Florida is chasing something that almost never happens in college basketball originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
College basketball fans talk about dynasties all the time.
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But the NCAA Tournament rarely allows them.
The bracket is brutal. The games are unpredictable. Even the best team in the country only needs one cold shooting night in March for everything to fall apart. One bad half and the season is over.
That is why what Florida is chasing right now is so fascinating.
The Gators cut down the nets in 2025 after a dominant 36-4 season that ended with a championship win over Houston. Now here they are again in 2026 playing some of their best basketball at the exact right time.
Florida has won 10 straight games.They have already locked up the SEC regular season title.And they are blowing teams out along the way.
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The latest example came Tuesday night when the Gators dropped 108 points on Mississippi State in a 34 point rout.
When the defending national champions start rolling like this in March, fans begin thinking about something college basketball rarely sees.
A repeat champion.
Repeating almost never happens
Winning the NCAA Tournament once is extremely difficult.
Winning it twice in a row is one of the hardest accomplishments in sports.
The modern NCAA Tournament era began in 1985 when the field expanded to 64 teams. Since then March Madness has become the chaotic event that fans love every spring.
Since that expansion only one program has repeated as national champion.
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Florida.
More: Kansas is flirting with a dangerous number that almost never wins the national title
Florida already knows how to do it
The last repeat champion came nearly twenty years ago when Billy Donovan built one of the most dominant teams in modern college basketball.
Florida won the 2006 national championship after finishing 33-6 and beating UCLA in the title game.
What made the next season special was what happened afterward.
The entire starting lineup came back.
Joakim Noah.Al Horford.Corey Brewer.Taurean Green.
Instead of heading to the NBA they returned to Gainesville for another run.
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The result was a 35-5 season and another national championship in 2007 after defeating Ohio State.
That Florida team did not just repeat. It dominated the sport for two straight seasons.
Since then nobody has managed to do it again.
Plenty of great teams have tried
A lot of elite teams have tried to repeat since Florida pulled it off.
Most of them never got close.
Kansas won the national championship in 2022 but could not defend the title the following year.
Villanova’s 2016 championship team did not repeat in 2017.
Virginia captured the 2019 title but never got the chance to defend it after the 2020 tournament was canceled.
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Even powerhouse programs like Duke, Kentucky and North Carolina have found it nearly impossible to win back to back titles in the modern tournament.
That is what makes the NCAA Tournament so unpredictable. One upset can erase an entire season of dominance.
Why this Florida team is dangerous
This year’s Gators look like a team capable of making another deep run.
Florida is averaging nearly 88 points per game, one of the most explosive offenses in the country. They are also one of the best rebounding teams in college basketball.
The roster has balance everywhere.
Alex Condon has developed into one of the most reliable scorers in the SEC.Xaivian Lee runs the offense and consistently creates good shots for teammates.Rueben Chinyelu has been dominant on the boards and recently tied the Florida record with 18 double doubles in a season.
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The depth has also been impressive.
Even when key players are missing, someone else seems to step up. Freshman CJ Ingram recently sparked a huge run with back to back three pointers against Mississippi State.
When Florida gets hot offensively the games can get out of hand quickly.
Arkansas learned that lesson earlier this season when the Gators scored 111 points in a blowout win.
The biggest opponent will be March
If Florida does repeat it would be one of the most impressive accomplishments in recent college basketball history.
The NCAA Tournament requires six straight wins against elite competition. Every game is a high pressure elimination game.
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Doing that once is difficult.
Doing it two years in a row is extremely rare.
But if any program understands how tough that challenge is, it is Florida.
The Gators were the last team to pull it off.
Now nearly twenty years later they are playing like a team that wants to try again.
And if Florida manages to survive another March and cut down the nets one more time, the Gators will not just win another championship.
They will accomplish something college basketball almost never sees.
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