GAINESVILLE, Fla. – When the final baton was passed earlier this month in Eugene, Oregon, it again signaled the end of the collegiate sports calendar. Which brings us to our annual look back at the University of Florida athletic year.
 
Each summer we look back and recognized 10 memorable team performances, as well as 10 individuals that captured the moment – and the UF fan base’s imagination – on the way to greatness. 
 
In this installment, we honor the teams. 
 
And you probably can guess where the countdown ends.  

 

10) Perfection x 3 on “Senior Night”

 

leaving the o’dome in true Leanne Wong fashion with a 10.000 😭

📺SECN+ | @leannewong03 | @NCAA_Gymnastics pic.twitter.com/bzAVFt68BV

— Gators Gymnastics (@GatorsGym) March 15, 2025

Injuries sustained at the 2024 Olympic Trials tempered expectations for the gymnastics team heading into the 2025 season, yet the Gators still opened their first meet ranked third in the country and were led by senior and 2024 Team USA alternate Leanne Wong, with her dozen All-America honors already banked. Losing senior Sloane Blakely to a season-ending injury in late February was yet another serious blow to the squad’s hopes, yet the Gators still reached the national semifinals in Fort Worth, Texas, where they finished third in their session.
 
Along the way, however, was a richly satisfying “Senior Night” sendoff at Exactech Arena/O’Connell Center, when sophomore Danie Ferris, junior Selena Harris-Miranda and (fittingly) Wong in her final home appearance each scored perfect 10s on the way to a win over 10^th-ranked Kentucky. The trio accounted for big chunks of a 198.625 team score that stood as the highest by any program in the nation during the ’25 campaign. 
 
Ferris nailed her 10.0 on vault, followed by Harris-Miranda on balance beam. Wong closed the meet with her 10.0 on floor and added another the following week on uneven bars at the Southeastern Conference Championships, giving her 11 10s for her career, good for second on the UF all-time list. 
 
 
9) Baseball’s Rally from the SEC Cellar 

On April 6, the UF baseball team was beaten 11-3 at home by Vanderbilt, giving the Commodores a three-game sweep of their series against the Gators at Condron Family Ballpark. 
 
Florida sat at 1-11 in Southeastern Conference play and dead-last in the league standings, having also been swept by defending College World Series champion Tennessee and Georgia. The natives were restless. 
 
The Gators answered by capturing six consecutive SEC series – including over No. 5 Arkansas and at No. 1 Texas – to finish 15-15 in the league and, eventually, earn a berth in NCAA play. 
 
By the time UF went to the NCAA Conway (S.C.) Regional, however, they had lost infielders Cade Kurland and Coby Shelton, outfielder Kyle Jones, left-handed pitcher Frank Menendez and first-team All-SEC catcher Luke Heyman to season-ending injuries and were patching together lineups with the healthy bodies they had. The Gators were eliminated after three games to finish 39-22. 
 
 
8) Yet Another Trip to OKC

Boy, did SEC softball look different in ’25, what with the addition of four-time reigning NCAA champion Oklahoma, as well as powerhouse Texas, the national runner-up in ’24 and eventual national champ in ’25. The Gators, annually one of the best in the league (and nation), finished sixth in conference play, but their top-heavy schedule – which included a regular season-ending series win over OU at Pressly Stadium – was good enough for the No. 3 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. 
 
UF swept through its regional in three games, then defeated rival Georgia in their best-of-three Super Regional to reach the Women’s College World Series for the second straight year and the 13^th time in Coach Tim Walton’s 20 seasons. 

The Gators’ stay in Oklahoma City turned out to be a short one, however. UF was beaten by 6-seed Texas in the first round and eliminated a day later by 7-seed Tennessee for just the second two-and-out at the WCWS in program history. 

 

But, as any softball coach will attest, all seasons that end in OKC are successful ones. 

 

 

7) Lax Back at Final Four 

In 2024, the UF lacrosse team celebrated its first trip to the Final Four – just the second in program history – since 2012. The Gators needed to wait only 12 months to get back there again. 
 
