As had been tradition in recent years the Gators will play an exhibition game with a non-D1 team before kicking off their season, this time with D2 Embry-Riddle, an aeronautical university in Daytona Beach.
Playing against a division-2 school allows the Gators to play in a rather low stress environment while still playing against quality athletes, many of whom are division-1 level athletes who just went down different paths.
For Embry-Riddle (the Eagles), the exhibition against Florida will be a tremendous return to basketball. Unfortunately, their entire 2020-21 season was cancelled due to COVID, particularly sad due to the fact they were set to return a talented team after a successful 2019-20.