Gators Earn No. 2 Seed in NCAA Tournament, Face UCSB on Thursday in Tampa
Sunday, March 13, 2011 | Men's Basketball, Scott Carter
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The Florida men's basketball team is staying close to home for the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The Gators learned Sunday night that they are headed to Tampa as the No. 2 seed in the Southeast Region.
The 12th-ranked Gators (26-7) face UC-Santa Barbara (18-13) on Thursday (6:50 p.m. on TBS) at the St. Pete Times Forum in downtown Tampa. The Florida-UCSB winner faces No. 7-seed UCLA or No. 10 Michigan State on Saturday for a Sweet 16 berth and trip to the New Orleans regional.
"We are really excited about being in the NCAA Tournament,'' Florida coach Billy Donovan said. "I'm very happy for our players and our staff for the opportunity to compete in the NCAA tournament.
"We look forward to playing in Tampa and we will have a lot to get prepared for in a short amount of time."
Florida lost 70-54 to Kentucky on Sunday afternoon in the championship game of the SEC Tournament in Atlanta. The Gators returned home afterward and began preparing for the Gauchos, who are in the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive year.
UCSB qualified by stunning top-seeded Long Beach State in the Big West Conference Tournament championship game on Saturday in Anaheim, Calif. UCSB entered the tournament as the fifth seed but repeated as Big West Conference champions.
"Obviously nobody expected us to be in this position three weeks ago," UCSB head coach Bob Williams said Sunday. "We're very happy about the opportunity to play Florida and to go to back to the tournament two years in a row. I don't know much about them, except that they have one of the best coaches in the country, but we'll work on that the next couple of days."
UC-Santa Barbara is led by 6-foot-5 junior guard Orlando Johnson, MVP of the Big West Conference Tournament after scoring 23 points in the Gauchos' 64-56 win over Long Beach State in the title game. Johnson averages a team-high 21.1 points a game and shoots 40 percent from three-point range. He also averages 6.3 rebounds per game. Forward James Nunnally averages 16.4 points and 5.7 rebounds.
This is UCSB's fifth trip to the NCAA Tournament. They made the tournament in 1988, 1990, 2002 and 2010. Ohio State knocked the Gauchos out in the first round a year ago.
The Gators and Gauchos have never met. The time of the game has not been determined.
This is the Gators' 16th trip to March Madness, including 11 under Donovan. The Gators returned to the tournament last season after a two-year absence, losing to BYU in the first round.
This is the fifth time in school history that Florida enters the tournament with 26 or more wins. The other four times ended in trips to the Final Four, including back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007.
The Gators were a No. 3 seed in 1994 and 2006, a No. 5 seed in 2000 and a No. 1 seed in 2007 in their Final Four seasons. Florida is 29-13 all-time in the tournament.
Kentucky is also headed to Tampa after knocking off the Gators on Sunday. The Tampa site includes first-round games between UCLA and Michigan State, Kentucky takes on Ivy League champion Princeton, and No. 5 seed West Virginia faces the winner of the UAB-Clemson "First Four" game.
