Men’s basketball SEC Power Rankings for Jan. 8: Vols in top half

You probably could have put the Auburn Tigers here. But for now, we’re going to keep the Florida Gators No. 1 in our SEC Power Rankings. That’s for two reasons. They do have three wins rather than two like Auburn, and despite three more losses overall, this team has played a much tougher schedule.

That being said, this was truly a toss-up. After all, the Gators have played two of the easiest teams in the conference so far, the Texas A&M Aggies and Vanderbilt Commodores. Auburn has two better wins against the Arkansas Razorbacks and Tennessee Vols.

Beating Missouri on the road though counted enough to give them the boost. That was a great victory for Mike White’s team, and it seems like his team is starting to hit its stride again. After all, they’re on a five-game winning streak.

Transfers Jalen Hudson and Egar Koulechov are shooting over 50 percent from three in SEC play. And Chris Chiozza is distributing the ball beautifully.

This week, we may have a better understanding though of who’s truly No. 1 in our SEC Power Rankings. That’s because just like Auburn, the Gators play the Mississippi State Bulldogs and Ole Miss Rebels this week. These four games between those four schools this week will go a long way towards determining how good these teams really are.

For Florida, though, they need to get the wins more. After all, the losses have them outside of the Top 40 in the RPI. So while their strength of schedule is about to rise, the wins are going to be crucial.