It’s been one incredible season for College Basketball teams across the State of Florida. Throughout the Sunshine State, we’ve seen the resurgence of elite basketball from practically every Division I program.

Following Miami’s 83-73 victory at Florida State earlier tonight, Hurricanes’ Head Coach Jai Lucas made it a point to highlight the growth the State has had during this season:

“Florida State has a really good Coach (Luke Loucks), he knows what he’s doing. Todd Golden (Florida Gators HC) won a National Championship last year….You look at South Florida (USF) and Central Florida (UCF)- I think they’re both Tournament Teams…Throughout the State, basketball is kinda buzzing and booming.”

As Coach Lucas stated, there’s a bright future in Sunshine State college basketball. According to ESPN’s Joe Lunardi’s most updated Bracketology (updated every morning at 9AM EST), the state of Florida currently boasts five NCAA Tournament caliber programs- with the Florida Gators, Miami Hurricanes, UCF Knights, USF Bulls and Bethune Cookman Wildcats standing in his Field of 68.

According to Lunardi, Florida stands as a #3 seed, Miami is an #8, UCF a #10, USF is ranked as a #12 and Bethune Cookman will be fighting for a #16 seed.

Coach Lucas would expand on his comments by highlighting the Florida high school basketball scene, with the pipeline for elite talent that’s produced every year:

“Also on the high school grass roots level, you have a bunch of kids from Florida that are McDonald’s All-Americans this year (Toni Bryant, Jaxon Richardson, Caleb Gaskins)…. You see what the Boozers are doing…You look everywhere throughout College Basketball, there’s a little bit of Florida everywhere….” Coach Lucas enthusiastically stated. “For me and for everybody’s job in the State, we just got to try to keep the talent home and get the real rivalries back where you have 4-5-6 guys from the State, I think that adds to it…But right now- I think Florida is one of the hotbeds around the country for basketball.”