Noise from Mike White’s camp

And we did !!!! I didn’t care for Mullen just as a guy ! Yes he can but just didn’t like his pompous azz.
I love Mike W. He will never embarrass us or our university. I guess I different from most

 

White is not a poor coach . His numbers are pretty damn good when comparing other coaches .

 

Since the Elite 8 trip,

2017-2018:21-13

2018-2019:20-16

2019-2020:19-12

2020-2021:15-10

2021-2022:19-13


Take from it what you will

 

Maybe we should ask Phil Knight who should be our new coach.

 

Not really. How many conference titles has he won? Conference tournaments? Second weekends of the tournament? He has one metric on which he has done okay (4 out of 6 tournaments made). Basically, the only way you can say he has done well is if you think that Florida is a below average SEC program, which seems to be a hard point to argue after BD and the explosion of basketball in the state of Florida.

 

Other coaches hired in 2015
Steve Prohm - Iowa State - 97–95 (.505) Fired in 2021
Eric Konkon - Louisiana Tech 150–73 (.673)
Matt McCall - Chattanooga/UMass 108–99 (.522) Fired in 2022
Nate Oats - Buffalo/Bama 157–77 (.671)
Will Wade - VCU/LSU - 155-70 (.689)
Shaka Smart - Texas 109–86 (.559) Fired in 2021
Michael Huger - Bowling Green 115–105 (.523)
Rick Barnes - Tennessee 146–80 (.646)
Dan Earl - VMI 73–138 (.346)
Linc Darner - Green Bay 92–80 (.535) Fired in 2020
Nathan Davis - Bucknell 117–95 (.552)
Mike White - Florida 142–88 (.617)
Ben Howland - Miss State 134–96 (.583)

I haven't listed all coaches hired that year but you get the point. His numbers are okay.

Hirings and firings: 2015 college basketball coaching changes

 

And those numbers might be better than ok depending on how they broke down each year however we are trending in the wrong direction. If we flipped his seasons here we might be feeling better about the overall record.

 

I get your point, but would argue that the expectations at UF far exceed those of all the others except for maybe Texas, Tennessee and LSU (maybe Iowa State too).

 

Is Ben Howland going to be fired?

 

I mean they should. Our expectations should also be higher than Tenn, Texas, LSU and ISU.

 

As crazy as it sounds, for the last five years I would often think of was Bobby Knight’s motion offense with our players and how we would do in it. It usually would come to me after yet another bad shot, with the shooter never disciplined or pulled aside. Knight would have gone through the roof with half the shots our kids take.
We could have been so much better with some form of a disciplined offense IMO, even if it wasn’t that one (I mean it’s akin to the single wing by now). But we didn’t have the talent to freelance in the DDO or a PG who could break a defense down against good players. Many of our shots over the years were not much better than a turnover.

 

Who knows but I think we expect to be better than Miss St.

 

Just to give a historical perspective.

When I moved to Gainesville to teach at UF we had zero SEC tournament championships (Georgia Tech had one!) and zero SEC regular season championships.

We got our first SEC tournament championship in 2005 and our first SEC regular season championship (Thanks Vandy tennis ball thrower. We couldn't have done it without you!) in 1989.

Every one except the first regular season championship was with BD as the head coach.

I get that Mike White isn't BD, but no other coach has either including Kruger.

 

Finishing 2nd 3rd would be good. Could say the same argument for football before SOS but he changed the culture of the program just like Billy D did and it feels we’ve lost that momentum.

 

Also, for most of its history, the state of Florida had pretty limited basketball talent. It started to turn around in the mid-90s, with the NBA teams raising interest in the sport. Donovan also created a pretty solid basketball culture around the school. Florida is clearly in a different situation than it was in the 50s and 60s, when it was reasonable to claim that Florida was not a very high potential basketball program.

 

Fans certainly need to do a better job, that would help.

But yeah, too much talent in state and resources for us to not be a top 15 program.

 

Ben Howland has accomplished a lot more than Mike White has, including a Final Four appearance:

Ben Howland - Wikipedia

 

Not sure about any " explosion" of basketball in the state, unless you're just referring to HS talent. Certainly not a lot of success for the state teams that I've seen.

Miami may sneak in for the first time since 2018 and they have never made it past a sweet 16. Most would say Larranaga is a good coach.

FSU has one acc title in Hamilton's 20 years, recently been a regular NCAA team, but their last Final 4 was 50 yrs ago. They just got blown out in the ACC tourney by 39 and won't make the tourney this year.
Usf, UCF, FAU, mediocre at best.

Not defending MW, just giving some perspective on the state.

 

I was focusing on the same time frame that Mike White has been at UF.