The City of Gainesville is an average sports town . The folks who live in the city has not really support baseball or basketball. It’s large enough where you should not have to depend on Jacksonville , Orlando nor Tampa to attend basketball or baseball. I’m sorry that the business owners in Gville are hurting . If the fans would support these programs the city would thrive. Yet …. the fans love their gymnastics and softball.
I am not arguing your opinion, but just relating national perception. White was a very strong name and considered one of the top rising, young coaches. He had strong SEC pedigree, having played for Rob Evans and, more importantly, coached under Andy Kennedy for 6 years. I guess the degree to which you think that matters depends upon your opinion of AK as a coach. Mine is quite high.
They are already making tons of money from an equivalent or better program. I do think that Bobby Hurley would be a possibility and would be a great coach even though Arizona State has suffered during this pandemic period. Generally speaking, however, why go after a coach at a power conference who is not kicking ass in his conference when we likely could land coaches who are kicking ass at a lower level and coach and recruit the way we would want them to at UF.
How do you get them to coach and recruit the way we want them too. They will most likely coach the way they always have.
Just curious, what are the top 10 sports towns in this list that GAINESVILLE is being compared with? Outside of Kentucky, are there any schools whose attendance doesn't reflect the recent results and current hope for a given basketball team? People love to trash our fan support, but most of the folks who do this either don't pay to attend regularly or don't provide a reasonable context with which said fan support should be compared (some, like yourself, fall into both categories). The bash the fan stuff is just as useless as the bash the coach stuff (that said, there's plenty room for genuine criticism in either case). Go GATORS! ,WESGATORS
I have attended countless gator basketball games over the last 35 years… In Gainesville, across the country and even outside the country. My followings have included good, bad, mediocre and great seasons. I have followed thru three coaching tenures. I have watched us play the “blue bloods”, the “cupcakes”…. and everything between. And whatever other intangible may exist…. I’m guessing I’ve seen it. One thing remains an undeniable truth…. there is not a strong following for Florida basketball. This isn’t something I can justifiably be angry about …. at least not in a vacuum. After all, people like what they like. Heck- I’ve never once attended a Gators baseball game. And I think basketball apathy is a regional reality. The frustration I sometimes express Is with a very top-heavy “expectations:support” ratio.
I agree. But across the entire Power6 landscape, that represents a fairly sizable number of equivalent or better programs. The implication, of course, is that the Florida job may not rank quite a highly as some think.
What is the definition of a successful coach at a P5 school? Elite 8? Final 4? Natty? How many of these “successful” coaches then went in to another P5 school and won a Natty since that is the goal, let alone established long term success? If your def is a prior championship then go hire Pitino as I think he is the unicorn. Most (all?) of the recent championship coaches did not come from other P5 schools where they were extremely successful. Even the legends. I think that CMW’s players play at about their recruiting level. I would look for a coach who players perform above their recruitment level on a consistent basis regardless of conference or competition.
Primarily, I'd consider you in the latter group: not providing any useful context for comparison (no offense). So I'll ask you these questions to possibly help: - what schools in the SEC consistently show more support than FLORIDA relative to the current and perceived strength of their basketball team (to me there's one and only one)? - what basketball fan bases have ever been built BEFORE success has been established at their program? - how does our basketball fan base's regression from our more successful years compare to other basketball fan bases that may have endured a similar slide? - how critical are those basketball fan bases of their team's regression relative to their actual attendance? I know we share a lot of ideas on what can make things better with our home environment, but I think it's the comparison to other programs that requires better context. I saw us play up at UConn, and I was surprised at how few students were lined up early that morning (not sure if they are allowed to camp out or if they don't do it when it's too cold, but I think it was in the teens or 20's for the overnight low). They also had only won 1 NCAA Tournament game in the previous 5 seasons (and I think three straight losing seasons). There was a noticeable drop off in their level of enthusiasm, the building wasn't close to full (regardless of what the posted attendance was), and we're talking about in a cold and dreary Storrs, CT where there wasn't much else to do that day. It was ridiculously easy to get a seat along the baseline just a few rows from the court. We parked, literally, right next to the stadium. My point is, it's easy to point out all of these things in isolation and say "we've got to do better; we'd like to do better" but if we don't understand how similar our situation is to other programs, then how can we begin to develop realistic expectations and comparisons? I'd argue the same thing applies to criticism of the head coach, but one thing we can look at there is head coach salary comparisons and see who's performing above their pay and who's performing below their pay. Because of that, one can more objectively be critical of the results that Mike White provides than they can of the actual measure of our fan base. Just my opinion. Go GATORS! ,WESGATORS
IMO, White’s recruits play way, way, way below their talent level. I don’t really care about their recruiting rank.
