With the SEC's Tuesday release of its men's basketball schedule for the 2016-17 season, we now know the Florida Gators schedule for the 2016-17 season. And while the Gators won't occupy the post-renovation O'Connell Center — now called Exactech Arena at the O'Connell Center — until late December for a non-conference game, the Gators' SEC home opener is going to be a big game.

That's because the Gators will host Mississippi — coach Mike White's alma mater — for that game, on January 3, the first game in 2017.

The rest of Florida's SEC schedule holds a couple of surprises. Most notably, the Gators won't be Kentucky's Senior Day opponent, instead seeing the Wildcats twice in February for Saturday clashes on CBS. (Kentucky will play Vanderbilt on Senior Day.)

But the Gators also netted an appealing set of home-and-home foes. Georgia, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt remain the Gators' three "permanent" opponents, and are joined by Arkansas and South Carolina. Those latter two teams will see Florida both early and late: They host the Gators over their first six SEC contests, then visit Gainesville over the final two weeks of SEC play.

Arkansas, specifically, will see Florida very early and very late. The Razorbacks host Florida on December 30, in the earliest SEC opener for the Gators since the 1988-89 season, when LSU came to the O'Connell Center on December 10. And just like that LSU team, the Gators won't see the Hogs again until March 1.

While Kentucky is a perennial power, and Vanderbilt was one of three SEC teams to make the 2016 NCAA Tournament, the four non-Kentucky teams in that quintet have all been more or less middle-of-the-pack outfits in recent years, and Vanderbilt lost (perhaps "lost") long-time coach Kevin Stallings to Pittsburgh this offseason.

This is an SEC schedule that sets up for an NCAA Tournament run, in other words.

The full Florida Gators men's basketball schedule for 2016-17 looks like this now.

Florida Gators Men's Basketball 2016-17 Schedule