Chase Owens
To talk about this season for the Florida Gators you would use words like, disappointing and unfinished. Disappointing because Jalen Hudson, who was a pre-season Wooden Award Finalist. Disappointing because a team that averaged 76 points a game last season now averages 69. They do play better defense, but that doesn’t matter because a team that finished 3rd in the SEC a year ago is now on pace to finish 6th. A team that had 5 players averaging over 10 points, now only has 2.
Also unfinished, not only because the season is in fact unfinished, and that is a perfect description of how the Gators play every game. They always seem to play with the top dogs of the SEC for at least the 1st half, and then it seems to run out of gas and they let go of it late in the game. But that all seems for not as the Gators turned around these past two weeks. They are on a four game winning streak, two of which came down to the wire, and one of which they took LSU, the 13th ranked team, to overtime and won.
The Gators after this late run seem to be fighting for one of those last four in spots. They have a 66% chance of making the tournament and are projected as an 11th seed. This fight will not come easy as the Gators have to face Vandy in Nashville, where the Gators haven’t won since 2014, Georgia, on the road at LSU and Kentucky. They must win at least 2 of these if they want to have a clearer shot, and also must play well in the SEC tournament. A season that looked as if they were going to finish out of the tournament, and like they were never going to finish strong, might just have done that. And all that work might lead to a tournament berth.