Coach Amanda O’Leary’s bunch, in its first season competing in the Big 12 Conference, lost an early season match at James Madison, then reeled off 17 consecutive victories, including a pair of wins to capture the league tournament title and a thrilling 13-12 defeat of 10^th-ranked Stanford in NCAA Tournament second-round play. 
 
UF faced 15^th-ranked Duke in the national quarterfinals to clinch a spot in the Final Four at Foxborough, Massachusetts, where, unfortunately, top-ranked powerhouse North Carolina awaited. The Gators had a 4-2 lead in the first quarter before the Tar Heels unleashed an offensive avalanche by scoring the game’s final 18 goals to win 20-4. 
 
Florida finished the season with a 20-3 mark, tying the program record for victories in a season.
 
 
6) Looking Out for No. 1 

In UF men’s basketball history, the Gators had played the Associated Press No. 1-ranked team 19 times and won twice, with both of those instances occurring on neutral courts in the NCAA Tournament. They’d never beaten a top-ranked foe at home (0-5) or on the road (0-8). 
 
The Gators checked both boxes in 2025. 
 
Unbeaten Tennessee came to the O’Dome on Jan. 7 and left with the worst beatdown loss for a No. 1 in 57 years. Not since one of John Wooden’s greatest teams at UCLA – armed with Lew Alcindor, no less – obliterated Houston in the 1968 NCAA Tournament semifinals – had a No. 1 team been so thoroughly dominated like eighth-ranked Florida manhandled Tennessee 73-43 before a wild sellout crowd. Just four days after suffering their first loss of the season, the Gators scored the game’s first dozen points, held the Volunteers to 15 in the first half and never looked back. Guard Alijah Martin led the way with 18 points, while center Rueben Chinyelu had 15 rebounds. 
 
A month later, Coach Todd Golden and his sixth-ranked squad paid a house call on No. 1 Auburn (without the services of Martin, the team’s defensive stalwart), UF fell behind by 10 points early, but flipped the script to jump ahead by 19 early in the second and eventually left the infamous “Jungle” with 90-81 win that marked the Tigers’ first home loss in more than a year. Guard Walter Clayton Jr. was spectacular in tallying 19 points (with four 3-pointers) and a career-high nine assists.
 
It was a sign of things to come; for UF and Auburn (read on). 
 
 
5) Banner Men’s Golf Season Extends SEC Title Streak
 

The Champs. 🏆 pic.twitter.com/GYpC4PRvZ8

— Gators Golf (@GatorsGolf) April 27, 2025

J.C. Deacon replaced Hall-of-Famer Buddy Alexander as men’s golf coach in 2014. Under Deacon, the Gators had their postseason ups and downs before erupting in 2023 to win both the SEC and NCAA titles. 
 
UF didn’t double up the trophies in ’25, but the Gators, led by first-team All-SEC selection Ian Gilligan, captured their second SEC championship in three years, with match play wins over No. 4 Oklahoma, No. 1 Auburn and No. 3 Texas A&M. It was the only SEC championship won by Florida during the ’24-25 athletic calendar.  
 
With the victory, Florida garnered the 17^th SEC men’s golf title in program history and gave the Gators their 266^th all-time league championship, which exceeds the titles won by every other conference school by more than a hundred. 
 
It also kept alive UF’s consecutive-year run of winning at least one SEC crown — the streak now stands at 47 — as the Gators went on to advance to the semifinals of the NCAA championships. 
 
 
4) Football’s Finish and Bright Future

Much like baseball, Billy Napier’s football squad got off to a rough start to the season. Football finished strong and with a rolling boulder of momentum into the offseason they hope to carry into the fall of 2025. 
 

There was next to nothing to cheer about during early lopsided home losses to Miami and Texas A&M. A midseason overtime defeat at Tennessee brought a season-ending injury to starting quarterback Graham Mertz and the battlefield promotion of heralded freshman DJ Lagway, who went down three weeks later in the first quarter and with a lead in the annual rivalry game against Georgia. 
 
On Nov. 9, UF was forced to play a third-team, walk-on quarterback at No. 5 Texas and got crushed 49-17. A week later, Lagway returned to commence a four-game winning streak to end the season, with home upsets of No. 21 LSU (the team’s first win over the Tigers in six years) and No. 9 Ole Miss (knocking the Rebels out of the playoff conversation), a road throttling at rival Florida State and feel-good 33-8 defeat of Tulane – with Lagway throwing for 305 yards – in the Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa. 
 
