Many will, they realize that they can get immediate playing time...and be part of turning the program around...
Not really.. coach Golden will have physically been at UF coming up on 1 year...he got to UF after the first round of the NCAA last year, cause his team played in the NCAA..so recruiting wise he had to piece together players cause he came in late plus depend on White's guys..now he has been in contact and established relationships...funny..other coaches ( yes, even Billy D had losing seasons) and guess what..players still wanted to come and play at UF.... Btw..it TGs 1st year (Billy D had a losing first season)..give him a chance
We’d be totally screwed in a pre-portal universe, but with the portal there is never an excuse for a write off season. We can add 5+ guys, and Golden probably will be busy. Yes, we badly need to raise this talent level. Have to get high energy guys. We did with Richard, mixed bag everywhere else. Without Castleton our front court wasn’t just bad, it was nonexistent. Next season really depends on getting help from portal at PG and up front, and keeping the guys we definitely want back (Richard and Kugel being the obvious players to pencil in as starters). We need to turn over at least half a roster. Of course loading up at the portal isn’t an automatic winning strategy, but doing “well” at least allows for optimism vs. seeing a badly depleted roster. In the old days you’d be looking at walk-ons (even BD in lean years had to resort to starting former walk-ons). It would be nice to see Golden’s 2 big recruits show some immediate potential, to show he has an eye for talent, but I hope we add at least 1 plug and play starter up front, if not two given how sorry we looked without Castleton’s presence.
I had moderate hopes at a 20 win season and be on the right side of the bubble to start the year. Lack of size at the 4 was a *huge* concern to me coming into the season, even with Castleton. Once Castleton went down our horrendous lack of depth was exposed. Today was one of the saddest displays I’ve seen. We’ve lacked depth at the 5 before, a lot of teams lack a dominant 5. With Castleton at least we had that singular presence. But a team with nothing at the 4 *or* the 5 is obviously not going anywhere. That’s where we are. The guys we rolled out there just aren’t high major D1 players. Any productive starter from a mid-major would upgrade those non-productive players. We were playing 3 on 5, and our backcourt wasn’t great either. To make matters worse, our backcourt is inconsistent. It got quite sloppy today. I know it’s common for a team to come out flat in the NIT, and our home crowd also sucked or looks at the NIT like an exhibition game at best, but you still hate to see the sloppy play.
I seem to recall that Lofton was the best point guard in the portal. Fudge was supposed to be a great one also. Point being is, I haven’t too many great players from the portal come through the orange and blue other than Castleton.
Not sure anyone said Fudge would be that good. Folks were hopeful that he would be better, but he averaged like 3 PPG at LSU last year.
That was a bad one but the worst one I remember was Temple, I think we had more turnovers then baskets in that one.
Lofton? Yes, he was hyped and didn’t deliver much. PG was an issue all year. At best it was pedestrian play. Fudge i think was about what was expected. A tweener 3/4 project. He definitely has the physical tools to be a long 3, but doesn’t have much post moves or feel for the game - just isn’t productive inside as a 4. I think he was just expected to add a body and maybe a little production. He added a body lol.
Will they be SEC caliber though? I have my doubts. Golden has the deck stacked against him. We shall see over the offseason if he can rebuild this program. I think he thought this program was in better shape than it was when he got here. He's finding out that is in even worse shape than the football program.
"MCB51, post: 14956265, member: 25351"]Many will, they realize that they can get immediate playing time...and be part of turning the program around...[/QUOTE] Yeap to the 2 optimistic ratings, thank you..rather that than gloom and doom...
Basketball is much more directly on the head coach. Maybe more than ever with the portal acting as a bit of an equilizer allowing programs to always have nearly a full roster. In the old days when “big” programs fell hard it was usually because coaching changes leave them with only 5 or 6 scholarships players and nearly impossible to compete. That should literally never happen now. Openings at least get filled with mid-major staters. That may mean a lot more teams fighting out .500 ball rather than being true bottom feeders, but it also means if a team does go like 2-16 in league then that coach really messed up.
I think they will be..program has been off kilter since White up and surprised everyone by leaving like he did..
It was off kilter in White's last couple of years when he over relied on the portal and his HS recruiting fell off. White's departure was no surprise. There was rampant speculation that he would be fired if he had another season like 21-22 and he got out while the getting was good. It was a good move for him. He had little coming back and would have missed the NCAA for a second consecutive year. We would have been stuck paying him to sit on the sidelines.
I was at UF during the 0-10-1 season too. Thinking back, I never thought we would remain that pathetic in football. Then again, I was drinking an awful lot of beer way back then.
I had an observation on the Swamp Gas board a few months ago that we were back in 1979. Football is a complete rebuild. It appears Basketball is the same situation. Several posters took issue at that. I don't know, the results seem to point to me being in the ball park.
