Fresh off its fifth consecutive regular-season Southeastern Conference Championship, No. 7 Florida enters the SEC Tournament tonight as a confident team hungry for the taste of another title.
Despite their recent regular-season successes, the Gators haven’t won a conference tournament since 2007. Tonight’s tilt against Vanderbilt is Florida’s first chance to erase the two-year drought.
“Our team is taking a lot of pride in winning [the tournament] because they realize this is a really good setting to practice for next week’s [NCAA Tournament] one-and-done scenario,” coach Becky Burleigh said.
The Gators (15-2-2, 9-1-1 SEC) kick off the tournament tonight in Orange Beach, Ala., at 6 against the Commodores (8-9-2, 4-5-2 SEC) sporting multiple five-game winning streaks. Florida has won its last five regular-season games, and it has won all five meetings against Vanderbilt in the conference tournament’s history. Florida has outscored Vanderbilt 16-3 in those contests.
Earlier this season, the Gators dominated the Commodores in a 2-0 victory in Nashville,Tenn., but Burleigh expects a different team this time.
“They didn’t have their leading scorer,” she said. “Playing a team for the second time is really hard. Teams make adjustments and it becomes a sort of cat-and-mouse game the second time around.”
Although Vanderbilt enters the tournament as the lowest seed, Florida isn’t taking any chances and is approaching the match with the mindset of just one game at a time, senior Kat Williamson said.
While the Gators eyes are honed in on the ultimate goal, they know that the Commodores need to win the tournament just to qualify for the NCAAs.
“Teams are willing to throw different looks,” Burleigh said. “I expect them to come our firing. Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
