Florida guard Riley Kugel, (possibly) commited to the Cowbells.......we'll see.....

I understand why fans don’t like Devoe. Florida was the reigning SEC champs the prior year and returned 4 starters, including the top 3 scorers, off of that team. First regular season sec hoops title in school history - at least I think it was. Had all American high schooler Poole joining the team. Expectations were sky high. And….team lost 14 straight and won just 3 SEC games after winning 13 the prior year. You mentioned DS quit cuz he had attitude problem. Did the team, already an SEC title team, need a complete attitude adjustment to compete the next season with virtually the entire team returning? Probably not.

Was Devoe too hard on the players or were they problem players ? Well, the same team that won the conference title without Devoe dropped from 1st to 10th. First to last. Plus, Devoe coached some good Tennessee teams vs UF- no one likes Tennessee teams so Devoe was already an enemy before he was hired.

probably didn’t matter why the team lost after coming in super hyped that season but Devoe was virtually the only change (other than 4th leading score Clifford Lett leaving) so….he gets the wrath I guess.

 

Didn't say DS quit because he had an attitude problem, but that may have been true. Ahab got the gig because the program was in trouble.
Sloan resigns as Florida basketball coach - UPI Archives

 

Oh, I know. But I don’t think it matters why they lost. They had the free fall and Devoe was coach so…boo! lol

 

Devoe was awful. He told Schintzius to get his hair cut. Dwayne did just that, chopping off at least 2 inches of his mane. (I was only a distant acquaintance of Dwayne’s, but we had the same barber.). Dwayne showed up for the next practice only to be berated and kicked out for not cutting his hair, which had obviously been cut. That example is a drop in the bucket and doesn’t truly capture the reality of Devoe’s belligerent, arbitrary, nasty style of dealing with the players.

He was so loudly booed when announced at the end of player introductions that UF changed it halfway through the season. It got moved to when the team ran out of the tunnel: “Heeeeeeeeeeerere come the Gators!! [then softly] Coached by Don Devoe.” Also, the entire O’Dome regularly broke out in loud chants of “Devoe must go!” He deserved every bit of the fans’ disdain. Every single bit of it.

 

Yep. All the players hated Devoe, and I don't blame Schintzius for quitting at all. Life is too short to be miserable.

 

Worst coaching hire at UF in my lifetime almost 70 years. Got to know DS a bit after his pro days were o er. Really good guy and so nice to my 2 sons who were star struck playing video games with him at Beef O’Bradys in Tampa. Devoe was worse than can be imagined.

 

Self abuse?

 

It depends on his definition of success
If he wants a serious chance to immediately win a championship, its a great move
But if he's money motivated, its horrible (most likely)
No way he gets a bigger NIL there. He will have less leverage there than he did at UF because KS can pluck players like him almost effortlessly.
If he's NBA motivated again, bad decision. Because that would mean he needs a platform to showcase his talent. And unless he improves his team game by leaps and bounds, he's gonna ride the bench there. He's a 5 star player when he's the focal point of the offense and can play almost exclusively iso basketball. But when he's part of a team with as good or better options and he's expected to execute plays and pass the ball, it falls off dramatically. I said before he announce that IMO he needed to go to a small school where he can be head and shoulders above everyone else talent wise and go back to playing iso basketball. That's probably the fastest route to getting on NBA draft boards for him.

 

He got demoted from the starting lineup and often benched late in the season, but when he played, Riley was pretty dang good for the most part. Yes, he had butterfingers at times as well as some issues with finishing at the rim. But for the most part, I think he was an asset in every role that TFG put him in for this team. If anything we all had question marks when he didn’t get playing time and deferred to Coach Golden making the right call.

 

Watch what Purdue does to them

 

Well, he was a potential asset, but at times he was a liability with his “butterfingers” and propensity to do things outside of the offense.

That being said, it’s hard to believe his DNP’s had to do with his on-court play. Too much talent and it’s not like we were deep. I think most agreed with Golden’s call to switch him to a bench role. That was a pretty obvious call. At times it worked brilliantly as Kugel had some good moments. The DNP’s were more inexplicable, and barring some official explanation I have to assume were for minor transgressions (thought I saw somewhere the SECT was because he was late for a meeting or walkthrough?). THAT would make some sense, anyway…

 

True story, ‘88-89 was my freshman year and I couldn’t get season tickets. Though I did find my way into several gams, including the critical Vandy game. The one year I got student tickets was the devoe year. So that sucked, as did he.
But I know for a fact that Sloan didn’t exactly run a tight ship. Dude I knew at UF at the time went to Miami Senior with some of them. I remember asking him once if he knew Caesar Portillo. He said, “know him, I took the SATs for him!” True or not, kinda summed up that group. Didn’t Ramos threaten to flatten a coach at some point? And Dwayne with the tennis racket, Hogan was Matt Walsh before Matt Walsh, all offensive flash with defense optional. Scott Stewart was nicknamed Opie… But Dwayne Davis might still be the most athletic guy at UF since Walk. Quite a cast of characters those 2 years.

 

Ramos went after Sloan—something like “come on old man” out in the parking lot at the O’dome.
And Hogan—>Walsh? I can’t think of a comparison that would come even close. Maybe Phillys Diller—>Margot Robbie?

 

Was there the same time. I loved the opposing team intro where everyone acted like they were reading the Alligator.

 

Was there when Sloan was the HC. Remember seeing Vernon Delancy drive up in a new sports car to my apartment complex. Said "nice ride" and he laughed. He was a freshman. Ramos was an AH. Culture shock for the Miami Senior boys.

 

It was a couple of years after I graduated from UF, but I heard through the grapevine the same things you guys are saying about Portillo and Ramos. They were poison.
And Sloan ran a diseased program. Someone near the team said if the NCAA knew the full extent of what was going on we would get the death penalty for hoops.
So Stormin' Norman had to go, and we had to endure the horrific Don Devoe as punishment, but we came out way ahead. Lon Kruger was a good Xs and Os coach and ran a clean program and got us winning the right way. Just wasn't a good recruiter.

 

my brother-in-law was on that team, though not one of the main “characters”. He has some funny stories!

 

LOL...a buddy and I used to call Hogan "the towel." When we put him in, we were throwing in the towel.

 

I would like to have seen him tie up the sloppy ball handling, turnovers, and finishing strong at the rim while he was HERE.

I don’t wish him any bad will but I’m not sure he integrates well with a team full of blood blood all stars.