The Florida Gators (12-5, 3-1) sit at No. 10 in the KenPom College Basketball Ratings after four SEC games.
Conference play started shaky with a loss to the Missouri Tigers, but consecutive victories over the Georgia Bulldogs, Tennessee Volunteers and Oklahoma Sooners vaulted the Orange and Blue into the top 10.
The Gators' adjusted efficiency margin climbed 2.5 points to a plus-28.97 net rating over those four games. Florida started the season ranked No. 2 by KenPom, but the non-conference schedule proved difficult with losses to No. 2 Arizona, No. 6 Duke and No. 9 UConn. Now, the Gators are breathing down those teams' necks in the KenPom ratings.
Florida's offense (122.6) is up 1.8 points per 100 possessions, ranked No. 19 in the nation, and the defense is allowing just 93.6 points per 100 possessions -- the ninth fewest in college hoops. The Gators are nestled between No. 9 UConn (+29.75) and No. 11 Vanderbilt (+28.61). Florida and Vanderbilt face off on Saturday.
Breaking down more KenPom ratings
Florida is playing with an adjusted tempo of 70.6 possessions per 40 minutes, 0.8 fewer possessions than recorded in the last update. Conference play has slowed several teams down, though, so Florida has moved up in the rankings to No. 57 in that category.
The Orange and Blue remain one of the unluckiest Power Four teams in the country, with a minus-.112 luck rating, good for No. 357 out of 365 teams. Only Pittsburgh (-.117), Cincinnati (-.148) and Northwestern (-.176) have worse luck. KenPom's luck rating is the deviation in winning percentage between a team's actual record and its expected record using the correlated Gaussian method.
If the math stuff is confusing, ignore it. The gist is that a positive number is worse than a negative number. High luck can result in a lower rating than a record suggests, and negative luck often means underperformance.
Strength of Schedule according to KenPom
Following four straight Quadrant 1 games, Florida's strength of schedule jumped to plus-10.82 (5th) from plus-6.36 (32nd). Further broken down, Florida's opponents are scoring 115.7 points per 100 possessions, the fourth most in the country, and allowing 104.9 points, 11th overall.
Florida's non-conference SOS rating is plus-6.32 (38th). That's unlikely to change with all remaining games being in conference.
This article originally appeared on Gators Wire: Florida basketball KenPom ratings update for January 15