Florida College Basketball

The University of Florida is the only school from the state with an NCAA Division I men’s basketball championship, and it has three: 2006, 2007 and 2025 (NCAA championship history).

Billy Donovan coached the first two Florida title teams. The 2006 Gators went 33-6 and beat UCLA 73-57 in Indianapolis, and the 2007 team went 35-5 and beat Ohio State 84-75 in Atlanta. Todd Golden coached the 2025 team, which went 36-4 and beat Houston 65-63 in San Antonio (NCAA.com). The most recent champion, in 2026, was Michigan, which beat UConn 69-63 in Indianapolis, so Florida’s 2025 team remains the latest statewide entry on the NCAA list.

Statewide, no other Florida program appears on the NCAA’s list of men’s champions (NCAA championship history).

Last verified: October 19, 2026, by checking the NCAA.com championship records and the 2026-27 schedules posted by the Gators, Seminoles and Bulls.

Jacksonville in 1970, Florida State in 1972 and Florida in 2000 each reached the men’s championship game and lost, Jacksonville and Florida State to John Wooden’s UCLA teams (NCAA championship history).

Jacksonville lost 80-69 to a 28-2 UCLA team in College Park, Maryland, in 1970. Jacksonville University’s athletics hall of fame records that the 1969-70 Dolphins went 27-2, beat Kentucky to reach the program’s first and only Final Four and beat St. Bonaventure to reach the final, under coach Joe Williams with Artis Gilmore averaging 23.2 points and 22.2 rebounds (JU Athletics Hall of Fame). The university calls the Dolphins the smallest school ever to play for a national championship, and notes a February 18, 1970 home win over Florida State before a capacity crowd at the Jacksonville Coliseum. Rex Morgan averaged 18.2 points and 6.4 rebounds for that team, which entered the JU hall of fame as a unit in 2019. In 1972 Florida State fell 81-76 to a 30-0 UCLA team in Los Angeles, and in 2000 the Gators lost 89-76 to Michigan State in Indianapolis (NCAA.com).

No Florida women’s program appears among the champions on the NCAA’s Division I women’s list, which runs through UCLA’s 79-51 win over South Carolina in 2026 (NCAA women’s championship history). The women’s list is still a Florida story, though, because of where the games were played.

Tampa has hosted the NCAA women’s championship game four times, in 2008, 2015, 2019 and 2025, and St. Petersburg hosted the men’s title game in 1999 (NCAA.com).

The Tampa finals produced Tennessee’s 64-48 win over Stanford in 2008, Connecticut’s 63-53 win over Notre Dame in 2015, Baylor’s 82-81 win over Notre Dame in 2019 and Connecticut’s 82-59 win over South Carolina in 2025 (NCAA women’s championship history). The 1999 men’s final in St. Petersburg went to Connecticut, 77-74 over Duke (NCAA men’s championship history).

Tampa is also the site of the Orion180 Tip-Off Classic on November 2, 2026, described below (Florida State schedule), and USF plays its home games in the city at the Yuengling Center (USF Bulls schedule).

Florida and Florida State open their regular seasons on Monday, November 2, 2026, at the Orion180 Tip-Off Classic in Tampa, a doubleheader that also brings Miami and Florida A&M (Florida State schedule).

Florida plays Miami at 6 PM in Tampa, by the Gators’ schedule (Florida Gators schedule), and Florida State plays Florida A&M at 8:30 PM at Benchmark International Arena, by the Seminoles’ schedule. The same night in Tampa, USF hosts Charleston Southern at the Yuengling Center at 7:00 PM (USF Bulls schedule).

USF’s schedule lists a home game against Saint Leo on October 19 at 7:00 PM (USF Bulls schedule). In exhibitions, Florida State hosts LSU on October 24 at 1:00 PM at the Donald L. Tucker Center, and Florida hosts Stetson on October 27 at 7 PM at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center in Gainesville (Gators schedule). Florida State has already beaten Auburn 82-71 in an October 14 exhibition in Birmingham, Alabama (Seminoles schedule), and the Gators list an October 18 exhibition loss to Baylor, 76-82 in overtime, in the Jacksonville Hoops Showdown (Florida Gators schedule). On November 5, Florida hosts Jacksonville at the O’Connell Center.

Florida’s and Florida State’s women’s teams both open the regular season on Monday, November 2, 2026, at home: the Gators against Bucknell at 6 p.m. and the Seminoles against Merrimack at 6:00 PM (Florida Gators women’s schedule).

Florida State beat Tampa 72-44 in an October 18 exhibition at the Donald L. Tucker Center and hosts Palm Beach Atlantic in another exhibition there on October 22 at 6:00 PM (Seminoles women’s schedule). On November 5 it hosts North Florida in an Education Day game at 11:00 AM, then Florida A&M on November 8 at 2:00 PM.

The Gators play an exhibition against Flagler on October 28 at 6 p.m., then host Central Florida on November 5 at 4:30 p.m. before a November 8 trip to Chattanooga (Gators women’s schedule). The Gators’ home arena, the Exactech Arena at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center, sits at 250 Gale Lemerand Drive in Gainesville, and its box office answers at 352-392-1653; the university’s arena site warns that its renovation has changed some gate entries, security measures and parking (University of Florida O’Connell Center).

Florida plays at Florida State on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, at 6 PM at the Tucker Center in Tallahassee (Florida State schedule).

Both schools list the game on their posted schedules. Florida hosts Jacksonville on November 5 at 8 PM at the O’Connell Center, then travels to Tallahassee, hosts Merrimack on November 13 at 7 PM and plays Notre Dame in the Players Era in Las Vegas on November 17 at 4:30 PM (Florida Gators schedule). Florida State hosts Troy on November 6 at 7:00 PM before the Gators visit, and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on November 13, then Ball State on November 17 at 7:00 PM, all at the Donald L. Tucker Center (Seminoles schedule). The Gators then play Houston or Rutgers in Las Vegas on November 18 at 2 or 4:30 PM (Gators schedule).

The Florida women’s teams meet in November too: Florida plays at Florida State on Sunday, November 15, 2026, at 2 p.m., a game both schools list, and the Seminoles’ schedule places it at the Donald L. Tucker Center (Seminoles women’s schedule). Before it, Florida State hosts West Florida on November 11 at 6:00 PM, and the Gators host South Florida at the O’Connell Center on November 12 at 6 p.m. (Gators women’s schedule).

The Gators men stay in the state for several December games on their posted schedule: a Hall of Fame Series game against Georgia Tech in Orlando on December 12 at 12 PM, a Jacksonville Hoops Showdown game against Grand Canyon in Jacksonville on December 18 at 6 PM, and Florida A&M at the O’Connell Center on December 21 at 7 PM (Florida Gators schedule).

USF plays at DePaul at Wintrust Arena in Chicago on November 5 at 8:30 PM (USF schedule). The team schedules are the place to confirm times before buying tickets or planning travel.