Tennessee basketball to meet Florida in 2025 SEC Tournament Championship

After the strongest year in the history of SEC basketball, it'll be 4-seed Tennessee squaring off with 2-seed Florida in the 2025 SEC Tournament Championship.

Tip-off is set for 1 p.m. ET on ESPN in Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee.

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The Vols punched their ticket by downing 13-seed Texas on Friday and 1-seed Auburn on Saturday.

The win over the Longhorns came by the score of 83-72. Chaz Lanier led the way for Tennessee with 23 points after a red-hot start to the game. Zakai Zeigler got the Vols to the finish line with 19 second-half points.

In the semifinals, Tennessee met the top-seeded Tigers and managed to hold on in the final moments. The Vols claimed the game 70-65.

Zeigler put together an impressive performance to lead the charge with 20 points, four assists, four rebounds, a block and a steal.

For the Gators, it started 95-81 win over 7-seed Missouri. Walter Clayton Jr.'s 18 points were the most for Florida but a trio of other players dropped 16 or more in the effort.

This set up a matchup with 3-seed Alabama in the semifinals opposite of Tennessee. After a narrow first half, the Gators surged to dominant 104-82. Clayton dropped 22 to lead the team in scoring.

This marks the third time Tennessee and Florida will meet after splitting the first pair of games.

The first matchup saw the Vols get rampaged in Gainesville. The final score sat at 73-43 as it handed No. 1 Tennessee its first loss of the season.

The Gators used 18 points from Alijah Martin to get over the hump. The Vols got 10 points from both Zeigler and Lanier.

The next time the teams played, both starters Zeigler and Igor Milicic Jr. were forced to miss the game. Zeigler was out due to a knee injury while Milicic was sick.

This ultimately wouldn't matter, though. Tennessee got its get-back in a big way with a 64-44 victory behind 19 points from Lanier and 16 from Jordan Gainey who stepped in as the starting point guard.

Clayton led the way for Florida with 10 points.

Now, an SEC title is on the line. This would be the Vols' first since the 2022 season which featured Zakai Zeigler and Jahmai Mashack as freshmen. That team also rostered Kennedy Chandler, Santiago Vescovi, Josiah-Jordan James, Jonas Aidoo, John Fulkerson, Olivier Nkamhoua, Uros Plavsic, Victor Bailey Jr., Justin Powell and Brandon Huntley-Hatfield.

That was the fifth conference tournament title in program history.

For the Gators, a fifth title is on the line. It would be the first since winning it in 2014.

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