WHO replaces White?

Welcome to sports. Go to any team’s message board after a loss and people blame the coach and want him gone. Win consistently. That’s the expectation at Florida. Not make every Final Four. Not win every SEC tournament. Just win consistently with occasional blips. If a coach is scared of that then we really don’t want that coach here.

 

Tell me you’re a bandwagon fan without telling me you’re a bandwagon fan.

 

Yeah, I mean do people really think UF fans are some different breed? Sports bring out a ton of emotion. Go to any sports message board, follow any sports social media and it is the same thing everywhere at every level. This a tired narrative from grumpy, old sports writers in the area going after Gator fans.

 

i think the Florida basketball fan base is pretty unique. The fans, and region in general, is largely apathetic to the sport. The depth of Gators basketball fan base is quite shallow, and the support is tepid, at best.
But that same fan base was witness to a historic run off success… and now has expectations that outsize the support.

 

I think the support argument is different than the narrative that UF fans are at some other level of vitriol towards coaches.

 

I'll admit, the Scott Drew messages prompted this. We know he doesn't want to come here, but we're going to make him come by doubling his salary? Where does this end?

 

true.
Though I think passion in one direction allows it to, at least, make sense when it swings the other way.

 

you keep saying that we have unreasonable expectations, aka - the expectations that most here, including me, have expressed are to have some form of the following happen:

- be ranked in the top 25 more often than not
- finish ranked in the top 25 more often than not, and occasionally have a top 15 or better finish
- compete for the SEC reg season title every couple years
- make a deep run in the SEC tournament every few years
- play in the SEC championship game once every 4-5 years
- regularly win at home, especially the games we're supposed to win
- have a consistent team identity and if possible play exciting, fun basketball while doing so
- lock up our NCAA tourney bid early at least once every few years and get a 4 or better seed once every 3-4 years
- (edit to add because I forgot this one originally) make a Sweet 16 or better run every 3-4 years or so

I'd really like to get your perspective on what from this list would be an unreasonable expectation for UF basketball in the post-Billy Donovan era, especially given that we're paying our head coach the 22nd highest salary in college hoops (at the start of this season, anyway).

to me that says our administration has pretty high expectations for our program themselves, but I'm just a nerd on a message board.

 

Florida is a state where sportswriters retire and live. So, yes you are correct, we as fans aren’t as crazy as Alabama, LSU or Kentucky in basketball on their message boards, but with us on national tv losing close games a lot, we get to be the poster child for Whitney fans. Add millions of people who retire or move to Florida because of taxes and weather who are loyal to their northern school they graduated from, they talk about us.
Oh well, I have never heard or wanted to hear about Whiney fans in Iowa or Ohio, but when they get to Florida they think they know all about Florida fans!

 

Essentially a Matt Painter level of coach.

 

I know the fancy restaurants too, but I lived there for a while on long term work projects too - never got tired of them!

 

The answer is “Yes” and I couldn’t agree with you more. Hard to comprehend. Every single big time program has a similar fan base - every one of them. I think criticizing fans that complain is a way to virtue signal that they themselves are above such things and blame the other fans. Kinda like politics - it’s always the other guys fault.

 

lol. Talk about insecure. Bragging about “fandom”. Yea man, you’re so much more of a fan than I am. Congrats.

 

You are focusing on the wrong side of the equation. The expectations are fine. The commensurate support is lacking.

 

I'm not even sure if it's fanbases --- you have no idea who are are trolls and who aren't. and then you have twitter, because some clown has gator in his/her name it gives the impression it's a gator fan -- and some how their comments are linked to the general fan base.

bottom line -- if your sensitive stay off twitter, even mother Teresa would be slammed on twitter. Our fan base is no different than any other and definitely isn't as passionate as others when it comes to basketball.

 

thanks, but I'm not privy to the support side of the equation so I can only focus on what I see, and what I see is a coach who failed to meet expectations.

but I certainly do appreciate your perspective - it would not exactly surprise me to learn the UAA is full of bureaucratic lightweights masquerading as high level administrators, since the University itself is riddled with those types of folks, but it would be very alarming to think that whatever the UAA is doing or not doing could have so significantly affected the previous regime's abilities.

I don't suppose you'd be willing to provide any specifics on these behind the scenes shortcomings, would ya?

 

exactly, this is a good comparison. Painter's had some down years, but he's alternated those with consistent winning stretches, Sweet 16 and Elite Eight appearances every few years, several conference titles and basically kept Purdue in the national conversation and positioned for conference and NCAA success more years than not.

if Mike White had gotten Painter's results I would've been extremely happy with what he was doing overall.

for comparison, Painter inherited a program in a lot worse shape than White did, since Purdue had fallen apart over Gene Keady's last 5-6 years, and within his first seven years at the school, Painter had the following:
- seasons of 22, 25, 27, 29, 26 and 22 wins
- a Big Ten regular season title and two runner-up finishes
- four ranked finishes, including a top 10 finish
- six NCAA tourney appearances with two Sweet 16s and at least one game won in every tournament

edit to add: hell, I'd have even been happy with less than this, but we didn't even get close under White.

 

In this case, I was more referencing the depth of our fan support. But I have, in the past, talked about the UAA commitment to basketball. And it can be seen in a few things… assistant coach salary pool; recruiting budgets; lacking staff positions, such as analytics; promotional efforts, etc.
Heck- we joke about it, but I would point to the “flip the camera” campaign. For years this has been acknowledged as something the uaa “wants” done…. with the obstacle being price tag. Yet, at the same time we couldn’t find the money for this project…. we met every request on the Napier grocery list. And look…. I am NOT faulting the UAA. They need to make business decisions, and the overriding cash cow is football. I think the uaa has seen a point of diminishing returns with hoops…. that no matter what the success, there is a ceiling on basketball enthusiasm and revenue. We saw that on the heels of the title team when raised ticket prices were hardly met with equally raised demand.
I may be in the minority these days, but I like Scott Stricklin and do think he cares. But he can’t care more than the fans, and he has to run the business of sports.

 

How do you know he doesn’t want to come?

There are healthy rumors that he is sniffing around due to concerns of the B12

Florida may be the top opening.

We’d be negligent not to reach out

 

Mike Miller