The final 8-4 record gave Florida its most wins in four years and sent Napier into the offseason with the program’s longest winning streak since 2020. 
 
 
3) Game, Set, Match for Thornqvist 

The timing seemed odd, early in the fall, but not to Roland Thornqvist. 

The UF women’s tennis coach with four NCAA championships on his resume felt it was time – even though it was October and two months into the athletic year – to walk away after from his post after 23 seasons. OK, so the Gators had reached the Sweet 16 only once since 2018, but Thornqvist, at 54, left plenty of hardware in the trophy case. 

His final record of 507-107 included 11 SEC titles, 10 league tournament crowns, six different players that won SEC Player of the Year honors and national championships in 2003, 2011, 2011 and 2017. 

Thornqvist came to UF from North Carolina with the task of replacing an icon in Andy Brandi, with three NCAA titles. In doing so, Thornqvist became an icon on his own right. 

 

2) Thank you, Mary

When Thornqvist walked away, UF said goodbye to the second-longest tenured Gators coach. When Mary Wise walked away four months later, the Gators said goodbye to not only their longest-tenured coach, but the longest-serving coach in Florida history – any sport.

Also one of the most beloved. 

 

When she arrived at Florida in 1991, she instantly turned volleyball games – for years, mostly empty affairs – into O’Dome happenings. They stayed that way for three-plus decades.

 

Wise, 65, announced her retirement on Feb. 6, thus ending her 34-year career with 1,068 wins – the first 81 coming in four seasons at Iowa State, and the most by a female in collegiate history – including a 987-150 mark at Florida, with (get this) 25 SEC championships, eight Final Fours, 13 SEC Coach of the Year Awards and another three National Coach of the Year honors. 

 

Her UF teams made the NCAA Tournament in all 34 of her seasons, the longest such streak for a coach in history. Wise’s teams also were always among the most active on the service front, thus further endearing her bond to the Gainesville community and Gator Nation. 

 

Simply put, it was the end of an era led by one of the most iconic coaches to grace the campus. 

 

1) A ‘Chompionship’ Run for the Ages 

 

YOUR NATIONAL CHAMPIONS: THE FLORIDA GATORS 🏆🐊#MarchMadness @GatorsMBK pic.twitter.com/XatLv5x2hm

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) April 8, 2025

The Gator Boys stayed hot. 

If you know, you know. If you don’t, you should. 

 

Florida’s 2024-25 dash to the NCAA men’s basketball championship — led by the play of a trio of unforgettable seniors in Clayton, Martin and Will Richard — will go down as one of the most magical dashes in the school’s long and decorated athletic history. 

 

UF, in Golden’s third season, entered the year ranked near the bottom of the Top 25 polls and picked to finish anywhere from sixth to ninth in the SEC. But after exiting the regular season with 27 victories (good enough for second in the league), the Gators steamrolled three ranked opponents in three days to win their first SEC Tournament in 11 years, then sped off on the stunning spree of six more wins in the NCAA Tournament, capped by a trio of pulsating second-half comebacks (first against ninth-ranked Texas Tech in the Elite Eight, then against No. 4 Auburn at the Final Four in San Antonio, followed by No. 2 Houston in the NCAA final) to capture the third national championship in program history and first since the Gators famously went back-to-back in 2006-07. 

 

In the NCAA final, in front of 66,000-plus at the Alamodome in San Antonio, the Gators fell behind by a dozen points against a Houston team considered one of the greatest defensive units of the last several years. 

 

Yet it was Florida, known for its ability to score, that built a wall on the Cougars late. UF held Houston without a field goal for nine straight possessions to pull even, then forced four turnovers on the Cougars final four possessions — finally retaking the lead with just 43 seconds to go — and prevented them from even getting off a game-winning shot attempt as time expired for a thrilling 65-63 victory. 

 

The national “Chompionship,” another one, was theirs.  

* Coming Wednesday: “Year in Review, Part 2” looks at memorable individual moments.  

Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu