One of the storylines for Florida last season was its loaded non-conference slate that resulted in a handful of early losses. Even though the Gators wound up a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, a string of games against Arizona, Duke, and UConn, among others, left Florida unranked at one point in the season.
Todd Golden and crew are hoping to dial back their non-conference slate by just a hair heading into next season, but even Florida couldn’t pass up the chance to play in one of the more pretentious in-season tournaments next season.
Florida to play in the Players Era Tournament
It was officially announced who would be in Florida’s bracket for the Players Era Tournament in Las Vegas this November. The Gators will be in an eight-team bracket with Houston, Kansas, Auburn, West Virginia, Notre Dame, Rutgers, and UNLV. Those games will be during the week of November 16.
There will be a separate 16-team bracket that takes place the week of Thanksgiving that has Alabama, Baylor, Creighton, Gonzaga, Iowa State, Kansas State, Louisville, Maryland, Miami, Michigan, Oregon, San Diego State, St. John's, TCU, Tennessee, and Texas Tech.
The concept of the tournament is that each participating team gets an average of just over $1 million in NIL, with the winning team getting an additional $1 million.
Last year, there was some controversy with the tournament as the field was an awkward 18 teams, which led to a confusing format.
For Florida, the chance to play Houston or Kansas or even both is a huge opportunity to find out just how legit the Gators are for 2026/27. With Thomas Haugh, Boogie Fland, and Alex Condon for sure coming back, along with Denzel Aberdeen returning (pending waiver approval), and Rueben Chinyelu still having to decide whether he will stick with the NBA, Florida is racking up plenty of “Way too early” No. 1 rankings.
A good showing in Vegas will only add to that hype.
Add us as a preferred source on Google