After two disappointing seasons and a long two-day wait, Florida is back in the NCAA Tournament.
The Gators (21-12, 9-7 Southeastern Conference) will be in the Tournament for the first time since winning back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007. UF received a No. 10 seed in the West Region and will play seventh-seeded BYU in Oklahoma City on Thursday.
If the Gators beat the Cougars (29-5), they would face the winner of No. 2 seed Kansas State vs. No. 15 seed North Texas.
“We’re very, very excited, and grateful for the opportunity,” UF coach Billy Donovan said in a statement. “I’m most excited for our players having a chance to experience this. For most of them, this is something they haven’t been through yet. They’ve worked so hard from day one, and it’s great to see them rewarded.
“We’ll get to work on BYU right away. They come from a great league, have a great program, and it’s a very difficult opponent for us.”
Although Florida received a No. 10 seed, the team entered Sunday night’s selection process completely unsure whether it would even make the field.
An early exit from the SEC Tournament on Friday night, coupled with several other bubble teams performing well in their conference tournaments, had many experts projecting the Gators would make a third straight National Invitation Tournament.
“It was a stressful 48 hours not knowing if we were in or out,” junior forward Chandler Parsons said. “We’re really excited to be a part of it. For most of us it’s our first experience with the NCAA Tournament. We don’t just want to go and play one game. We want to prove we’re deserving of being there.”
Florida’s beefed-up nonconference schedule was part of the reason it made the field over a team like Mississippi State, which beat UF on Friday and Vanderbilt on Saturday but did not make the Tournament.
UF closed out its season in unimpressive fashion, losing four of its last five games and falling out of the SEC Tournament with a second-round loss.
But its early season wins against FSU and Michigan State, along with a 75-62 victory over Tennessee, were enough to help the Gators get back into the Tournament.
UF will share a bracket with fourth-seeded Vanderbilt, one of four SEC teams to make the field. Kentucky is the No. 1 seed in the East Region, and Tennessee earned the sixth seed in the Midwest Region.
The Gators’ stronger Tournament résumé was due largely to their strength of schedule, ranked 33rd in the country.
Although a more competitive SEC helped boost their strength of schedule, they helped themselves by scheduling nonconference opponents like Syracuse, Michigan State, Richmond and Xavier — all NCAA Tournament teams.
UF finished the season with the 56th-best RPI in the nation and went 3-8 against top-50 RPI teams this year.
Even in their losses, the Gators played nearly every opponent close. They lost to Syracuse, Xavier and Kentucky by 12 points — their largest margin of defeat all year.
“We’re all excited to be in the NCAA Tournament. It’s such a great feeling,” said senior forward Dan Werner. “That being said, now we need to turn our focus to BYU and need to come with right mindset and take full advantage of this opportunity.”
