With the regular season approaching its conclusion, the Gators find themselves in good standing.
To earn a bid to the NCAA tournament, finishing in the top half of the 14-team Southeastern Conference — the conference with the No. 1 RPI in the country— is essentially a must.
Florida (17-7, 7-4 Southeastern Conference) is currently sixth in the SEC, trailing five ranked opponents — No. 5 South Carolina, No. 8 Tennessee, No. 14 Texas A&M, No. 16 Vanderbilt and No. 19 LSU.
No. 18 Kentucky, which UF beat 86-80 on Sunday, is seventh in the conference with a 5-5 SEC record.
Barring a monumental collapse, Florida should have a spot in the top seven locked up.
Alabama — currently eighth in the conference — has an SEC record of 4-6, tied with Auburn and Georgia. Florida has the head-to-head advantage over Kentucky, Alabama and Auburn.
With the Gators on the verge of making their first appearance in the NCAA tournament since 2011-2012 — when then-No. 1 Baylor bounced Florida in the second round — a tough road still lies ahead.
Florida’s loss to Arkansas on Feb. 6 was not what it needed, with four of its last six games coming against ranked opponents.
The Gators had an uncharacteristically stagnant offensive output against the Razorbacks, only mustering 49 points in a 55-49 loss in Fayetteville, Ark.
They also turned the ball over an unprecedented 25 times.
“We did it to ourselves,” assistant coach David Lowery said of the loss. “I don’t think it was anything Arkansas did. If you look at the stat sheet, we turned the ball over 25 times.
“We talk a lot about preventable plays, and those are preventable plays. Us taking care of the ball and not making the bad mistakes of just giving it to them, that’s what we did.”
“They scored 55 points, we scored 49 points. We played good defense, we just didn’t score the ball.”
What could have been a demoralizing loss turned into a springboard for Florida.
“We got back Friday, we didn’t watch that film,” Lowery said. “They knew what happened. They knew what we did wrong.”
Against Kentucky on Sunday, the results mirrored those from Florida’s recent three-game winning streak.
The Gators took care of the ball (16 turnovers), sank 9 of 20 threes and, most importantly, won the game.
The meeting after the loss to Arkansas served as a good predictor for the win against Kentucky.
January Miller was singled out in said meeting as being Florida’s X-factor.
On Sunday against Kentucky, she scored a team-high 20 points, including a crucial three-point play that sparked a 14-0 run early in the second half.
“In that meeting on Friday, we talked about January Miller being the X-factor,” Lowery said.
“I thought she was the X-factor. We talk about plays that only Jan can make and plays that are unique that set January far from anybody else on the team.
“I think January, going in, had confidence. She had confidence that her teammates wanted her to do the things she knew that would make her stand out. I think she took pride in that and really showed that on Sunday.”
Follow Gordon Streisand on Twitter @GordonStreisand
Antoinette Bannister attempts a three-point shot during Florida’s 75-67 win against Alabama on Jan. 30 in the O’Connell Center.
