OGT- Florida at Tennessee Jan 26 (Wed) 6 PM ESPN2

Sadly....I do but not quite to the extent seen through your eyes

it is getting harder and harder to cross my fingers hoping.....

 

The common thread is that Mike White has brought in a lot of good recruits who we got nothing or practically nothing out of, and then they go on to success elsewhere. That is not a good thing.

 

Yep..totally agree but also expected it to be fully reversed in favor of the Vols just like it was. There goes that helpless feeling again.

 

One sided video. What lead to that and Barnes is trash for saying our team will be "classy" afterwards. No the hell your team wasn't classy at all. They were trash "waving goodbye" and doing the mock chomp. What a hypocrite he is.

 

According to who? You? This board?

 

I mean no it shouldn't. Thats a fans pov but not an officials

 

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This is just pure nonsense.

 

The refs were playing to the home crowd, just picking up a check! Nothing there...

 

Then why do we always get the short end of the calls? Why are we always watching games where horrifically wrong calls are being made against our players usually at critical segments of the game?

Why can’t he recruit the types of players that other SEC coaches are recruiting whose programs do not have the level of success that our program had prior to White’s getting here?

Why does MW’s program have the highest transfer rate in the SEC?

Are all these signs of the great respect people have for him?

 

According to the talent that he is luring to our program over 7 years for one!
Now that we have NIL, let’s stop with the delusional claim that “all of the other coaches landing marquee players are ‘cheating’ to get HS talent. NIL virtually eliminates all incentives for a marquee player to go to one program over another because of the under-the-table deals that you claim Pearl and the rest of the coaches who have inherited less successful programs utilize to lure them to the program.

Billy got 5 stars in almost every class and even 5 stars transferred into our program. In seven years, after inheriting a program that won back to back championships in an age where social media gives maximum exposure to success and failure in college sports, MW has turned that success into a breeding ground for 3 and 4 star talent and disgruntled transfers.


To top that off, he has not developed one player into a NBA talent that wasn’t touted as being one in HS. That causes lack of respect also.

When you add that many who were mentioned as potential prospects to make it to the league lost stature under MW, his reverence as a coach that HS players want to play for plummeted (not that it was very high to begin with).

Let’s not talk about academics. Duke, North Carolina, UCLA, Michigan- all program whose academics are comparable if not higher than ours- have 5 star talent routinely coming to their programs and all of those schools have fared better in the last 7 years than MW has. And if you reason that they are winning with 4 star talent then why can’t MW?

These comparable academic programs might not have done as much come NCAA tournaments are concerned (that is topic of another thread- our conveniently backing into the tournament year after year only to be humiliated by yet another nondescript program with a fraction of the history we have), but all of those academic schools have at least once ONCE in the past 7 years contended either for their outright conference championship or tournament championship. We have NOT ONCE in SEVEN YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!! How many more years do we have to endure transfers and injuries and blown leads and failures to show up at all in games against lesser opponents before uou guys will wake the F up?

But that is just one OBVIOUS factor.

How do you account for the plethora of transfers? We lost half of our team last year either because of transfer, injury, or players who would rather take their chance in the draft than stay another year playing defense against an opponent that is 4-5 inches taller than they are (something you hardly ever see in the NBA unless by fluke or in college FOR A REASON- it doesn’t end well but with we as Gator fans HAVE ENDURED height mismatches every single year since MW has been here!!!

Name one program in the SEC that has had more transfers than we have in the last 7 years? Do they transfer about of respect for MW????!!

Are you serious???

Name one in Division 1?


Look at the attendance levels at our stadium? Are we selling out like we used to? I was at the Maryland game? We have more alumni in NY than Maryland!!! Why were there more Maryland fans- almost 2/1 than Gator fans?

Is this because his program and he are so respected???

The calls are almost always resolved to our detriment. Had Payne or Jitoboh done to Jitoboh what the Tennessee player did to Jitoboh, they would have been ejected. You don’t think that 3 point shot that I believe Jones or Fleming attempted was not a foul? It tuned out to be a SIX point swing!!

