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The University of Florida men's basketball team returns to the NCAA Tournament this year and will play BYU in a first round matchup Thursday in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The Gators are a 10 seed while BYU is a seven seed in the West Regional.

Some experts believed the Gators would not even make the NCAA Tournament and instead get in as a rather high 10 seed after finishing 9-7 in the SEC regular season and 1-1 in the SEC Tournament.

BYU from the Mountain West finished 29-5 on the season and lost to Lon Kruger's UNLV Runnin Rebels who also make the NCAA field. Junior guard Jimmer Fredette leads BYU at the guard position averaging 21.7 points a game and he is also a very good three point shooter at 44 percent. Three other players average double figure scoring including junior guard Jackson Emery who averages a little over 12 points a game.

The overall number one seed in the NCAA Tournament is Kansas; the Jayhawks are also the number one seed in the Midwest Region. The other number one seeds are Kentucky, Duke, and Syracuse. A mild surprise is Syracuse being sent out west to be the number one seed in the West Region after the Orange won a tough league regular season title by winning the Big East.

Ohio State is a two seed in the Midwest Region and Tennessee is the sixth seed in this region; the Volunteers will face San Diego State who won the Mountain West Tournament.

In the West, Florida State is a nine seed and will play eight seed Gonzaga. Butler is a third seed and they'll play Texas El Paso a bubble team and a 12 seed. Vanderbilt is also a four seed here and will face Murray State from the Ohio Valley Conference, winners of both the regular season and conference tournament.

In the East, Kentucky will play East Tennessee State as a number one seed.

The Big East gets eight teams in the NCAA Tournament, the most of any league in the country. The SEC gets four teams in but Mississippi State is not one of them despite the fact it narrowly missed beating Kentucky in the SEC Tournament final after the Bulldogs lost in overtime on Sunday.