March Madness: Where Florida basketball national champions rank among others this century
The Florida Gators took home their third men's basketball title on Monday after rallying back to beat the Houston Cougars in the 2025 NCAA Tournament championship game, making UF the only school to have a trio of titles in both football and basketball.
It is a proud time for the Orange and Blue, which had suffered through some lean years in the first half of the 2020s. However, it took only three years for Todd Golden to turn the program around, and now Florida is back on top of the world.
With this year's edition of March Madness officially in the books, ESPN's Byron Medcalf went back and ranked the 24 national title-winning teams spanning across every season this century — with the exception of the canceled COVID year. He based his opinions on both regular-season and postseason results.
Here is where the Gators ranked among those programs.
No. 21: 2025 Florida Gators
The recent championship ranks the lowest of the three in ESPN's rankings, but that certainly does not diminish the accomplishment nor does it suck any of the excitement out of the epic run.
"The Gators ended the season as one of the hottest teams in the country after losing just one game after Feb. 1, finishing a game behind the NCAA tournament's No. 1 overall seed Auburn in the SEC standings while securing the conference tournament title. They also ranked second in adjusted offensive efficiency and sixth in adjusted defensive efficiency on KenPom," Medcalf explains.
"It was Clayton's rise — he scored 23 or more points in four NCAA tournament games — that helped lift the Gators through close calls in multiple games. They had to fight through sizable deficits in multiple games and managed to launch successful comebacks in each, but they were a great story more than an all-time great team."
While Clayton was undoubtedly the heart and soul of this team, one should not overlook the team chemistry and how the sum of their efforts was greater than their individual parts.
No. 11: 2006 Florida Gators
Florida's first title also coincided with the football team's second championship, which had Gainesville going absolutely bonkers during that era. It was the first of two for the Oh Fours and one of the funniest teams to ever play inside the O'Connell Center.
"Billy Donovan's two-peat began with a Florida team that won its first 17-0 games and then struggled through a 5-6 stretch. There were mitigating circumstances, though. Lee Humphrey, the starting point guard, had to overcome a shoulder injury and Corey Brewer needed time to recover from mono. On March 1, 2006, however, Noah scored 37 points in a 77-66 win over Georgia that snapped a three-game losing streak," Medcalf notes.
"Florida never lost another game. Noah had 30 blocks in the NCAA tournament, as the Gators — whose roster also included Al Horford — ended 2-seed UCLA's 12-game winning streak. Plus, their NCAA tournament opponents averaged only 56.6 PPG."
This was a team that experienced some much-needed adversity down the stretch, and ultimately, that losing streak helped sharpen the sword for the Gators' charge through the tournament.
No. 5: 2007 Florida Gators
When it was announced that the 2007 team would return all of its starters from the year prior, UF was immediately the pick to repeat and carried a target on its back all season. That did not matter as the clout carried over without missing a beat.
"Between March 21, 2006 and Feb. 17, 2007, these Gators lost only two games. Their first national title run in 2006 established a new standard for a program that won its second title in a row a year later. How? They thrived on a concept that's almost impossible to achieve in today's game: continuity," Medcalf recalls.
"The same starters from the 2006 title game — Lee Humphrey, Taurean Green, Al Horford, Corey Brewer and Noah — also started in the 2007 championship win over an Ohio State squad led by freshman Greg Oden (an AP first-team All-American) and Mike Conley Jr. (18 years in the NBA). These Gators didn't dominate the NCAA tournament, but they were more consistent than the 2006 team and one of the better squads we've witnessed over the past 25 years."
An epic finish to an epic run for the Orange and Blue.
ESPN's full NCAA Tournament rankings for 2000's
2001 Duke Blue Devils 2009 North Carolina Tar Heels 2012 Kentucky Wildcats 2024 UConn Huskies 2007 Florida Gators 2018 Villanova Wildcats 2004 UConn Huskies 2005 North Carolina Tar Heels 2008 Kansas Jayhawks 2023 UConn Huskies 2006 Florida Gators 2016 Villanova Wildcats 2015 Duke Blue Devils 2000 Michigan State Spartans 2013 Louisville Cardinals 2002 Maryland Terrapins 2003 Syracuse Orange 2010 Duke Blue Devils 2022 Kansas Jayhawks 2021 Baylor Bears 2025 Florida Gators 2019 Virginia Cavaliers 2017 North Carolina Tar Heels 2011 UConn Huskies 2014 UConn Huskies
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