To say that the SEC was loaded this year would be an understatement. There is a good possibility that when the dust settles on the season the 2024-2025 SEC conference will be one of the best conferences of all time. Fourteen teams received an invitation to the NCAA Tournament but only one of those teams can claim they won the SEC and received the automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament. That team is the Florida Gators.
The Gators are making their 25th total appearance in the NCAA Tournament with back-to-back appearances for head coach Todd Golden. The Gators have a storied history in the sport and should not need much introduction. They have won two National Championships and have been to five Final Fours. This is a season they could add one to each of those tallies. The Gators arrive for their first-round game with an overall record of 30-4 and finished 14-4 in the SEC.
The Gators received a 1 seed in the tournament, and they earned it. They started the season 13-0 before they finally lost. They have beaten Tennessee and Alabama twice, and Auburn once. Florida is a legitimate National Championship contender and are likely going to make a deep run in March. I can not say that with certainty because they don’t call it March Madness for anything. Here are some reasons that the Gators will win a game in the NCAA Tournament.
Offense
Let’s just get a few things out of the way here. Yes, I know that Florida would not be a 1 seed if they didn’t have a fantastic offense. I also understand that this factor likely won’t matter in their first-round game. However, if you are talking about why the Gators can win a game in the NCAA tournament the conversation needs to start here! Going back to our friend Ken Pomeroy and his lovely site KenPom, the Gators are rated as the best offense in the country, scoring 128.6 points per 100 possessions. That is only a tenth of a point better than the Alabama Crimson Tide and their offense. Florida is third in the country in points per game average at 85.4 and third in the country in total points scored with 2,904. They play fast, get out in transition, and make a ton of threes. The main takeaway from this is that the coaching staff at Florida went out and got a lot of efficient scorers who know how to put the ball in the basket. The result is an offense that can overwhelm you quickly. Florida has scored 100 twice, 99 twice, and scored over 90 five times.
Rebounding
What does Florida do when they are not making shots? They can’t make shots all the time, right? To be honest, they don’t miss much, but when they do, they scoop up rebounds and get extra shots, which they usually make, or they will scoop up defensive rebounds and get out in transition. No team has hauled in more rebounds than the Florida Gators have they have a total of 1,429 rebounds this season. That is good enough for a per-game average of 42. Florida ranks in the top 15 in offensive rebounding and in the top 10 in defensive rebounding on a per-game basis. The Gators have a ton of size and are physical and aggressive on the glass. They want to get rebounds and display the effort it takes to do so. This may sound like an easy answer, but a coach once told me that rebounding is 80% heart and 20% skill. I can promise you that Florida wants it more than you do, they have shown that all season long.
Top Seed
Don’t overthink it, why will Florida win in the tournament because they are one seed. Only two have ever lost in the first round and this Florida team is not one of the ones who is going to lose. I might regret what I am going to say, but it seems like the Gators are upset proof. There are not many teams who can match their skill and want to. They play extremely hard and have tons of depth. The Gators are different from other seeds because they never go through the motions; they play hard for a full 40 minutes and make sure that they take the life out of you on the basketball court. They have earned a top seed and they are going to run with it potentially to the Title game.
Florida is one of the best teams in the country this year and places itself, with the rest of the one seeds, in a tier above everyone else. There has not been a set of top seeds like this for a long time. The Gators just make shots and they rebound everything. They will make a run.