Auburn and Florida are both in the 2025 Final Four, just the fifth time two teams from the SEC reached the final weekend of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
The Tigers and Gators meet in a national semifinal game at 5:09 p.m. Saturday in San Antonio. Duke and Houston face off in the other Final Four game later that night, with the two winners set to play for the 2025 national championship on Monday.
Oddly enough, this will be the first time two SEC teams have played in a national semifinal game. In the previous four instances with two SEC teams in the Final Four, they were on opposite sides of the bracket, and one or both lost in the semifinals.
The good news is that three of the four “SEC doubles” in the Final Four resulted in a team from the conference winning the national championship. Here’s a recap of how those went down:
Coach Nolan Richardson and Arkansas won the NCAA tournament championship in 1994, becoming the first SEC team other than Kentucky to win a national title in men’s basketball. (AP Photo/Bob Jordan, File)AP
1994 — Arkansas & Florida
Site: Charlotte, N.C.
Final Four results: Arkansas 91, Arizona 82; Duke 70, Florida 65
National championship game result: Arkansas 76, Duke 72
Notable: Nolan Richardson’s Razorbacks had also reached the Final Four in 1990 as a member of the Southwest Conference, but finally got over the hump after joining the SEC for the 1991-92 season. After winning it all in 1994, Arkansas would return to the national title game in 1995, but lost to UCLA. The Gators’ Final Four trip was their first, and the first of two teams that Lon Kruger would coach to the national semifinal round (Oklahoma in 2016 was the other).
Darryl Wilson, left, and Dontae Jones led Mississippi State to the Final Four in 1996, but SEC rival Kentucky won the national championship that year. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)Associated Press
1996 — Kentucky & Mississippi State
Site: East Rutherford, N.J.
Final Four results: Kentucky 81, UMass 74; Syracuse 77, Mississippi State 69
National championship game result: Kentucky 76, Syracuse 67
Notable: Rick Pitino’s Wildcats went undefeated in the SEC during the regular season before losing to Richard Williams and the Bulldogs in the conference tournament championship game. Kentucky also made it to the national title game in 1997 (losing to Arizona), then won the championship again (beating Utah) under Tubby Smith in 1998 after Pitino had left for the NBA. Mississippi State’s Final Four run was its first and remains the most-recent time the Bulldogs have advanced past the Round of 32.
Corey Brewer (with handband) and Joakim Noah led Florida to the first of back-to-back national championships in 2006. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)ASSOCIATED PRESS
2006 — Florida & LSU
Site: Indianapolis
Final Four results: UCLA 59, LSU 45; Florida 73, George Mason 58
National championship game result: Florida 73, UCLA 57
Notable: The Gators won the first of two straight titles under Billy Donovan, who had played for Pitino at Providence and had been his assistant at Kentucky. After winning its first national title in 2006, Florida brought back its entire starting five for the following year. The Gators repeated as champion the following year, and remains the only SEC program other than Kentucky with multiple national titles in men’s basketball. LSU made the Final Four for the fourth time in program history in 2006, but has been as far as the Sweet 16 only once since, in 2019.
Kentucky reached the NCAA tournament Final Four for the 16th time in 2014, but lost to UConn in the national championship game. (AP Photo/Chris Steppig, pool) AP
2014 — Kentucky & Florida
Site: Arlington, Texas
Final Four results: Kentucky 74, Wisconsin 73; UConn 63, Florida 53
National championship game result: UConn 60, Kentucky 54
Notable: John Calipari’s Wildcats reached the Final Four as an 8-seed, beating the 1-, 2- and 4-seeds in their region and then outlasting Wisconsin in a classic national semifinal. Donovan’s Gators won 30 consecutive games leading into the 2014 Final Four, including their four NCAA tournament games by at least 11 points each. Florida ran into a buzzsaw in the semifinal game, however, as 7th-seeded UConn beat then Gators and then Kentucky in succession to finish off an improbable championship run under second-year coach Kevin Ollie. The Wildcats won their first 38 games the following year before losing to the Badgers in the Final Four, their 17th (and most recent) appearance in the national semifinal round.
