March 18, 2026, 12:34 p.m. ET
Two decades ago, the Florida Gators earned back-to-back men’s basketball national championships. This year, the Orange and Blue are once again on the threshold of college sports immortality heading into the NCAA Tournament.
Whether or not Todd Golden’s team can be the first to repeat since the UConn Huskies pulled off the feat in the two years before Florida’s title run is among March Madness’ biggest questions. Mike Krzyzewski, the legendary former Duke Blue Devils head coach who was the last to win back-to-backs before Florida’s run in the aughts, believes that the Gators have a chance to pull it off a second time.
Coach K joined The Pat McAfee Show on Monday afternoon to discuss this year’s Big Dance and offered his take on Golden’s gang’s chances of making it two in a row.
“I think Florida has a real chance to go back-to-back,” Krzyzewski offered. “Those guys have been on this run before and they know what it takes.”
He also noted that the Gators “rebound the hell out of the ball” and that Golden is “one hell of a coach.”
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Echoing what he told his Blue Devils squad ahead of their repeat in 1992, Krzyzewski does not believe in the idea of defending the crown.
“We don’t have to defend a damn thing. What we need to do is pursue, and I think this Florida team is pursuing right now,” he said. “Until they lost this last game, they were probably the hottest team in the country.”
When confronted with the possibility of Florida facing the Houston Cougars in the Elite Eight for a rematch of last year’s title game, Coach K simply stated, “That’ll be a man’s game.”
Suffice it to say, if anyone knows what it takes to succeed at the highest level on multiple occasions, it is the five-time title-winning skipper whose teams appeared in 13 total Final Fours.
Florida’s journey back to the promised land begins on Friday, when they play either the Prairie View Panthers or Lehigh Mountain Hawks in the first round, held in Tampa, Florida. If all goes to plan, the Gators will be hanging another banner inside the O’Connell Center after becoming the first program to win consecutive titles since the UCLA Bruins pulled off the feat back in the 1960s.
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