Why wasn't Appleby given a check? If Golden did not think he was that good, then Golden doesn't evaluate talent very well. He's the ACC's MVP. And if we can't recruit top 50-75 kids, we are doomed.
I think Appleby playing in CMW’s offensive scheme where just dribble drive and not having a lot of big men, defenses from opposing team trapped and doubled teamed our guys more than other teams. he became a turnover machine in this offense. He saw the tape and I am sure he talked with others that commented that our offense led by App was a mixed bag. CTG decided to go with a steady guard who had accolades, someone he knew would buy in to his system. I agree we need to sign some top fifty to seventy-five players each and every year. If the state of Florida’s legislature gets the NIL laws changed, there should be no reason why Florida shouldn’t go all in on a great big and pg each and every year! CTG took the low hanging fruit in CC, NIL pkg and Kowacie Reeves. also took two transfers in Fudge and Kugel which were both 4/5 star transfers that had ties to the State. Will Richard another transfer has been a good find and has been an all round player. we have talent, but it is a mixed bag. Next year we are going to have to piece together another class due to CMW’s doing this every year. CTG hasn’t even been here a year to recruit but he has a good eye. Give him two more recruiting classes and see if we are progressing. Then we all know if he can get us to where we want to be. My thoughts on this year is that we are competitive but he has worn down the starters mentally and physically. Our schedule has been one tough schedule where we have played top teams early and throughout the SEC schedule. His thrown together team learning its way to play together cobbled with the wearing down the players with a short bench he is finding out the SEC is a athletic and physical league that you have to have depth of good players. He in my opinion is going to have to play his limited depth more who have limitations, CMW’s recruiting, to ease up the minutes played by his whole team of starters. He is learning as a young coach, who our AD jumped on, who doesn’t have a big name appeal in the south. I think he is smart and might get there but the road in recruiting has to be paved. He will have to use to NIL to attract top talent. After his third season, the smoke will clear and we will be able to see if we are going in the right direction. The NIL usage is the key!
Appleby was not a quality player for UF during his 2 years of eligibility here. He was a me first guard who lost more games for us than he won. Yes, he is playing much better for WF, but he has still lost some close games for them hy trying to do it all by himself down the stretch. I have watched a few of those games. Lofton looked like an upgrade over Appleby in the eyes of practically everyone. Maybe he isn’t, but we don’t know that with any certainty.
These delusional optimists are an amazing brand of people. This hodgepodge team is simply not competitive on a consistent basis. You can’t build on inconsistency. You can’t build on massive exoduses every year. You can’t build on transfers coming in every year never learning to bond as a team. I firmly believe that until we make a commitment to bring in a big name coach with a winning track record, we are going to be pissing in the wind.
That was my opinion when Billy left. Then, White started to do something so I moderated my stance....for awhile. After his departure, I was more for hiring an established name (even Pitino, Sr.-which never was going to happen). I still want to see Golden get a legitimate chance and am rooting for his success, but the odds are stacked against him. I think our administration (past and present AD included) just assumed that this program was established enough that it could live off its past successes until a new coach got his footing. I hope most here understand that this was wishful thinking. We need a transcendental coach to have the kind of success we had here between 1999-2013. Our name and reputation in basketball is simply not good enough to do it on its own.
Broken record, just highlights how special Billy D is/was. Billy showed he can coach kids up and develop players and with Senior leadership his teams were extremely competitive (of course the 04s are unique, best class ever) The administration, thinking they can just grab every young coach and he will be billy is nuts. Billy was a unique player. Billy coached under a legend (now tarnished but still you can't question Pitino's coaching ability's) Billy assembled an incredible staff Since billy left florida hoops has no identity. No idea how we want to play from an offensive and defensive perspective. I think the future of florida basketball will be like being a mid-major, we will need juniors and senior mature basketball players with 1 dynamic freshman each year to compete. the blue chippers aren't coming to florida, and besides a handful, never have. Tre mann and Scottie Lewis broke the mold, when we were on a 6 year drought. Florida signees to earn McDonald’s All-American honors 1981 Eugene McDowell 1986 Dwayne Schintzius 1988 Stacey Poole 1998 Teddy Dupay, Mike Miller 1999 Donnell Harvey, Brett Nelson 2001 Kwame Brown*, David Lee, James White 2002 Anthony Roberson 2004 Corey Brewer 2007 Nick Calathes, Jai Lucas 2009 Kenny Boynton 2010 Patric Young 2011 Bradley Beal 2013 Kasey Hill, Chris Walker 2019 Scottie Lewis, Tre Mann
Appleby was a bit turnover prone here and made some not-so-wise decisions with the ball at times. He's lightening quick and can beat his man off the dribble, but few would have predicted he play this well...good talent evaluator or not
It's quite simple...we didn't recruit McD's players for a while because they were all being paid. The only ones we got weren't going to the NBA (Calathes, Lucas, Boynton, Young, Hill, Walker, Lewis), or they barely made it (Mann). Beal was the one exception. Everyone that was going to be a star was already on the money path behind the scenes - and we weren't a part of it. Real NBA talent costs money. Billy also coached at a different time in college ball...even he lamented the changes (bag men etc) in recruiting, missing out on recruits in the last second, which in part eventually led to his wanting to leave the college game. Billy D was and is a master, but these are different times. I don't know how anyone could coach in today's NIL and transfer portal climate and not have daily migraines.
It’s not so much that we cannot field a competitive team. It is an unfortunate reality that the game of college basketball that we have loved for decades is slowly slip-sliding away. Even if they are good, some of us won’t care quite as much for the Gainesville Semi-Pros as we once did for the Florida Gators.
One thing to be proud about even though we don't have a killer program like Nate Oates is we have had high character players. That matters most, at least to me.
This sounds wonderful on paper. But,I prefer to have high quality guys in a killer program. Like we had with Billy. We were the established top2 team in the SEC. And now, as someone pointed above, we have regressed to having the worst incoming recruiting class. That’s a big, Yikes!!!
When you go back and think about the 04s and their success along with the success of football, it's what we did with it. Never built on that success like other schools.
Blue blood programs can often do well with meh coaches. Their brand is enough to guarantee them a level far above what we can attain with the same.
And therein lies the rub. An established elite coach is likely at a very solid job, and perhaps a spot he helped build the success. So the question becomes… why leave for Florida? The answer is … he probably wouldn’t. And so, the most likely path to an elite coach, is finding him before he is recognized as such… and letting him develop into that caliber while at Florida. This is why I’ve always felt Florida is a place a coach could “learn on the job”, so long as a high ceiling. TG has a steep learning curve, imo… but is there promise of payoff? Maybe. There are some attributes I really like.
