The Florida Gators have won three national championships in college basketball since 2000, establishing themselves as a top program. They have also made five Final Four appearances and reached the title game a fourth time.
The Florida Gators have emerged as a college basketball blue blood since the turn of the millennium, winning three national championships, playing in the title game a fourth time, and making five total Final Four appearances. What was once considered a football school has become a dual threat in two of North America's biggest sports.
Now that the dust has settled from the Michigan Wolverines' second-ever NCAA Tournament triumph, ESPN's Myron Medcalf took on the task of ranking every champion of this century ā bearing in mind that there was no champion crowned during the 2020 COVID campaign ā beginning with the 1999-2000 season.
The author employed "a combination of real data and the eye test" in making his assessment, so these rankings are anything but scientific. Take a look at where the Orange and Blue's three trophy-winning teams landed on the list.
"The Gators ended the season as one of the hottest teams in the country after losing just one game after Feb. 1, finishing a game behind the NCAA tournament's No. 1 overall seed Auburn in the SEC standings while securing the conference tournament title. They also ranked second in adjusted offensive efficiency and sixth in adjusted defensive efficiency on KenPom," Medcalf begins.
"It was Clayton's rise ā he scored 23 or more points in four NCAA tournament games ā that helped lift the Gators through close calls in multiple games. They had to fight through sizable deficits in multiple games and managed to launch successful comebacks in each, but they were a great story more than an all-time great team."
"Billy Donovan's two-peat began with a Florida team that won its first 17-0 games and then struggled through a 5-6 stretch. There were mitigating circumstances, though. Lee Humphrey, the starting point guard, had to overcome a shoulder injury and Corey Brewer needed time to recover from mono," Medcalf notes.
"On March 1, 2006, however, Noah scored 37 points in a 77-66 win over Georgia that snapped a three-game losing streak. Florida never lost another game. Noah had 30 blocks in the NCAA tournament, as the Gators ā whose roster also included Al Horford ā ended 2-seed UCLA's 12-game winning streak. Plus, their NCAA tournament opponents averaged only 56.6 PPG."
"Between March 21, 2006, and Feb. 17, 2007, these Gators lost only two games. Their first national title run in 2006 established a new standard for a program that won its second title in a row a year later. How? They thrived on a concept that's almost impossible to achieve in today's game: continuity," Medcalf offers.
"The same starters from the 2006 title game ā Lee Humphrey, Taurean Green, Al Horford, Corey Brewer and Noah ā also started in the 2007 championship win over an Ohio State squad led by freshman Greg Oden (an AP first-team All-American) and Mike Conley Jr. (18 years in the NBA). These Gators didn't dominate the NCAA tournament, but they were more consistent than the 2006 team and one of the better squads we've witnessed over the past 25 years."
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This article originally appeared on Gators Wire: Florida basketball's 3 national championships this century ranked
The Florida Gators basketball team has won three national championships.
The Florida Gators won their national titles in 2006, 2007, and 2008.
The Florida Gators are ranked No. 22 among college basketball champions of the 2000s according to ESPN's recent rankings.
The Florida Gators have made a total of five Final Four appearances.
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