turn. Here\u2019s a look at how the Gators have handled other ranked opponents this season.<\/p>\n
A Shaky Start<\/p>\n
Following its national championship last April, Florida men\u2019s basketball faced an imminent challenge. It needed to carry its momentum into next season and continue to dominate the court like it did all of last season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A massive target was on the Gators\u2019 backs from the get-go this season. Florida entered the campaign No. 3 in the AP Poll, holding the 32nd most difficult schedule in the entirety of the NCAA. The numbers speak for themselves: the road ahead was guaranteed to feature some serious ranked matchups. With the loss of key players from last season\u2019s title-winning squad \u2014 such as Walter Clayton Jr., Will Richard and Alijah Martin \u2014 the Gators had massive shoes to fill in order to match the caliber of one of the most electric college basketball teams of the 21st century.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Right out of the gate, Florida opened up its season against No. 13 Arizona. In last year\u2019s edition of the tournament, the Wildcats lost in the Sweet 16 to Duke, 100-93. Safe to say, Arizona wanted to come back swinging this season after such an early exit. Such a loss, coupled with losing the Big 12 championship to Houston earlier that year, fueled them enough to defeat Florida 93-87 in Las Vegas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To the reigning national champions, this upset would set the tone early for what was to come for the Gators. The following ranked matchups would only strike disaster for, what hoped to be, a revitalized Florida team. Coach Todd Golden\u2019s squad suffered back-to-back losses to No. 4 Duke and No. 5 UConn. Despite each being close games, Florida\u2019s stock as a Top 25 powerhouse began to slip away.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Turnaround<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until the start of SEC play and a hard-to-swallow defeat against Missouri that the Gators\u2019 competence against ranked opponents would be tested \u2014 and they flourished. They defeated both No. 18 Georgia and No. 21 Tennessee by 15 points and 24 points.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One player that has been crucial to this turnaround is Rueben Chinyelu. The 6-foot-10 center dropped his 10th double-double of the season in Florida\u2019s win over No. 10 Vanderbilt. Despite a head-scratching loss to Auburn, he bounced back and produced his 13th double-double in a 100-77 thrashing against No. 23 Alabama<\/a> two weeks ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n As it stands, Florida has secured itself as a lock for this year\u2019s NCAA tournament and potentially a No. 3 seed, according to most recent Bracketology reports.\u00a0<\/p>\n High Hopes<\/p>\n But what does this all mean for the Gators when March comes around? A lack of production off the bench and one of the poorest 3-point shooting percentages in the NCAA still lurk as Florida\u2019s Achilles\u2019 heel. Yet, all hope is far from lost, as the Gators sit first in the SEC, have climbed up to No. 14 in the AP Poll and still maintain an impressive 18-6 (9-2 in the SEC) record.\u00a0<\/p>\n The ultimatum of Florida\u2019s inconsistencies against ranked opponents, with four wins and three losses, will be tested in the weeks to come. At the very least, Golden has proved that this team is well-equipped to take down elite opponents.\u00a0<\/p>\n Consistency is key, and if the Florida Gators want to have any chance of matching UConn\u2019s back-to-back run in 2023 and 2024, the success of this program lies in the balance of continuing to dominate the paint and defending it just as valiantly.\u00a0<\/p>\n That said, Sunday\u2019s matchup against No. 25 Kentucky is the next roadblock in the final stretch of SEC play before the NCAA Tournament. Florida is a light favored to win this bout, but as we\u2019ve seen with this squad, nothing is guaranteed.<\/p>\n Category: Basketball<\/a>, Feature Sports News<\/a>, Gators Men’s Basketball<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The college basketball season is slowly creeping toward the month of March. That means some crucial SEC matchups…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[9763,7,217,12865,4000,231,772,1544,5624,3352],"class_list":{"0":"post-601749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-arizona-basketball","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-florida-basketball","12":"tag-kentucky-basketball","13":"tag-ncaa","14":"tag-ncaa-basketball","15":"tag-ncaab","16":"tag-rueben-chinyelu","17":"tag-todd-golden"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116065912965571178","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}