February 28, 2026; Gainesville, Florida, USA; Florida Gators players pose for a team photo as they celebrate their SEC regular season championship following the game against the Arkansas Razorbacks at Exactech Arena in the Stephen C. O’Connell Center. Mandatory Credit: Travis Register-Imagn Images With just one week left in the Southeastern Conference’s regular season, defending national champion Florida is on the verge of winning another title.
The No. 5 Gators are scheduled to host struggling Mississippi State on Tuesday night in Gainesville, Fla., and a win would give coach Todd Golden’s team its first regular-season SEC title since 2014.
Florida (23-6, 14-2) will have to deal with one of the league’s top scorers in Josh Hubbard, but the Bulldogs (13-16, 5-11) have recently been playing their worst basketball of the season.
Hosting ESPN’s College GameDay ahead of their contest against No. 20 Arkansas, the Gators were held tight for the first 10 minutes before a strong performance gave them a 53-34 halftime margin.
Behind Thomas Haugh’s 22 points and Rueben Chinyelu’s 17th double-double (12 points, 16 boards), Florida dominated the final 30 minutes, defeating the Razorbacks 111-77.
An undefeated streak of nine straight wins in February propelled Florida to the SEC crown.
In Knoxville, then – no. 17 Alabama was trailing the Gators in the standings and it was a shock at the time. 22 Tennessee went on a 10-2 run in the final 3:41 and won 71-69 despite only leading in the final 24 seconds.
Florida needs to win one of its next two games or the Crimson Tide loses at home to Georgia or Auburn to clinch the conference’s regular season title.
The SEC-leading Gators have six players scoring in double figures.
Haugh leads the team in scoring with 17.1 points per game, while Alex Condon has 14.4 points. Boogie Fland (11.6), Xaivian Lee (11.4), Chinyelu (11.3, team-high 11.7 boards) and Urban Klavzar (10.2) added scoring.
“We’re getting a lot of great contributions from guys, and when we can get some rest for our starters, those guys can come in and keep the score in the right direction,” Golden said. “(Depth) is huge for us, and against a lot of the teams we play, they’re really talented, but we don’t have the depth to be able to tire teams out.”
Bulldogs coach Chris Jans has watched his club lose six of eight games and fall short of competitiveness in several tilts, including an 88-64 blowout at visiting Missouri on Saturday. This was actually worse than the final score.
With two minutes left in the first half, the Tigers outscored the home team 50-19 and eventually extended their advantage to 36 points.
Seven of Mississippi State’s 11 conference setbacks have been by double digits.
The Bulldogs have allowed at least 85 points in each of their last four games.
“Yes, it’s hard to even hear that.” Jans said. “One of my jobs, 1A, 1B and 1C, is to ensure that our guys can compete at the highest level on game day. I told them that for whatever reason, we failed to get them to play to the standards we set for them in most of our games.”
In addition to the team’s better defense, Hubbard, who averages 21.4 points, needs to get his game back on track.
Hubbard had outings of 13, 11 and 16 points after scoring 46 points in the team’s most recent win, a 91-85 loss to visiting Auburn two weeks ago at Mississippi State.
Jayden Epps (13.7) is the only player to reach double figures.
–Field level media
