{"id":192839,"date":"2026-03-15T22:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T22:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/192839\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T22:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T22:59:09","slug":"2026-ncaa-tournament-bracket-florida-gators-repeat-as-no-1-seed-in-march-madness-for-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/192839\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 NCAA Tournament bracket: Florida Gators repeat as No. 1 seed in March Madness for first time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"image-credits\">Image Credit: <a href=\"\" target=\"_blank\">Maddie Washburn, UAA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The reigning national champion Florida Gators will enter the 2026 NCAA Tournament still on top of the college basketball world. For the second straight season, Florida has earned a No. 1 seed in March Madness, accomplishing the feat across consecutive campaigns for the first time in program history.<\/p>\n<p>The Gators previously received No. 1 seeds in 2007 and 2014. They are 16-1 all-time when entering the NCAA Tournament from such a position, advancing to the Final Four in all three prior opportunities and winning national championships in 2007 and 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Florida is listed as the fourth No. 1 seed and the top team in the South Region. UF begins play on Friday in Tampa, Florida, against a No. 16-seed, either Prairie View A&amp;M or Lehigh, which will play one another in First Four action. Broadcast information has yet to be announced.<\/p>\n<p>The top seeds in the South Region behind Florida are No. 2 Houston, No. 3 Illinois and No. 4 Nebraska. Vanderbilt is the No. 5 seed; the Commodores could play the Gators in the Sweet 16 after dominating them 91-74 in the 2026 SEC Tournament semifinals on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Should UF advance out of its first game, it would face either No. 8 seed Clemson or No. 9 seed Iowa in the second round.<\/p>\n<p>Florida locked up the No. 1 seed for 2026 March Madness given its tremendous play in the SEC, which was competitive all season. The Gators won their first SEC regular-season title since 2014 but missed out on sweeping conference competition. Six of the seven teams UF lost to this season have qualified for the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Florida is 51-20 all-time in the NCAA Tournament. Last season was the first time it advanced past the opening weekend since 2017.<\/p>\n<p>The Gators are seeking their seventh Final Four appearance (1994, 2000, 2006-07, 2014, 2025) and fourth national championship (2006-07, 2025) in program history.<\/p>\n<p>Todd Golden became the second-youngest coach to win a national championship in Division I history last season. He is one of only two coaches (Billy Donovan) to lead Florida to a No. 1 seed in March Madness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Image Credit: Maddie Washburn, UAA The reigning national champion Florida Gators will enter the 2026 NCAA Tournament still&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[16582,33822,28,30,29,33737,142,11474,3116],"class_list":["post-192839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-billy-donovan","tag-final-four","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-march-madness","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-tournament","tag-todd-golden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}