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Florida basketball: Literally nothing good will come out of the NIT

By Will Thomas

Florida head coach Todd Golden disputes a call during the first half of a second round SEC Men's Basketball Tournament game against Mississippi State at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn., Thursday, March 9, 2023.Syndication The Tennessean
Florida head coach Todd Golden disputes a call during the first half of a second round SEC Men's Basketball Tournament game against Mississippi State at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn., Thursday, March 9, 2023.Syndication The Tennessean /
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Florida basketball starts play in the NIT on Wednesday night when they’ll host the UCF Knights. The Gators earned a 4-seed in the tournament, and if they beat UCF they’ll likely meet Oregon in the second round.

Sure, this is a great opportunity to end the season with some wins and get some more experience in for the younger players.

But let’s be real, nothing good is coming out of the NIT for the Gators.

Let me first say that I love that Golden has his guys competing wherever they can. They lost in the first round in Nashville and missed the big dance, but they’re still playing. That’s awesome and a sign of the culture that he’s building.

But the circumstances in this specific tournament don’t favor Florida at all.

Show of hands, who can name the winner of the NIT last year?

I had to look it up, but if you knew Xavier off the top of your head I’m impressed.

Winning the NIT is still an accomplishment, but it’s not one that gets remembered by the country and not one that you can really brag about.

So let’s say that the Gators lock in and go on a run and win this thing. Cool. But who’s really going to look at an NIT win and say that the Gators are turning it around? They’ll still need to come back next year and win a lot more games before people say the program has momentum.

On the other side, the Gators can’t just sleepwalk into this either.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Florida vs UCF in a meaningless game.

UCF fans wanted a banner hung for the Gasparilla Bowl win and the team got rings. No game is meaningless when you’ve been 4th in the state your whole life.

But for a team like Florida, a first-round NIT game doesn’t define the program. I’m sure they’d like to win, but it isn’t an impossibility that we see a minimized effort.

If UCF wins this game in Gainesville, they’ll hang “First round NIT winners” right next to their “2017 National Championship” sign in their athletic Hall of Fame. We’ll never hear the end of it.

So yes, the NIT is pretty much pointless in the grand scheme. But for all of our sakes, let’s hope the Gator come out on Wednesday and play some hard basketball.

Winning games is always a good idea, no matter how important they are.

Keep up with Florida basketball at Hail Florida Hail. 

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