Florida, Stetson prepare to go dancing this week at NCAA Tournament

The field is set for the men’s NCAA basketball tournament, which gets underway Tuesday.

It begins with a play-in game Tuesday night between Wagner and Howard up until the national championship game in Glendale, Ariz., on April 8.

The state of Florida will be well-represented.

The seventh-seeded Florida Gators will open NCAA Tournament play at about 4:30 p.m. Friday in the first round of the South Regional in Indianapolis against the winner of the play-in game between Boise State and Colorado.

The Gators made a run all the way to the Southeastern Conference championship game before falling to Auburn 86-67 on Sunday.

Florida will have to move forward without starting center Micah Handlogten, who went down early in the first half with what later was described by Florida officials as a left leg injury. He was trying to come down with a third rebound when he landed awkwardly on his left foot. He immediately went down in pain and rolled onto his side, putting his hands to his face. The sound of bone apparently breaking could be heard on TV, with blood immediately visible on the back of his calf.

Play was stopped for several minutes before Handlogten was lifted onto a stretcher after medical staff stabilized his lower leg, and he was carried off the court. He then was transported to the Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville for further evaluation and treatment.

Gators coach Todd Golden later confirmed that Handlogten broke his lower left leg.

“You just hate to see it for him because he does everything the right way and works hard,” said Golden as he fought to control his emotions postgame. “That’s a super fluky injury, you know, that you don’t see very often in this game. Playing a big-time game like this, to go out that way, I just feel for him.”

Handlogten came into this game ranked fourth nationally in offensive rebounding percentage. Forward Tyrese Samuel said Handlogten is so valuable to the Gators, and they tried to focus with a SEC title on the line.

“Losing him really kind of affected us,” Samuel said. ”We’re going to go out there next week and keep on playing for him.”

Walter Clayton Jr., out of Lake Wales and Bartow high schools, led the Gators with 23 points, Zyon Pullen added 15 points and Samuel had 12.

Meanwhile, the 16th-seeded Stetson Hatters, who qualified for their first berth in the NCAA Tournament after winning the Atlantic Sun Tournament, are headed to Brooklyn at 2:45 p.m. Friday, when they will play defending champion and top overall seed UConn in the first round of the East Region.

What a scene it was in DeLand on Sunday as cheerleaders, school officials, fans, the players and the coaching staff celebrated together at a watch party when the Hatters found out that they were playing Connecticut.

“The excitement is incredible,” Stetson coach Donnie Jones said. “They said it couldn’t happen in DeLand. Why not Stetson?” Jones told the crowd who gathered Sunday to learn who the Hatters would face in the first round.