Because despite losing essentially their whole championship team from the last two seasons, the Florida Gators just will not cool down. They just beat 14th ranked Vandy 86-64, and go to 18-3 and 5-1 in coference play (with the loss being by only two at Ole Miss). Billy Donovan and his team has sent a clear message to the rest of college basketball: We are still a force to be reckoned with and you do not want to play us in March.
Although I think Vandy is highly overrated because they started 15-0 against subpar competition. They're 2-3 in conference with their wins coming against the bottom-dwellers.
this is true but there's no doubt Florida has proven it can hang with the big guys, even in a rebuilding year (for them, anyway). We'll see what happens to them against the Vols, but I'd bet by March no one will want to see them.
I have not had a chance to watch Florida play this year, but just looking at their schedule I'm not overly impressed. Their out of conference schedule was a joke and they lost the only two games to teams that had a pulse. They are competitive in the SEC, but this is the worst I have seen the SEC in a long time. When Vandy is the second best team your conference has to offer (by ratings at least), its a down year. The Gators are a decent team, but I'd probably rather play Florida than about 20 other teams come March Madness. I still give Donovan a lot of credit, because they lost basically the whole team, and he obviously has put together a competitive squad. He won back to back championships with solid but not "top 5" type classes. It will be interesting to see what he does with last years class and the class he is bringing in this year.
