{"id":350553,"date":"2026-07-23T23:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T23:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/350553\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T23:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T23:32:11","slug":"florida-basketball-to-welcome-jacksonville-for-2026-27-home-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/350553\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida basketball to welcome Jacksonville for 2026-27 home opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>July 23, 2026, 5:02 p.m. ET<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The <a data-autotag=\"3b888813-f087-4637-8d3d-c90e4608afae\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/ncaab\/teams\/florida-gators\/1407\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Florida<\/a> men&#8217;s basketball team will welcome the Jacksonville Dolphins to the O&#8217;Dome on Nov. 5 for their <a href=\"https:\/\/247sports.com\/college\/florida\/article\/florida-basketball-scheduling-news-jacksonville-university-2026-2027-season-uf--288464430\/\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">home opener for the 2026-27 season<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The Gators last hosted Jacksonville on Nov. 7, 2024, earning an 81-60 victory over the Dolphins. Florida leads the all-time series 33-5 against Jacksonville.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">UF&#8217;s non-conference schedule is beginning to take shape, with the matchup against Jacksonville becoming the newest addition to the Gators&#8217; schedule. Florida is highly favored to enter the season as the No. 1 team in the country in preseason polls after returning key contributors from last season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Florida will tip off its season in a neutral-site game on Nov. 2 against the Miami Hurricanes at Benchmark International Arena \u2014 the same venue where the Gators were upset in the second round of the NCAA Tournament by No. 9 seed Iowa.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">More non-conference matchups are expected to be announced in the coming weeks as the season approaches.<\/p>\n<p>Need a news break? <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":body nav (play)|e|auto spike click:5|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_sp_a\" href=\"https:\/\/play.usatoday.com\/?itm_source=SPIKE&amp;itm_campaign=PLAYSPIKE&amp;itm_medium=ONSITE\">Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Florida&#8217;s schedule continues to take form as they have already announced key non-conference games against teams such as Notre Dame and Duke.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"gnt_em_cp_cw_i\" data-g-r=\"lazy\" data-gl-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784849531_826_82604684007-20250322-t-011042-z-779806020-mt-1-usatoday-25734617-rtrmadp-3-ncaabasketballncaatournam.webp\" data-gl- decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Follow us <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GatorsWire\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@GatorsWire<\/a> on X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/gatorswire.bsky.social\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bluesky<\/a>, and like our page on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/GatorsWire\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a> to follow ongoing coverage of <a data-autotag=\"13e400dd-2caf-4743-8f66-2d6e34ba4e99\" href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/sports\/college-sports\/sec\/florida\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Florida Gators<\/a> news, notes and opinions.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 23, 2026, 5:02 p.m. ET The Florida men&#8217;s basketball team will welcome the Jacksonville Dolphins to the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[31,116,118,117,113869,22150,22151,8913,299,39,4814,14014,96,14013,4821,300,80,34],"class_list":["post-350553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-accessfree","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-sourcegators-wire","tag-sstssportscollegegatorsmens-basketball","tag-sstsnmens-basketball","tag-tagbasketball","tag-tagcollege-sports","tag-tagflorida","tag-tagflorida-gators","tag-tagflorida-gators-mens-basketball","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tagsec-conference-mens-basketball","tag-tagsec-hub","tag-tagsports-news","tag-taguniversity-of-florida","tag-typestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350553","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=350553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}