This is what happens when you have a coaching staff that is not respected by officials. And all of MW’s red-faced histrionics made not one bit of difference because the bad calls continued after that horrific non-call.

We lost to a 1-5 team the game before. How do you get respected after that??? Yes the players must bear some responsibility, but he recruited them!!!!!!

I could go on and on. Pro MW proponents in this thread are okay with below mediocrity which is the consensus of the status of this program nationwide by all rational pundits.

They cling to injuries and bad calls as a basis for sustaining the tenure of a staff who perhaps were not our staff would not be dealing with bad calls, poor recruiting and injuries that keep popping up year after year after year.

Right now we have two NBA-talent players on scholarship that can’t play. How much misfortune do we have to have to conclude that perhaps it was really meant to be for ‘MW to continue the direction that this program was going under BD.

BD is winning in the NBA. He has completely turned around the Bulls and went to the playoffs every year under OKC.

He is a college basketball and NBA Hall of Fame coach and he is still young. MW won’t even make the SEC Hall of Fame at this rate.

No it is not because I say so or other fans say so. It is because the undisputed facts say so!

 

You discount the fact that a lot of kids transfer in because there is respect for him out there.
Not saying he's the right guy, or he should not be on the hottest seat in the country. Just that he is respected guy. Well thought of by his peers.

 

You can't be plausibly arguing that a player who respects his coach would transfer because he respects him? People transferred from this program because
1) They were not being utilized properly or 2) they were not developed properly or 3) they saw the team not going in a direction that gave them confidence that significant progress would be made. Pay your money and take your choice.

And of course, other coaches are going to respect him because he has single-handedly taken a top-notch program and relegated it to one that warrants very little regard as a serious contender each year for a national championship. Why would I not heap high praises upon him if I were a coach of one of our adversaries?

We are going to continue to see the ups and downs that have become the trademark of MW teams as have been the untimely and crippling injuries (which although not his fault are nevertheless omens that perhaps someone else would have better fortune). I think it is great that Lane, Kennedy, Reeves, Gatkek and Felder- presumably all coming back next year, are starting to get playing time in a season that largely does not matter anymore.

We will eke out games here and there, but when it comes to fundamental basketball 101, we are going to be taken to school without a legitimate post presence. With the addition of two bigs out of HS next year (both signed), and a combo guard, you figure White needs another 2 swingmen, another big (5), and another pg in the transfer portal. If Jitoboh comes back, we will have a respectable front-line presence and balance at the other positions.

 

What has he done to earn respect considering the trajectory of the program when he inherited it? To come into a program that was a perennial SEC contender and almost always ranked pre-season and given odds to win an NC, to where we are now, warrants zero respect. If you cannot come to grips with that then you are in abject denial.

 

Why would a person who took over a thriving gold mine, and only has produced gold dust get favorable calls from anyone?

 

I don't think the respect that many of us speak of is based just on W's and L's. He is a respected person by his peers and the media..

 

You can be respected as a person, but that is not the same as being respected as being one of the best in your field. Coaches that do things the right way and are personable will always be respected for their integrity and like-ability, but that is not the same as being respected for their coaching ability.

Coaches are also rated based on their accomplishments, which is why Calipari is highly respected as a coach even though two of the schools he coached at went on probation after he left. Zook, Muschamp, and Richt were also well liked, but would you consider them great coaches? Likewise, Bellichek is considered a legendary NFL coach even though he barely tolerates the media.

Just because you are well liked has nothing to do with your coaching ability. Spurrier may not have been well liked but he was a damn good coach that got results. So I would take the damn good coach that gets results over the coach everyone likes and respects any day of the week.

 

because of the color of glasses you're wearing

 

Oh so MW’s complaining about the uncalled fouls particularly the three point attempt butchery proves he has the same eyesight as I do I guess. The reality is big time coaches and players get favorable calls.

if you are a novice to this reality, then let me educate you. If you are simply persisting in promoting your completely unsustainable assertions, maybe it’s time to quit while you are behind.