Florida Gators Basketball Details
The Florida Gators are known as one of the most successful schools in college basketball history, and the team has the hardware to prove it. The Gators have been the Southeastern Conference Tournament Champions four times, and conference regular season champions seven times, and boast 20 NCAA Tournament bids with a 45-18 overall record. They have won the NCAA Tournament twice, in back-to-back years in 2006 and 2007 with a team of future NBA stars including Joakim Noah, Al Horford, and Corey Brewer, and behind legendary coach Billy Donovan.
The Gators’ longtime rival is Florida State, but in recent years, Kentucky and Tennessee have emerged as big rivals due to increasing competition for the conference championship. Gators coach Mike White has been the head coach since 2015 when he signed a six-year contract with the team. White has been a head coach for only six years, yet has won the Southeastern Conference’s Coach of the Year award three times. He also helped the Gators earn 27 wins this past season, for only the eighth time in the school’s history. That was good for second in the SEC, behind only Kentucky. The team finished with a conference record of 14-4 and an overall record of 27-9, and made it to the Elite Eight for the ninth time.
The Florida 2017-18 roster features four promising new recruits. First, 6’8” West Virginia native Chase Johnson will be joining the Gators as a forward this year. He is a four-star recruit ranked number one in his state. Also joining the Gators is DeAundrae Ballard, a 6’5” guard and forward from Atlanta. Ballard was a top recruit and should make an impact immediately. Two more great recruits joining the 2017-2018 season are 6’8 forward Isaiah Stokes from Tennessee and 6’3 point guard Mike Okaura from Raleigh. Young talent and excellent coaching should help the Gators compete for the SEC title yet again, though they’ll have to get past Kentucky to do so.