This past season, Florida was part of Syracuse's strongest OOC schedule in years. The Orange defeated the Gators 89-83 at the College Basketball Experience in Kansas City en route to winning the whole tournament, um, experience.
Looks like we're due for an encore. According to Jerry Tipton on the Lexington Herald-Ledger (and via the DO), the Orange and Gators will tangle again in 2009, this time as part of the Big East-SEC Challenge. The game will be played in Tampa. I'm sure the University of South Florida isn't offended at all...
The other match-ups in the Challenge include UConn vs. Kentucky, St. John's vs. Georgia and DePaul vs. Mississippi State.
The Orange's OOC schedule is once again shaping up to be a solid one. Along with Florida, the Orange will also host Memphis in the Dome. As part of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic in November, which also included Ohio State, Cal and defending national champion North Carolina, the Orange will play two of those teams as well.
Expect to see the schedule filled in with the usual suspects from here on out but the schedule should be more than enough to quiet critics for another season. Winning all of the games, of course, is another story.