Best And Worst First-Round NCAA Tournament Matchups For Florida

Most brackets have Florida as a 8th or 9th seed, who would be best for it to play in that first game? Who would be worst?

It isn't where you want to be. 

ESPN's Joe Lunardi for a good while now has had Florida as either a No. 8 or No. 9 projected seed come collection Sunday. That is historically not an ideal landing spot to make a deep run. 

Why? 

It is where the bracket meets. It is the only game in that first round that has back-to-back numbers playing each other. So, according to the bracket, it is the most even matchup in the first round. 

That means having to fight harder than any team ideally wants to just to advance from 64 to 32. The even more unfortunate part, however, is that the winner of that game has to play the No. 1 seed on that side of the bracket in the second round. 

Typically, the winner of 8/9 is the loser in the second round. NCAA. com says that first-round game is historically a tossup, as nine seeds win 51 percent of those contests. Also, about 60 percent of those games are decided by fewer than 10. 

That said, that's where Lunardi has the Gators essentially every time he updates his brackets. Recently he has pinned Florida against: Illinois, St. Mary's and Texas Tech. Of those three, here's how Florida matches up against these teams, from worst to first. 

Worst: St. Mary's

The matchup is horrible for Florida for one reason: size. 

St. Mary's is an enormous basketball team. It has two seven-footers, a 6-foot-10 forward in Matthias Tass and two 6-foot-8 guys in Kyle Bowen and Malik Fitts. 

The gaels also have a redshirt senior point guard in Tanner Krebs. Experience at guard always helps in the tournament. Also, his height? At point guard? He is 6-foot-6. 

UF has struggled against big teams all season. Florida is not a large team itself and the Gators' shooting stroke is too streaky to rely on it to beat that much size in a do-or-die game. This feel like a physical contest that gets Kerry Blackshear Jr. in foul trouble early and forces coach Mike White to rely on Jason Jitoboh and Omar Payne entirely too much in the paint. 

Middle: Texas Tech

The Red Raiders ended Florida's season two years ago in the second round of the tournament. But this time, UF would be in excellent shape to get revenge. 

Texas Tech does not have the size like St. Mary's does. It has three guys that average double-figure scoring in Jahmi'us Ramsey, Davide Moretti and Kyler Edwards. Of those three, only Moretti is an upperclassman. 

Come tournament time, experience is extremely valuable. Especially when Florida is led by sophomores, senior leadership like St. Mary's has is not idea. Ramsey leads the Red Raiders in scoring at 16.4 and is only a freshman. 

A guard playing his first NCAA tournament game should be much more comforting to Florida than a redshirt senior. 

Best: Illinois

The Fighting Illini are not nearly as towering of a group as St. Mary's. They come much closer to a size it feels Florida can handle.

The other positive about this matchup for the Gators is Illinois' leading scorer Ayo Dosunmu. While he averages an impressive 16.4 points per game, Dosunmu is a sophomore rather than a redshirt senior and has yet to play in the NCAA Tournament.

Gator fans should love the idea of this game being the first in the tournament for the Fighting Illini's main threat to score against Andrew Nembhard.

Both Illinois and Texas Tech score 72.3 a game. However, Illinois gives up one more point per game, at 64.7. That one point can mean everything in March. Especially in these 8/9 contests.