Todd Golden informs team of Florida’s No. 1 seed on flight home from SEC Tournament

Todd Golden has the Florida Gators flying high heading into the NCAA Tournament.

UF closed out the regular season on a 3-game winning streak, securing a double bye for the SEC Tournament. The Gators have extended that streak, defeating Missouri, Alabama and Tennessee to win the conference tournament title.

The tournament championship game tipped off at 1 p.m. ET. Florida won 86-77. After cutting down the nets and postgame media opportunities, the Gators weren’t quite back in Gainesville for the Selection Sunday bracket reveal.

While in the air, Golden took over the speakers to share the exciting news that Florida is a No. 1 seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament.

got some news from the flight deck pic.twitter.com/YKmR0EIBdC

— Florida Gators Men’s Basketball (@GatorsMBK) March 16, 2025

UF is placed in the West Region, but the Gators will begin their campaign for the 3rd national title in Florida basketball history in Raleigh, North Carolina. Norfolk State, the region’s 16-seed, is up first on Friday. If Florida can take care of business, it would then play the winner of 8-seed UConn and 9-seed Oklahoma on Sunday.

If the Gators make it out of Raleigh, they would travel to San Francisco for the Sweet 16. Golden was the University of San Francisco’s head coach from 2019-22 before landing the Florida job.

Andrew Olson

Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.