The Florida Gators men’s basketball staff represents the University of Florida from the game of basketball. The Gators compete in NCAA Division I am Southeastern Conference (SEC). Home games are played at the Exactech Arena in the Stephen C. O’Connell Center on the university’s Gainesville, Florida campus.
Achievement was rare for several years, although the University of Florida basketball team took the court in 1915. The program did not have an adequate gymnasium until the Florida Gymnasium in 1950, didn’t hire a full-time basketball trainer until Norm Sloan in 1960, and didn’t play in a modern arena until the O’Connell Center opened in 1980. Florida made its first postseason tournament appearance from the 1969 National Invitation Tournament and appeared in the NCAA tournament in 1987, but constant success was elusive, and the Gators frequently found themselves at the bottom half of their conference standings.
Florida’s basketball program eventually found consistent victory . In nineteen years as Florida’s coach, Donovan led the program to seven of its eight Southeastern Conference (SEC) regular season championships, all four SEC championship championships, fourteen of twenty-two NCAA Tournament appearances, four out of five Final Four appearances, along with back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007. Florida’s head coach as 2015 was Mike White, who’s led the Gators to three NCAA Tournament bids in his four seasons in the school.
