National championships aren’t won by algorithms or on spreadsheets, and that’s a good thing for Florida. Because if the trophy was handed out based on the advanced metrics of college basketball’s top analytics gurus, there would be another champion.
Runner-up Houston finished atop the rankings at barttorvik.com. At kenpom.com and evanmiya.com, Duke finished with the highest rating, even after bowing out in the Final Four.
In fact, Florida didn’t even finish second in any of those three ratings systems. Yet, the Gators still have a statistical case to be considered college basketball’s top national champion of the past two decades.
How does that make sense?
The short answer is that the tippity top of college basketball was significantly better during the 2024-25 season than it ever has been.
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Florida’s final KenPom rating of +36.46 may have been just third for the season. But the 2025 Gators rate better than any title-winning team in college basketball since Duke’s 2001 squad finished at +37.32.
The Gators even finished ahead of UConn’s dominant 2024 team at KenPom. The Huskies secured their second straight championship with a final rating of +36.43, falling just three one-hundredths short of matching this year’s Florida squad..
Florida’s final “relative rating” of +33.8 at evanmiya.com is also higher than the final mark of +33.0 posted by last year’s Huskies.
UConn fans looking for solace and vindication about the historic levels of dominance the Huskies enjoyed in 2024 can find some at barttorvik.com. The site’s final .9715 power rating for Florida in 2025…
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