Florida announces 2017-18 non-conference men’s basketball schedule

The Florida Gators men’s basketball program has officially announced its non-conference schedule for the 2017-18 season — and while it’s not quite so difficult as the slate faced in 2016-17, it should be a test for a team that will hope to return to the Elite Eight and go further in the 2018 NCAA Tournament.

Florida will play five games against teams from power conferences — Stanford, Florida State, Cincinnati, Clemson, and Baylor — and should play two more, if its post-first round foes in the PK80-Phil Knight Invitational end up being some of the power-conference programs in attendance. And of those games, only the tilts against Florida State in early December and Baylor in late January — as part of the 2018 SEC-Big 12 Challenge — are set to happen at home.

That’s obviously a welcome change from the 2016-17 season, in which Florida played just one true home non-conference game in the renovated O’Connell Center after spending much of the season’s first two months away from home while that eight-figure facelift was concluding.

And while Florida’s 2016-17 schedule was highlighted by a meeting with Duke at Madison Square Garden, a higher-caliber game than any on this non-conference slate, the Gators could see the Blue Devils — or 2017 NCAA Tournament finalist Gonzaga — again in the PK80, should wins and losses work out that way.

Florida will also play eight non-conference home games, opening its 2017-18 season on November 13 against Gardner-Webb in Gainesville.

The full Florida men’s basketball non-conference schedule is as follows: