{"id":353925,"date":"2026-07-27T18:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T18:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/353925\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T18:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T18:09:11","slug":"gators-mens-basketball-home-schedule-has-duke-kentucky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/353925\/","title":{"rendered":"Gators’ men’s basketball home schedule has Duke, Kentucky"},"content":{"rendered":"

GAINESVILLE \u2014 The Florida Gators\u2019 men\u2019s basketball schedule is set, highlighted by a Dec. 1 visit from Duke<\/a>, a Senior Day matchup against Kentucky on March 6 and a Jan. 9 showdown with Vanderbilt after the Commodores eliminated the Gators<\/a> in last season\u2019s SEC Tournament semifinals.<\/p>\n

Florida opens its 16-game home schedule Nov. 5 against Jacksonville, three days after beginning the season against Miami Nov. 2 in Tampa\u2019s Benchmark International Arena<\/a> \u2014 site of the season-ending 73-72 NCAA Tournament loss to Iowa.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be kind of a good opportunity to kind of get that bad taste out of our mouths from the way last season ended,\u201d coach Todd Golden recently told the Orlando Sentinel.<\/p>\n

The Gators open SEC play Jan. 2 at Texas before hosting Oklahoma on Jan. 5 or 6 in their SEC home opener.<\/p>\n

Neutral-site dates on Dec. 12 and 18 also have yet to be finalized, while times for SEC midweek dates will be announced later.<\/p>\n

\"FloridaFlorida head coach Todd Golden, left, (L-R) receives a game ball from athletic director Scott Stricklin to celebrate Golden’s 100th win March 3, 2026 after the Gators beat Mississippi State 108-74 at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center in Gainesville. (Photo by James Gilbert\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

In addition to visits from Vanderbilt and Kentucky, the Gators will host Texas (Feb. 6), Missouri (Feb. 13) and Georgia (Feb. 20) on Saturdays. Other midweek SEC games beside Oklahoma will be against Texas A&M (Jan. 19\/20), South Carolina (Feb. 2\/3) and Ole Miss (Feb. 23\/24).<\/p>\n

Coming off a 27-8 finish and SEC regular-season championship, the Gators sold out 10 games in 2025-26 and have been at full capacity during 19 of the past 25 games in the O\u2019Connell Center. Florida is 43-3 at home the past three seasons under Golden.<\/p>\n

Other than the highly anticipated visit from Duke, Florida\u2019s nonconference schedule also includes the Players Era 8 Tournament in Las Vegas from Nov. 17-19. The Gators open with Notre Dame before facing either Rutgers or Houston, setting up the possibility of a rematch with Kelvin Sampson\u2019s Cougars after the teams met in the 2025 national title game<\/a>. Auburn, Kansas, UNLV and West Virginia make up the other side of the bracket.<\/p>\n

Entering Golden\u2019s fifth season at Florida, the Gators return 81.8% of their scoring from last season\u2019s SEC championship team. Four starters are back, including seniors Rueben Chinyelu, Alex Condon and Thomas Haugh, who form one of the nation\u2019s top frontcourts. Starting point guard Boogie Fland also is among six of the eight primary rotation players returning, with 11 players expected back overall.<\/p>\n

The Gators also welcomed back veteran guard Denzel Aberdeen, though the former Dr. Phillips High product is awaiting an NCAA waiver for a fifth season of eligibility after spending the 2025-26 season at Kentucky.<\/p>\n

Florida\u2019s Nov. 5 and Dec. 6 home dates will be men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball doubleheaders.<\/p>\n

2026-27 REGULAR SEASON SCHEDULE<\/p>\n

Nov. 2: Miami (Tampa)<\/p>\n

Nov. 5: vs. Jacksonville<\/p>\n

Nov. 10: at Florida State<\/p>\n

Nov. 13: Merrimack<\/p>\n

Nov. 17: Notre Dame (Las Vegas)<\/p>\n

Nov. 18: Houston-Rutgers (Las Vegas)<\/p>\n

Nov. 19: Auburn\/Kansas\/UNLV\/West Virginia<\/p>\n

Nov. 24: vs. Milwaukee<\/p>\n

Dec. 1: vs. Duke<\/p>\n

Dec. 6: vs. Vermont<\/p>\n

Dec. 12: TBA (neutral site)<\/p>\n

Dec. 18: TBA (neutral site)<\/p>\n

Dec. 21: vs. Florida A&M<\/p>\n

Dec. 29: vs. Long Island<\/p>\n

Jan. 2: at Texas<\/p>\n

Jan. 5\/6: vs. Oklahoma<\/p>\n

Jan. 9: vs. Vanderbilt<\/p>\n

Jan. 12\/13: at Mississippi State<\/p>\n

Jan. 16: at Alabama<\/p>\n

Jan. 19\/20: vs. Texas A&M<\/p>\n

Jan. 23: at Georgia<\/p>\n

Jan. 30: at Tennessee<\/p>\n

Feb. 2\/3: vs. South Carolina<\/p>\n

Feb. 6: vs. Texas<\/p>\n

Feb. 9\/10: at Auburn<\/p>\n

Feb. 13: vs. Missouri<\/p>\n

Feb. 16\/17: at LSU<\/p>\n

Feb. 20: vs. Georgia<\/p>\n

Feb. 23\/24: vs Ole Miss<\/p>\n

Feb. 27: at Arkansas<\/p>\n

March 2\/3: at South Carolina<\/p>\n

March 6: vs. Kentucky<\/p>\n

Edgar Thompson can be reached at egthompson@orlandosentinel.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GAINESVILLE \u2014 The Florida Gators\u2019 men\u2019s basketball schedule is set, highlighted by a Dec. 1 visit from Duke,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[111,28,2530,2496,114,139,141,140,76046,110],"class_list":["post-353925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-college-sports","tag-florida","tag-florida-gators","tag-gainesville","tag-latest-headlines","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353925","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=353925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}