Florida’s pathway to begin March Madness is now set. The Gators will open in Tampa on Friday at 9:25 PM against the winner of Lehigh and Prairie View A&M. Barring a historical upset the Gators will then take the court on Sunday against the winner of Iowa and Clemson, who will face off in Tampa in the game right before Florida’s.
Florida doesn’t have an extensive history with many of their four potential opponents in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament, but there is one team who has been a surprising historical pain in the side of the Gators.
Florida opens the NCAA Tournament in Tampa on Friday
The Gators will have to wait until Wednesday to know for sure who they are facing on Friday. Lehigh and Prairie View A&M will take part in the First Four in Dayton, OH to determine who gets to face Florida. The Gators have never actually played Lehigh while they have played Prairie View A&M just once.
That one time was back on November 11, 2006, when Florida welcomed Prairie View A&M to the O’Dome and delivered a beating so bad that the Panthers had to question where the money they got for the game was worth it.
Florida won 94-33 and held the Panthers to just 14 points in the second half. Florida did this despite unloading the bench early as guys like Al Horford and Joakim Noah played no more than 20 minutes on the night.
Assuming Florida makes it to Sunday, they have never played Iowa before in program history. This isn’t that shocking as Florida typically doesn’t cross paths with the Big Ten unless it is the NCAA Tournament.
Florida's roots can be traced back to Clemson
The Gators origin story does however trace its history with the other team it could face on Sunday, Clemson.
The two programs have squared off 19 times throughout the years and Clemson holds a 10-9 series lead. Now the catch to this is that most of these meetings took place from 1927 through 1937. Clemson won the first seven meetings between the two teams, and to give an idea of the era of basketball this was, the highest point total in any of those games was the 47 points Clemson scored in 1930.
After World War II, the two teams met again in the 1950s three times in Jacksonville, with Florida winning all three of those games.
Since the dawn of color television, the two teams have faced off just once. That was in 2017 when they met in Sunrise. In true Mike White fashion, Florida blew a 12-point second half lead and the most notable play from the game was a full court pass that let Clemson take the lead late and go on to win 71-69.