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.
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 falls short of the .9799 finish of the 2024 Huskies.
Toughest by path
Florida’s NCAA Tournament path also tied for the toughest of the NCAA Tournament’s modern era. The Gators played the best-possible seed in every game except one, and that was when they faced ferocious No. 3 seed Texas Tech. North Carolina’s 1993 title team is the only one to have navigated a path of equal treachery.
Had No. 2 seed St. John’s advanced to the Elite Eight in the West Region instead of the Red Raiders, Florida’s title path would stand alone as the toughest since the tournament’s expansion to 64 teams.
Among those Florida vanquished:
– No. 8 seed UConn, the two-time reigning national champions.
– No. 4 seed Maryland, which finished No. 10 at KenPom.
– No. 3 seed Texas Tech, which finished No. 9 at KenPom and was the only Big 12 team to beat Houston.
– No. 1 overall seed Auburn, which was the SEC’s regular season champion during a historic season for the conference.
– No. 1 seed Houston, which entered with a nation-best 18-game winning streak.
The difficulty of Florida’s 2025 NCAA Tournament draw stands out when compared to the path taken by Duke in 2001. Those Blue Devils are the only 21st century team to cut down the nets with a higher final KenPom rating. But they also got to play a No. 6 seed (USC) in the Elite Eight, a No. 3 seed (Maryland) in the Final Four and a No. 2 seed (Arizona) in the title game.
That wasn’t an easy path. But Florida’s was certainly more difficult this year, which is why the Gators have a case to claim the crown for best national champion of the 21st century. In a season defined by the historical dominance of the top dogs in the advanced metrics, Florida did just enough on the margins, and more than enough on the court, to make a claim for all-time greatness.
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