Florida coach Todd Golden turned to the transfer portal to replace his uber-talented backcourt that led the program to its third national championship.
Fittingly for an NCAA Tournament in which big schools from big conferences took record numbers of spots in the first week, then hogged them all for the second week, the Final Four will bring four teams seeded No. 1 to the sport’s biggest stage to play for the title.
Koby Brea scored 23 points and hit seven 3-pointers off the bench to lead No. 10 Kentucky over No. 6 Florida 106-100, handing the Gators their first loss of the season.
KJ Simpson rattled in a tiebreaking jumper from the baseline with 2 seconds left, and 10th-seeded Colorado beat seventh-seeded Florida in a 102-100 thriller in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Johni Broome scored 19 points and grabbed 11 rebounds as No. 12 Auburn won the Tigers’ third Southeastern Conference Tournament championship by beating Florida 86-67.
Meechie Johnson scored 25 points including a tie-breaking 3-pointer with 43.4 seconds to play as No. 18 South Carolina rallied for an 82-76 victory over No. 24 Florida.
Aaron Bradshaw hit a 3-pointer with 1:27 to play and No. 6 Kentucky rallied to beat Florida 87-85 on Saturday in the first Southeastern Conference opener between the rivals in 26 years.
Adama Sanogo scored 10 of his 28 points in the first five minutes of the second half as fourth-seeded UConn took control and beat Rick Pitino’s Iona Gaels 87-63 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
