Florida Men's Basketball Team Misses NCAA Tourney, Accepts NIT Bid

After their three-game skid toward the end of the Southeastern Conference regular season and then only garnering one conference tournament win to finish a 19-14 record (at least so far), the 2015-16 University of Florida men's basketball team was not invited to the NCAA Championship Tournament...a disappointment that I had clearly expected.  You can argue whether or not teams like Syracuse or Tulsa deserved to go to the "Big Dance", but Florida simply wasn't good enough.  That's not saying that they're not a good team...first year Gator coach Mike White, by all accounts, has done a great job with these players and all of them should be proud after the second-tier National Invitation Tournament extended to them a bid to play there.  UF, a number 2 seed in their assigned "quadrant", will play the North Florida Ospreys Tuesday evening at 9 in the first round.  Since the Gators' home site of the O'Connell Center is unavailable, they will have to go on the road for this tournament, unfortunately.  Still, they have a good chance to up their win total past 20.  Should Florida do as expected and beat UNF, they'll face the winner of the Ohio State-Akron game...most likely the Buckeyes.

Florida men's basketball has made a marked improvement from last year, when they finished under .500 and missed both the NCAA and NIT.  But if they want to advance far into this year's NIT, they'll need to figure out how they can shoot three-pointers so well while being abysmal at the foul line.  You simply cannot put together a string of victories without being able to protect a small lead at the end of a game when the other team is fouling your poor-shooting players and expecting them to miss at the line. Coach White will have a simple goal for next year's team: make the NCAA tournament...he can start with improving his players' foul shooting.  But, who knows, maybe UF will surprise everyone and blow all their opponents away in this tournament...and not ever have to worry about protecting a small lead.  Well, at least I can hope...

Congratulations, Gators!