The 2016–17 Florida Gators men's basketball team represented the University of Florida in the 2016–17 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The Gators, led by second year head coach Mike White, competed in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) and played their home games at the Exactech Arena at the Stephen C. O'Connell Center on the university's Gainesville, Florida campus. They finished the season 27–9, 14–4 in SEC play to finish in second place. They lost in the quarterfinals of the SEC tournament to Vanderbilt. They received an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament where they defeated East Tennessee State, Virginia, and Wisconsin before losing to fellow SEC member South Carolina in the Elite Eight.

The 2017 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament involved 68 teams playing in a single-elimination tournament to determine the men's National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I college basketball national champion for the 2016–17 season. The 79th edition of the tournament began on March 14, 2017, and concluded with the championship game on April 3 at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. The championship game was the first to be contested in the Western United States since the 1995 tournament when Seattle was the host of the Final Four.