ATLANTA — After the confetti fell and the nets were cut, Florida learned its spot in the NCAA Tournament.
As expected, the Gators captured the No. 1 overall seed.
UF, the No. 1 seed in the South Region, will face either Albany or Mount St. Mary’s on Thursday in Orlando. Both No. 16 seeds will square off on Tuesday.
Fresh off a 61-60 win against Kentucky in the Southeastern Conference Tournament Championship, Florida is ready for the next step in the season.
“Coach [Billy Donovan] told us that after tonight, when we wake up in the morning, this is in the past,” sophomore Michael Frazier II said. “So I think we got to do a good job of understanding that we need to focus on our next point and focus on our next goal.”
Mount St. Mary’s (22-11, 11-7 West Coast Conference) is coming off a 70-54 loss to Gonzaga — the No. 8 seed in the West Region — in the WCC semifinals on Monday.
Albany (18-14, 9-7 American East) was rewarded for its 69-60 win against Stony Brook in the American East Tournament with a shot to make it to the Big Dance.
If UF wins its second-round contest on Thursday, Florida will continue on in the tournament to play the winner of No. 8 seed Colorado and No. 9 seed Pittsburgh.
The rest of the South Region will prove to be a tough ride for Florida, with Kansas, Syracuse and UCLA earning the second, third and fourth seeds, respectively.
“I think we have the kind of confidence that we can lineup against anyone,” senior Patric Young said. “We think if we’re playing the right way, that there’s no one we can’t beat.”
“But we have to go and do what we did after the regular season was over, start right from the bottom. It starts with the practices, just coming in every single day with a mindset of still getting better, fine tuning our offense and utilizing each other better.”
Florida struggles at the charity stripe: Before they headed to Atlanta for the SEC Tournament, the Gators connected on 67.9 percent of their free-throw shots.
But once they entered the Georgia Dome, they couldn’t keep that pace.
Florida managed to connect on only half of its shots from the charity stripe through its three tournament games. Outside of senior Casey Prather’s 12-of-17 clip from the line, no Florida player made more than half of his attempts from the free throw line.
“There’s always areas we can get better on. I think free throw shooting is an area we can improve,” Donovan said after Florida’s 56-49 win against Tennessee on Saturday. “We spend time, those guys put time in on their own, we put time in practice. Hopefully that will be an area this time of year that we can get better at, because I think we’re capable of doing that.”
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Patric Young attempts a free throw during Florida’s 61-60 win against Kentucky on Sunday in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
