Florida’s 2015-16 schedule is nearing completion.
The Gators will host West Virginia in the SEC/Big 12 Classic on January 30th, 2016. It’s the third year of the conference-wide showdown, and the third year Florida will be participating in it; the Gators hosted Kansas two years ago (and won) and traveled back to Kansas last year (and lost). Per a source, the Gators will “probably” travel to Morgantown for a return game in the 2016-17 season, though that probably won’t be confirmed until next summer.
The SEC/Big 12 Challenge was moved this year from its traditional spot in early December to the end of January. The idea was to make it a one day, all day Saturday event to create more exposure for the event. As a result, Florida will be playing a regular season non conference game in the middle of its conference schedule since they hosted Xavier in January of 2010.
New coach Mike White is certainly going to have his work cut out for him in his first year, to say the least. WVU was a Sweet 16 team last year (though thanks to the mouth of Daxter Miles, they got humiliated in that Sweet 16 game), and it just adds to what appears to be a gauntlet: road trips to Miami, Michigan State (in all likelihood) and Navy, plus a home contest against FSU and neutral site games against St. Joe’s and either Purdue or Old Dominion.
But the flip side of that is that it will be a good test for White, and get him some great experience in coaching in big games, something he lacked at Louisiana Tech on a national level. The tough non conference schedule gives us all the more reason to be patient with White, but it’s a great chance
