Mike White seems to be a pretty good defensive coach. The problem there , though, is we play hard man to man with a handful of guys who are destined to lose their legs as the game and season progresses. Obviously, fatigue hurts your shot too. And I don't think MW has figured out what type of offense to run generally , much less at key moments of the game, with the right personnel. Given we are getting into the heart of our SEC schedule, I don't think things will get much better unless we get better production from more players off the bench. We will play really well and go up and beat a good team or two before it is all said and done, maybe like a Tenn or KY, but --because of limited recovery time-- it's the next game I'll worry about.
Never lost in the first round of the NCAA's. I love BD as a coach, but he lost many times in the first round with way more talent than Mike White ever had. You can start telling me that I am wrong, but I am correct.
You obviously are correct that Mike White has never lost a first round NCAA game and Billy has. But, if you are implying that Mike White is a very good coach, you are wrong. He is not, and the program is deteriorating.
Chiozza became a great player. But only after Mike White coached him @tampajack will say that isn't true and he is allowed to have his alternative facts.
You can call whatever facts you want whatever you want to call them. When Chiozza was in high school, I posted that he was already better than Kasey Hill. Now there is a very strange (at least to you) reason why I did that. It's because I watched both of them play several times while they were in high school. While many posters were saying that Kasey was the best point guard in the nation in high school and would star at UF over Scottie Wilbekin, I pointed out Kasey's flaws. I also noted that Kasey was a fabulous talent and could develop into a great player. Unfortunately, Kasey made little progress in college. His freshman year might have been his best year at UF. As for Chiozza , it's as plain as the nose on your face that White inhibited Chiozza's college career. In what most everyone calls the Chiozza team, when the Gators went to the Elite Eight, Cheese didn't start a single game. That is absurd. And then, in Chiozza's senior year, White had Chiozza play a completely different style than the style that works best for him. Instead of Cheese getting up the court and moving the ball (like he has been doing in his entire pro career), White had Cheese dominating the ball ala Appleby, Mann and Nembhard (in his sophomore year). Cheese was using up the shot clock backing his man down into the post waiting for the defense to collapse on him so he could kick the ball out to an open shooter. That was ridiculous coaching strategy. No, White did not improve Cheese's game, nor did he improve Hill's game, nor Nembhard's game, nor Glover's game, nor Mann's game, nor Appleby's game. White is not a developer of talent.
Didn't Chiozza set the FL assists record? Hard to do that w/o improving one's game. Here are some per/40 stats, mostly showing an upward trajectory. Year........pts.......fg%.......asst.......t/o frosh.........6.9......38.9........3.8........2.2 soph........12.1......34.4........7.3........3.0 junior.......13.0......41.1........6.8........2.8 senior.......13.8......41.7........7.6........2.2
He started in his senior year at his natural position. Feel free to believe that White improved Chiozza. I don’t see it and don’t think it’s possible.
Would you rather have a coach that goes 10-10 in the Tourney with 10 2nd round losses, or a coach that goes 10-10 with 2 Final Four appearances? Give me the runs over the consistency, just my preference. Go GATORS! ,WESGATORS
Chiozza is never going to be a Stephen Curry or Isaiah Thomas type of scorer. I don't like White either but give credit when credit is due.
your post is correct. Although we've sweated out the last four years on the bubble and have an average tournament seed of 7 under Mike White, he has never lost in the first round. but wait - let's look at some other metrics for successful coaching over his six seasons here to give us the full picture. How many SEC championships has White won? 0 What's our average SEC finish while Mike's been our coach? 6th How many SEC tournament championships have we won? 0 How many times have we played in the SEC championship game under him? 0 OK, how many times have we made it to the semifinals of the SEC tourney in the last six years? Probably a whole bunch, right? 1 how many times have we finished ranked top 10 while he's been here? 0 OK, maybe no top 10s but surely some top 15 finishes, right? 0 Well crap then, how many of his teams have even finished ranked in the top 25? 2 of 6: #20 in 2017, #23 in 2018 (after beginning the season ranked #8) Well that seems kind of mediocre, but I know he had two top 10 preseason teams - they had a bunch of talent and were thought of highly, I bet they did great, right? Held their poll position and improved during the season? The 2017-18 team was preseason #8, fell completely out of the poll by December and snuck back in at the end of the year to finish #23. The 2019-20 team was preseason #6, fell out of the poll in November after just three weeks of play and finished unranked. OK, ok, it's not looking real hot so far, but how about UF's overall record during his tenure? I bet we were killing everyone at the O'Dome with our Rowdy Reptiles and home court advantage and have probably been one of the winningest teams in college hoops since Mike's been around. Overall record under White (includes 21-22 season): 132-80 National rank among D1 teams during this period: 73 Rank among SEC teams: 6 Average regular season record (not including 21-22): 19-11 Number of seasons with more than 21 wins (not including 21-22): 1 Average total losses per year (not including 21-22): 12.5 Home record (includes 21-22): 65-25, ranking 137th among D1 teams and 9th among SEC teams Record as home favorite (includes 21-22): 61-21, ranking 200th in D1 and 13th in SEC Good grief...at least tell me he's keeping us competitive with our hoops rivals? Mike White combined record vs FSU, Tennessee and UK: 7-21 I hate to say this, because I like the guy's attitude and what we see of him as a person, but as a Gator head coach Mike White has been the definition of mediocrity. Take away his limited NCAA tournament success and he starts to look downright miserable. I've been off the White train since his 16 loss season in 2018-19 where we somehow lucked into the tournament as a 10 seed, and he's done nothing since then to change my mind. The writing is on the wall with this guy, unfortunately - he's not trending upward long-term and it's past time for a reboot of the UF hoops program.
This is a brilliant post and should be read by Steve Stricklin. The only points that I would add is that a lot of the wins were against really bad teams, very few of our high school recruits ended up staying at UF, and several of our players got worse as their careers at UF advanced.
