Home games are played on Billy Donovan court in the Exactech Arena at the Stephen C. O'Connell Center on the university's Gainesville, Florida campus.

[4] The college basketball season begins in early November, and the non-conference portion of the schedule typically runs until the end of the calendar year.

Florida has built in-conference rivalries with Kentucky and Tennessee since the Gators began consistently competing for conference titles in the 1990s.

By the mid-1920s, the basketball team had outgrown the small brick University Gymnasium, which had been designed to serve as a student recreation center and had very little spectator space.

However, funds soon became scarce with the coming of the Great Depression, and university president John J. Tigert's main focus was the financing and construction of Florida Field, the new football stadium which opened in 1930.

Sloan left Florida after failing to receive the support of then athletic director Ray Graves, and took over as head coach at his alma mater North Carolina State after the 1965–66 season.

After Walk and Owens went on to play professional basketball, Bartlett could not sustain the level of talent in recruiting, and team performance declined thereafter, with four straight losing campaigns leading to his dismissal.

[6] The modern era of Florida basketball began in 1980, when the team moved into their current home, the O'Connell Center.

In 1987, shooting guard Vernon Maxwell led the team to the school's first ever NCAA Tournament appearance, advancing all the way to the Sweet 16.

However, after a drug scandal involving Maxwell and an NCAA investigation for various rules violations, Sloan and his coaching staff were forced to resign on October 31, 1989, just days before the start of the 1989–90 season.

Their 1987 and 1988 NCAA Tournament appearances were erased from the record books due to Maxwell being retroactively declared ineligible for secretly taking money from a sports agent, and Sloan was slapped with a five-year show-cause penalty that effectively ended his coaching career.

Despite the probation he inherited, Kruger slowly brought the team to increased success and reached the NIT semifinals in his second year as coach.

Florida's Athletic Director, Jeremy Foley, looking for a young coach with a proven track record, hired 30-year-old Billy Donovan, then at Marshall, as Kruger's replacement.

The 2005–06 team began the season unranked and went on a 17–0 winning streak for the best start in school history, surprising many with a young (four sophomores and one junior) squad following the graduation of David Lee and the departures of Matt Walsh and Anthony Roberson to the NBA.

The team faded late in the regular season, losing its last 3 games in February and entering the postseason with a 24–6 record, yet still managed to win its second consecutive SEC tournament championship.

1 seed Villanova Wildcats 75–62 to avenge their loss in the previous year's tournament and move on to their second Final Four under Donovan.

On April 3, 2006, the Gators defeated the UCLA Bruins 73–57 in the national final to win the school's first men's basketball NCAA Championship.

[12] The University of Florida Athletic Association then purchased the floor used in Indianapolis for the Final Four, and installed it in the O'Connell Center.

[13] The Gators locked up the SEC Championship relatively early in the 2006–07 season and were in possession of a 24–2 record before going on a late-February 1–3 skid that mirrored their 0–3 run a year earlier.

Florida closed out Kentucky on Senior Night to end the regular season 26–5, and won their third straight SEC tournament championship with relative ease, beating Georgia, Ole Miss, and Arkansas 77–56.

In the aftermath of the Gators second NCAA championship, Donovan accepted the head coaching position for the NBA's Orlando Magic on May 31, 2007.

7 seed in the West Region after losing in the 2012 SEC men's basketball tournament semifinals to Kentucky, finishing with an overall record of 23–10.

The Gators then beat the Kentucky Wildcats for the third time in the season to claim their fourth SEC Tournament championship title.

White's second Gator squad was the best of his tenure, as Florida went 24–7, finished 2nd in the SEC standings, and earned a #4 seed in the 2017 NCAA tournament.

They reached the Elite Eight on a three-point buzzer beater by guard Chris Chiozza to beat Wisconsin, then were upset one game short of the Final Four by SEC rival South Carolina, 77–70.

However, after 2017, they earned a decreasing number of wins each season, were never a serious contender for SEC championships, and had a 10–15 record in games played in March.

After a disappointing 2021-22 season in which Florida did not earn a berth in the NCAA tournament, White left to become the head coach at Georgia.

To get to the Final Four, Florida first had to survive a tough test from 12th seeded Butler in the first round in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Florida held late leads in the first two of them, but could never finish the game and lost each time, first to Butler, then to Louisville, before Michigan blew them out in their third straight Elite 8.

After a two-year absence from the NCAA Tournament, Mike White got them back to the Elite Eight in 2017, where the Gators were again defeated, this time by SEC rival South Carolina.