1) Tennessee and Arkansas, for sure. I know you discount the importance of the SECt, but it is a venue in which all teams jointly participate. Regardless of its perceived significance, one would think it would at least give some…. even a glimpse of …. indication as to which schools may have the greatest and least fan following. Florida is always among the least represented. We have such poor attendance that the UAA no longer accepts its allotment. 2. What fans have established fans based prior to success? That is hard to say, bc there are few programs that can not point to some period of achievement. But there are places like Marquette, Seton Hall or NC State…. where basketball is always important, even sans recent success. Still, the question seems somewhat moot- considering my contention that fan support has always been tepid, even during Donovan’s era. 3. It is difficult to measure Florida’s regression because it’s high water mark saw lower fan enthusiasm than expected. I’ll never forget being in Las Vegas when our defending title team played KU. If there were 100 gators fans…. I’d be surprised. Yes… it was “fsu football weekend”, but that’s kinda the point. Our title team doesn’t have enough of a basketball following to offset. . . or even come close. There are endless examples…. Florida was 4-0 and had already trounced #20 ranked FSU when it played OSU in Fort Myers. Florida had lesser fans than both Seton Hall and OSU. I promise you, there are far more important folks than me who have expressed this frustration…. namely, our two prior coaches. And I suspect both had a pretty solid foundation of knowledge for comparison.
Completely agree on Arkansas (wasn't thinking). They have an admirable passion in football, men's basketball, and in baseball...perhaps other sports as well. Being a Razorback fan in that part of the state is more contagious than Omicron (#hopefullyseenasnonpoliticalcomment). Respectfully disagree on Tennessee. Been their multiple times including during the lovely Ron Slay years. Plus I wouldn't trade our venue for theirs even with all of our issues. No way, our home games rocked in the late 90's and even into the early 00's. Nobody was criticizing our fan base, and our arena was widely recognized as one of the toughest places to play (at least in the SEC). Certainly not familiar with fan support at Marquette and Seton Hall, but most people probably don't realize that we have more Final Fours, Elite Eights, and Sweet Sixteens than those two teams combined over the last 40 seasons. My point there being that they don't mimic our program in terms of experiencing a significant rise followed by a significant fall. NC State has been even less successful; Herb Sendek used them as a launching pad to go to Arizona State. That's worse than the Lon Kruger departure! If they have better fan support, and if it matters (I think this idea is tends to be overrated among fans), why couldn't they keep Herb? Right, that we have so many top sports teams that it's hard to pick and choose which one to support at any given time? I think this one singular occurrence has been given WAY too much play over the years. But I also question the "lower fan enthusiasm than expected." - Again, based on what? How was the Las Vegas Tournament presented to fans? Were booster clubs hit up on the West coast or were those hoping for a turnout hoping that fans from Miami, Tampa, Orlando, etc. were going to fly in for the game? Was there any recognition that some of our biggest basketball boosters are also big football boosters? It just feels like more along the lines of "this should be better" without any real analysis on how well it was drawn up to even have lofty expectations of attendance. Or in your words, "expectations:support" ratio. Where expectations = expectations of fans to come to the games and support = proper care given to ensure that fans come to the games. Sorry that "tournament" was a complete joke. The way they distributed tickets, made people wait until, what, a month before before releasing single game tickets was stupid in terms of having fan attendance expectations. These things are designed for northern teams to have a warm-weather get-away. FLORIDA fans don't need to stay the night in Fort Myers. I've always hated neutral site games being played in FLORIDA, and I've always considered expectations for attendance to be unrealistic. Lon leaving was a blessing. Billy leaving had zero to do with fan support. Again, fans make way too much of a coach's need to be have a bigger crowd. I've yet to see anything that suggests otherwise (except maybe at NC State ). Go GATORS! ,WESGATORS
Once again...it was the leader of the big blue nation that said Florida had one of the most intense atmospheres he had ever been a part of following one of Kentucky's visits to the Odome. We may not travel as well as other programs but if you put the right product out there the will come. Attendance was up just on the hype behind Billy Donovan's offense and the Jason williams transfer.
Look no further than our football team. The Alabama game was packed, and then as the season went into the toilet, games were less packed. Putting a quality product on the court and creating buzz greatly impacts attendance. Bet the stadium is packed again for Napier’s first game. Edit: Imagine if Grantham was coming back at DC next year and how that would impact fan enthusiasm.
