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As this is written, both University of Florida basketball teams are hovering around the .500 mark in SEC play and both teams have questions yet to answer. But despite some obvious weaknesses both these teams still can make the NCAA Tournament.

For the Gator men, more bodies are needed. Kenny Kadji and Adam Allen are hurt and aren't playing. Nimrod Tishman apparently isn't good enough to play in SEC games. So the "Iron Eight" or so will have to gut it out this year and guards Erving Walker and Kenny Boynton especially will be logging heavy minutes because Ray Shipman hasn't played all that well in relief at the two spot. Will all those minutes affect Walker and Boynton toward the end of the year?

And at the three spot, there is very little right now. Senior Dan Werner is lost, without his shot and his confidence and Chandler Parsons has taken over as the starter there. Florida must get something from this spot if it is going to legitimately challenge for the NCAA Tournament but you wonder where the help will come from.

Still, with nice wins over Michigan State and Florida State sewn up and a win that looks better now over NC State since it knocked off Duke, a .500 finish in the SEC and a non conference win later this year against Xavier might be enough to get Florida in. The Gators must protect home court and try to steal a couple of road wins as it did against Arkansas. But the margin for error for this team is small.

The Gator women are in a similar situation; Florida already has road SEC wins over Arkansas and Mississippi State but suffered a bad loss at Alabama, a team that had not won an SEC game to that point. Perhaps the players mailed it in, thinking all they had to do was show up to win, and if so, maybe they learned a valuable lesson. There are no easy games in the SEC.

This is a team that does not shoot the basketball very well but one that for the most part has embraced playing good defense. But the team must become more consistent and long range shooters Jordan Jones and Steffi Sorensen must find the range if Florida is to score more. They have plenty of people that play, but consistency is the key.

Unlike the Gator men, the Florida women do not have a signature non-conference win; in fact, it has two bad losses to High Point and to Florida A&M. Still, if the Gators can somehow finish at .500 in the rough SEC, a tournament bid is possible. But there will be a whole lot of teams who will be like Florida in the middle of the pack that makes it big for Florida to beat those teams head to head. Every team in the league, even mighty Tennessee has a loss, and Florida should have beaten Tennessee at home earlier this year so anything is possible.

Rooting for these teams will be trying at times; I believe both will be up and down and squarely on the NCAA Tournament bubble when all is said and done. But for both teams, just getting to the NCAA Tournament this year is big and that should be the goal, and if that is accomplished, the season should be deemed a success.

Every game will be important. Isn't that the way it should be sometimes?