In the press room, which is a term you can only use loosely as the SEC Tournament because of all the hanger-ons, Billy Donovan’s dad was looking at the TV where the Selection Show was being broadcast.
‘They didn’t do us any favors, huh?” he said with his ever-present smile.
Florida’s bracket for the NCAA Tournament appears to be a tough one on the surface. The Gators face the Albany-St. Mary’s winner in the opener and those two teams will have played Tuesday in Dayton.
Then, the Gators get the winner of Pitt-Colorado and I think right away you’ll be able to see whether Florida’s incredible run of 21 straight SEC was fool’s gold. Pitt has struggled to beat good teams all year. Colorado lost its top player Spencer Dinwiddie on Jan. 12 but has won five games overall against top 50 teams.
Colorado is 32nd in RPI while Pitt is 39th.
The rest of the bracket includes teams such as Ohio State, Syracuse, Kansas and VCU, Pretty brutal. But don’t look too far ahead because upsets are what this time of year is all about.
The Gators can’t look past Thursday. I’m not looking past Saturday. That could be a tough round of 32 game for a team that finished the season No. 1.
