Predicting Florida's Seeding in the NCAA Tournament

Meanwhile, Lunardi pointed to Florida's overall dominance in SEC play as well as the proximity of Saturday's loss to Selection Sunday as factors into keeping the Gators as a one-seed over UConn and Houston.

“Florida was the outright champion of a far stronger league. UConn finished second in a far weaker league. I know the UConn and Big East people won’t want to hear that but I fully expect that Florida is going to be the No. 1 seed in the South [Sunday] night," he said on ESPN shortly after Florida's loss. "And the committee over the years, for all the slings and arrows they take, they’re very good at not overreacting to a single result.

"And that’s what we’re often guilty of, the folks in our seats. I think they’re gonna end up keeping Florida right where they are.”

That said, UConn, who was ranked 10th in the NET and ninth in the KenPom, lost to St. Johns in the Big East Tournament Final, while Houston, ranked fifth in both the NET and the KenPom, lost to Arizona in the Big 12 Tournament Final, which should be enough to keep the Gators in front for the fourth one-seed behind Duke, Arizona and Michigan.

As a result, Florida Gators on SI is officially predicting for Florida to clinch the one-seed in the South Regional of the NCAA Tournament with Houston as the two-seed. Not only would this give the Gators a one-seed for the second-straight season for the first time in program history, it would also create a potential rematch of last season's national championship should both teams advance to the Elite Eight, which would be played in Houston.

On Tuesday, Golden detailed the hypothetical rematch of last season's national championship.

"I think it would be less than ideal, but at the same time, I think you run into that at different places also, depending on how things shake out," he said. "And, if we're the one-seed in the South, and we play Houston in the Elite Eight... it is what it is. We’ll just try to find a way at that point.

"But that is a deep hypothetical. If we have to run into that issue, there's worse problems in the world."

In the meantime, Florida will look to improve greatly on its postseason performances so far after a struggling effort in Friday's win over Kentucky and its shocking blowout loss to Vanderbilt on Saturday, which marks the first time that the Gators will not be playing for an SEC Tournament title since 2023.

"As I told the team in the locker room, very disappointed to not be playing on Sunday again," Golden said. "But everything that we -- our goal at the beginning of the year is still in front of us in terms of being able to play for a national championship."

Florida will find out its official seeding, location and first opponent of the 2026 Men’s NCAA Tournament during the Selection Sunday show, which will air live on CBS at 6 p.m. ET.