The Florida Gators became the first Division I school to win three national titles in both basketball and football when UF rallied to beat Houston 65-63 in the NCAA championship game on Monday.
Florida basketball has won three national titles over the last 19 years and reached five Final Fours over the last 25 years.
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Does that make Florida a blue blood basketball school? Or simply nouveau riche.
“Certainly, Gator fans can make a case when you have three national championships within the last 20 years,” ESPN college basketball Hall of Fame analyst Dick Vitale said in a text message to The Sun on Wednesday. “But when you are talking about the schools that are currently known as blue bloods, it is due not only to the NCAA titles but the fantastic hoops tradition for many years.”
Florida is now tied with Villanova for sixth on the list of most basketball national championships in Division I program history, behind UCLA (11), Kentucky (8), North Carolina and Connecticut (6), Indiana and Duke (5) and Kansas (4). Of note, Louisville won three national titles on the court, but one was vacated in 2013 due to NCAA sanctions.
The case for Florida basketball as a blue blood
Still, Florida finds itself in elite company. In the last 20 years, only Duke (8), Kansas (6) and North Carolina (5) have been to more Final Fours than Florida (4). Florida and UConn are tied for the most national titles (3) during that 20-year span.
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Florida just had a former coach, Billy Donovan, inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Donovan’s 467 wins from 1996-2015 at UF are second on the all-time SEC wins list, behind only Kentucky’s Adolph Rupp. UF’s current coach, Todd Golden, is 76-33 in three seasons, with two NCAA Tournament trips and a national title. At 39, Golden is the youngest coach to win a national title since the late Jim Valvano in 1983 led North Carolina State to a championship.
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UF’s 24 NCAA Tournament trips ranks 10th all-time. Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1986, the Gators have gotten there on a regular basis. Two more trips, in 1987 and 1988, were vacated due to NCAA sanctions.
“To the point of championships and NCAA Tournament appearances all time and Final Fours in the last 20 years, shoot, we’re a blue blood,” said Bill Koss, a former UF player from 1961-65 and noted Gator basketball historian.
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Koss wrote a book, Pond Birds, that detailed the history of Florida basketball up until the early 1990s. He was in the Alamodome on Saturday with his grandchildren to witness UF’s third basketball national title in school history.
“The stature of our program, I mean, we’ve been to 11 Sweet 16s in the history of our program, and that’s since 1987,” Koss said. “The SEC was penalized for many years because they could only send one team to the SEC tournament, in the 1960s and 1970s we had teams that could have gone. Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams (in 1985) we’ve been consistently there.”
Are fans passionate enough about Florida basketball to be considered a blueblood?
How much does Florida love basketball? That question has hung over the program for decades. When Florida wins, the O’Connell Center is packed. But apathy can come quickly. After Florida won back-to-back national titles in 2006 and 2007, Florida held Midnight Madness the following October at the O’Dome and only the lower bowl was full. The following season, after UF barely made the NIT, Florida did away with Midnight Madness for good.
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In 2012, a year after Donovan guided UF to an Elite Eight season, marquee non-conference games against Wisconsin and Marquette drew turnstile counts of less than 7,000 at the then-12,000-seat O’Connell Center.
“Florida has shown that it is a substantial basketball program that has all the ingredients to consistently contend for national championships and Final Four bids,” said Sporting News national college basketball writer Mike DeCourcy. “Relative to blue blood status, though, I think the interest and the attachment to the program has to be more profound.”
The O’Connell Center reduced its capacity from 12,000 to 10,151 when the arena underwent a renovation that was completed in December of 2016. Sellouts were the norm at the O’Connell Center for most of the 2024-25 season, due in part due Golden bringing an entertaining and winning brand of up-tempo basketball.
Theories abound as to why Florida basketball fans don’t pack arenas on a yearly basis. One is that basketball is an indoor sport in an outdoor state. The weather on weekends in January and February present opportunities to go fishing or boating or to the beach. Miami and Florida State also struggle with consistent basketball attendance at their buildings.
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The other is the F-word … football. Remember, Florida football has won three national titles too. Its iconic football brand, in coaching eras from Ray Graves to Steve Spurrier to Urban Meyer, often overshadows what happens on the hardwood. Fans continue to pack 90,000-seat Ben Hill Griffin Stadium though good seasons and mediocre seasons.
“I’m not sure that I’m saying anything controversial to suggest that football is a more important sport than men’s basketball at UF,” DeCourcy said. “Is it possible to truly be a blue blood if the sport is not number one at your place? The schools that we all acknowledge that are in that category ― Carolina, Kansas, Duke, UCLA ― it is obvious all of them are basketball schools.”
Koss, who lives in Jacksonville and has done radio and TV color commentary for Florida basketball on and off for 40 years, knows well of the football-first culture when it comes to UF fans.
“In the deep south, it’s obviously been football and that’s been a problem for a lot of us who played basketball at the University of Florida,” Koss said. “A real problem because honestly, the fan was a football fan that when you won, they came to watch you play.”
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But Koss was encouraged by the Final Four turnout of Gators fans who flocked to San Antonio.
“I talked to people from Seattle and Colorado, a couple of people from California,” Koss said. “So, I know that the Gators, with their alumni, are spread out all over America, and they are coming out now with the success that they are having …
“We’re building a tremendous base of fan support for our program, hopefully it will continue the same way and that’s something we don’t know, the future is going to be the future.”
Does Florida basketball get blueblood level support from administration?
On Wednesday, booster Gary Condron pledged a $1 million donation toward the Florida basketball program. There’s also an $8 million renovation toward the Florida basketball indoor practice facility that’s scheduled to begin this spring.
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Florida’s NIL arm, Florida Victorious, put together deals to add transfer guards Will Richard, Walter Clayton Jr. and Alijah Martin. The guard trio fueled UF’s 2024-25 national title run.
Koss said the support from administration began with UF interim president Dr. Bob Bryan. It was Bryan, Koss said, who made sure that new UF head coach Lon Kruger received the same salary as Spurrier when Kruger was hired away from Kansas State in 1990. Four years later, Kruger led UF to the first of its six Final Fours.
“The turning point was when we started paying the basketball coach the kind of money that reflected a great university,” Koss said. “Florida wanted to differentiate itself from the rest of the country and have a reputation for top notch football and basketball programs.”
The investments have paid off, and Florida now finds itself back atop college basketball mountain.
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“As far as things right now, as far as the actual accomplishments, the real, honest to God accomplishments, we’re a blue blood,” Koss said.
Kevin Brockway is The Gainesville Sun’s Florida beat writer. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on X @KevinBrockwayG1
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Should Florida basketball be called a blue blood after third national title
