Yet, a horrible effort at Florida. By far the worst UF coach in my lifetime, not even close. Don't care what he did elsewhere.
I wonder how much of what he did here was at the instigation of Arnsbarger. In over 50 years as a working professional I have succeeded other leader/managers or had leaders/managers over me replaced in the military, the private sector, and the public sector. The DeVoe situation was far and away the worst transition I have seen
It was a terrible time for Fla Basketball under Devoe. The only time I can say I hated to watch us play, ever.
I went to every game just to join the “DeVoe must go!” chants. He was booed so loudly during the announcement of the starters that they stopped introducing him then. They started slipping it in as fans were cheering when the team took the floor: “Heeeeeeeeeeeeerre come the Gators!! Coached by Don DeVoe.”
Thirty point beatdown, LOL. The center for Kentucky is the best player I have seen this year. He carried the Cats the whole game and scored almost half their points. if JJ was healthy we would have beaten them. That cat is gone to the NBA soon, at the end of March, has never seen a classroom. We as the Gator Nation can bitch about using the NIL for the basketball team just like the football team and the Gator administration is where we start. It should include Scott Strickland, CMW and the UAA and the UF admissions and the School Pres. If we are smart we will do this and we can start competing with a complement of tough, physical high scoring players. It takes all of us to get on board to let them know, let’s even the field. last night a sold out crowd and the bright lights of TV were in the house. We gave it all on the court. You can’t ask for anymore than that!
Quite a few coaches coach in conferences that are as weak as the one he coaches in, and yet they don't have his winning percentage. He also likely doesn't have the budget for his program that most in the SEC have to work with.
Murphree, you're the one that brought Mark Few into the conversation by saying we have our own Mark Few. Sometimes I think you post just to be a contrarion.
Nope, I responded to someone else. Post #46 - Coach Mike White’s best year of coaching for the Gators!
This conversation about Coach White will go on year after year for as long as he remains the head coach of our basketball program. He does a decent job with the players he recruits, but is that enough? Sitting courtside it is quite obvious to me that White enters a fight like Saturday's contest against Kentucky with a BB gun lineup, whereas Kentucky is sporting a bazooka on each player's shoulders. There was not a single Gator who would start for Kentucky if you compared starters player by player. So it seems that if the UAA is happy with this level of production out of their basketball program, reward Coach White with another lengthy extention to his contract. However, if the UAA and fans want more out the basketball program there will need to be a change at the top no matter how painful it might be in the short term.
Mike white has a following that provides more excuses then a 4 year old caught stealing candy. Our mens basketball program may be the worst sports team at U of F. Would everyone still feel as supportive of him if he was leading our football program?
I respectfully disagree with part of your post. Tschiebe was the best player on the floor and Castleton was the second best. In addition to CC, Florida had 5 veteran players with 4 or 5 years of experience out there who are physically strong and can all play. UK has a kid in Titi Washington who will play in the NBA, but he is a freshman who is not as strong as the UF players. Duruji likely would start at the 4 for UK. The biggest difference between the 2 teams comes down to coaching. Both teams could defend, but Kentucky had tons of ball and player movement that got them easy shots, while the Gators had little player or ball movement and settled for difficult shots. I don’t see this changing regardless of White’s recruiting of high school players and transfers.
Duruji would not start for UK. Not even close. He possibly could get some minutes off the bench but no, he would definitely not start.
Im not the AD, that’s not my job What I do know is White is replacement level. He’s a mediocre P6 coach. So pick a coach at random and it’s likely they outperform White. And if by crappy chance we get a big dud, then pick another at random and he’s likely to outperform White. That’s why firing White is all upside. While you can do worse than replacement level it is incredibly easy to get back there.
You could make an argument that Keion Brooks would start over Duruji, but you’ve lost your credibility when you say that it wouldn’t even be close. Brooks and Duruji play about the same amount of minutes per game. Brooks averages 10.9 ppg, shoots 49.4% from the field, 52.1% from 2, 24.0% from 3 and 77.1% from the line. He gets 4.5 rpg. Duruji averages 8.8ppg, shoots 54.0% from the field, 64.6% from 2, 34.9 from 3 and gets 4.2 rpg. He also does this on a team where easy shots are hard to come by. IMO, His numbers would be better at UK and Brooks numbers would be worse at UF. Brooks is a couple of years younger and should improve, but we are talking about the here and now. Note that I am not discussing defense, but I didn’t see anything yesterday to indicate that Brooks is the better defender.
If the argument is that an NIT team is his best coaching job, says all you need to say about the program.
You are delusional if you think Calipari would have even gave 3 star Duruji a look in high school. Therefore he would not start at Kentucky because he wouldn’t have a scholarship. Brooks was ranked no worse than 36th in the nation. Plus, as much as I hate to admit it, everyone brings their “A” game for Kentucky because they are a blue blood. So, it is much tougher for Brooks to get the stats he has compared to Duruji. Teams don’t sell out their arenas when Florida comes to town(at least in the last 7 seasons) but they do when Kentucky shows up.
Of course, there’s no way that Calipari would have offered Duruji; plus Brooks was an exceptional high school player. I expected him to excel at UK. He hasn’t. Duruji has become solid as a 5th year player at UF. Duruji was our 2nd best player yesterday. Brooks did nothing. We are talking about the hear and now. That loss yesterday cannot be blamed on a big talent gap.