The five best teams in the SEC are Auburn, UT, UF, Bama and UK in that order to my mind. We play Auburn, UT, Bama and UK on the road and only get UT at home. If we win the regular season SEC championship it would mean that we will be the overall #1 seed in the NCAA tournament and highly favored to win it all. It also means that we win several of these road games and beat UT in Gainesville. Not likely but I would love for it to happen. I would be happy with earning a first round bye at the SEC tournament. That means we are above one of Auburn, UT, Bama and UK.
I didn't know that, thanks for sharing. It's unfair to expect our Gators to win many of those road games. Just play hard, hang around at the end of the game, see what happens.
Just wanna point out we are a 2 seed in just about every bracketology. To those merely saying "just make the tournament/don't be bottom half of SEC"... Mike White can't hurt you anymore. Obviously nothing is certain but that would be our floor.
The SEC is a beast this year, so expectations are still in check. Just want to see us have a winning SEC record and stay healthy for March. Even 10 SEC wins might have us top 4 seed and sweet 16 type team. I’d be happy with that based on the apparent strength of the league. Of course you want to be in the hunt to win it, and SEC could get several #1 and #2 seeds this year. Hopefully we end up in that conversation but there’s probably at least 5 or 6 SEC teams thinking they have a shot (and some team will surprise in league play while others disappoint). Like others have noted job #1 is winning the home games and trying to keep that home record as clean as possible.
It’s more that the SEC is so stacked this year, even a really good team could go into a funk or have injury bug lead to a quick losing streak. As good as we are, most prognosticators have us 3rd or 4th! That might be a #2 NCAA seed this year whereas in some of the down SEC years that wouldn’t be too much better than a bubble team. Hell top half of the SEC is *easily* in the tournament this year. I definitely want to see us get that double bye and go for a top seed, but I think recognizing how good the league is even 5th, 6th in league play would get us a very nice NCAA seed.
I usually say that a top 4 finish in the SEC and a sweet 16 is a successful season. This year a top 6 finish in league play will suffice. More than anything, just play hard. Never let another team outwork you. Work ‘em silly!