Florida remains undefeated through five games to start the 2024-25 college basketball season, and the Gators keep moving up the ESPN Basketball Power Index as a result.
The Orange and Blue are up three spots to No. 32 from a week ago, with a 12.8 BPI, further broken down as 7.9 (23rd) on offense and 4.9 (64th) on defense. All three of those figures are up from our last update (12.6, 7.7 and 4.8), but the Gators dropped three spots in the offensive rankings and moved up two on defense.
“The College Basketball Power Index (BPI) is a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of performance going forward,” ESPN explains. “BPI represents how many points above or below average a team is. Strength of Record (SOR) is a measure of team accomplishment based on how difficult a team’s W-L record is to achieve. Game predictions account for opponent strength, pace of play, site, travel distance, day’s rest and altitude, and are used to simulate the season 10,000 times to produce season projections.”
ESPN BPI Projections
ESPN now projects Florida to finish the season with a 19.1-10.9 overall record (0.1 more wins than after Week 1) and an 8.7-9.3 record in conference play (0.3 fewer) based on results to date and BPI-based projections for remaining scheduled games. The Gators only have 0.8% odds to win the conference, down from 1.3% a week ago.
Florida faces the 26th-toughest schedule moving forward with two weak non-conference opponents out of the way.
NCAA Tournament/Resume
The defeated start has the Gators ranked 14th overall in strength of record, which translates to a No. 4 seed if the season were to end today. Last week, the Gators were a projected No. 6 seed.
Florida has only played non-conference opponents, which makes its strength of schedule very low (207th). Many of these numbers will change drastically once the beefier portion of the non-conference schedule begins, and again when SEC play starts up.
ESPN gives Florida 0.2% odds of winning the NCAA Tournament and 0.3% odds of making it to the championship game. A Final Four appearance (1.3%) or Elite Eight appearance (4.2%) are both unlikely at this point, but a Sweet 16 (13.2%) and Round of 32 appearance (39.0%) have better odds.
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This article originally appeared on Gators Wire: Florida moves up three spots in ESPN Basketball Power Index after 5-0 start
