A 12-0 start to the 2024-25 campaign has put the Florida basketball team on a meteoric ride toward the top of the college basketball rankings in what has been a dominating first two months of the season for the Gators.
The two major polls have responded to the torrid start, with the USA TODAY Coaches Poll ranking the Orange and Blue at No. 5 while the Associated Press Poll has it at No. 6. Other rankings also have Todd Golden’s gang in the same neighborhood as well.
CBS Sports writer Kyle Boone published his weekly college basketball power rankings on Friday, in which he moved Florida up two spots to No. 3 in the nation — behind the Auburn Tigers and Tennessee Volunteers, respectively.
“Despite a soft nonconference schedule, Florida’s emerged looking like the real deal with a 12-0 record — with a 99-45 win over North Florida just the latest showcase of its bona fides.,” Boone notes. “Gators schedule gets hard quick as the calendar flips to 2025 in a brutally challenging SEC, but the 2024 results are indisputable.”
Interestingly, CBS Sports insider Gary Parrish was a little less bullish in his college basketball rankings, in which the Gators have been ranked seventh for the past week.
CBS Sports Power Rankings Explained
“Ranking teams with an emphasis on recent performance based on their level of competition. These are heavily unscientific in nature and can be distilled down to a “vibes” ranking — with things like margin of victory, injuries, performance vs. top competition, momentum and other sometimes subjective factors weighing into the equation.
“The power rankings can be thought of in a weekly setting as a reaction — or sometimes even an overreaction — to the small sample of the week that was.”
Next up for Florida
The Gators will host the Stetson Hatters inside the O’Connell Center on Sunday, Dec. 29. Tipoff is slated for 1 p.m. ET and the game will be broadcast on the SEC Network+.
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