Florida Women’s Basketball: Florida shows fight in SEC Tourney

Florida wins multiple games in the tournament for the second year in a row.

By Loren Meadows, GatorBaitMedia.com

Florida Coach Kelly Rae Finley (Chris Spears photo)

Florida coach Kelly Rae Finley has a lot on her mind this season. Most importantly the charismatic coach will welcome a baby boy right around the time the Final Four comes to Tampa. This week the Gators had bigger things to worry about as they made their way to Greenville, SC for the Southeastern Conference Tournament looking to replicate the success from last year when the Gators knocked off two higher seeds in route to a quarterfinal berth for just the third time in school history.

Coach Finley is the ultimate optimist. Charismatic and inviting, the fourth year head coach has changed the tenor around the Gator program through a recruiting passion that operates at a high level without the war chest of other programs around the country. The last two seasons Finley has signed some of the best talent to ever come to Florida. In 2023 Finley signed McDonald’s All-American Laila Reynolds to the program, and in 2024 followed with the signing of All-Americans Me’Arah O’Neal, Liv McGill and Kylee Kitts who reclassified for 2025 and redshirted this season. McGill, the highest rated recruit ever signed at Florida has become one of the SEC’s best young point guards leading the team in both points and assists. For those efforts she was named to the SEC All-Freshman team and is poised to rewrite the record books before her time is done at Florida. Finley and McGill have a relationship that goes back almost a decade and that relationship is visible in the trust that Finley puts in her young guard.

In the first round of the tournament the Gators would face the Auburn Tigers, a team that despite just three conference wins bested the Gators by 23 points in late January. Florida, still the higher seed would find revenge in the tournament’s first round as the Gators dominated Auburn 60-50 to move into the second round of the tournament for the second straight season. 

On Thursday evening, the Gators faced an Alabama team ranked 20th in the country and looking to make a case to host the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament. While Alabama had registered two wins this season against the Gators, Finley and company have an ability to move on to the next and not look back. That outlook showed itself in round three of the matchup as the Gators would again find themselves looking to move into the quarterfinals again under Finley. Florida used exemplary defense along with a career night from Liv McGill to defeat Alabama 63-61. The win was the first over a ranked team this season with McGill scoring a career-high 29 points while senior center Ra’Shaya Kyle added 14 points on her 23rd birthday. The win secured multiple wins for the Gators in the SEC tournament for just the fourth time in school history, the second under Finley. “We talk about earning everything, and we earned that win tonight", Finley stated. 

The Gators ultimately would fall Friday evening to LSU in a game that showed the consistent fight that Finley has instilled in to the program. While the loss to LSU ends the Gators season, this week’s performance shows the program is on the right track. The Gators have never had much institutional investment and the ever changing landscape of college athletics makes that investment more of a priority than ever. The program certainly has their lady, and some of the best young talent in the SEC. Will the resources be made available to keep pace with the competition? If so, good things are in store for Finley and her program.