Yeah- good dude, and both Darris and Jordan are also great people. Same, of course, with Dusty. we really did have an excellent staff, and a times… a strong, and occasionally healthy roster. The enigma with Mike’s tenure was that he never coached to the style he was hired. I championed Mike as the hire based upon having covered his team/conference at La Tech. But for reasons beyond me… it never really materialized here. And when it did.. it was fleeting. But he recruited hard, poured his heart into the job, ran a clean program and nary a hint of issue. It’s hard for me to see why anyone would hold animosity toward the guy, though I understand not being able to root for him at uga.
Just a horrendously bad game day coach. I’m sure he is a nice guy, but so happy he’s not in Gainesville.
This encompasses Mike White very well. He's a very good fundamentals coach. But he somehow has managed to make that his weakness too. He's SO committed to fundamentals that he seems to reign in the team when its hot because it goes too much his idea of how basketball should be played. Sometimes, you just need to let the horses run and trust your players and that you did a good job as a coach.
Yep. He reminded me of coach red from the waterboy movie. He told his qb to kneel down 3 times then punt even though there is still à full quarter to play because he's scared of the waterboy. Didn't think that the opposing coach will send the waterboy to play offense. Same with White. Shutsdown the offense with the big lead when there's plenty of time left in the game. Heck CTG still have the starters in even with a 14 point lead with 2 mins to play.
Could be awhile. Georgia hasn't won anything in basketball in forever. Doesn't seem like a priority there. It's football or bust in Athens .
Even during those first 5 games he wasn't happy, kept going on about the defense. That was when I decided Mike White would rather win a game 50-49 then 100-85.
I always liked White, seemed like a good rep for the program but it seemed like his players didn't really get better and every year one of his top players actually regressed. Bottom line, a coach has to win. Id probably root for him if he wasn't at Georgia tho. It's not like he is Don DeVoe.
Agree. My point in starting this thread was more to point out that as one of the last people to jump off the White train, It took him doing the same things at UGA for me to see the light. He coaches way to close to the vest with the lead. And those droughts are just mind numbing. I am eternally loyal. (I was the same way for Dan Mullen and Will Muschamp). Truth is, I'm an idiot.
yeah… This was another odd aspect. I’ve spoken w many of Mike’s past players at Louisiana Tech. And more than anything, they raved about his ability to instill confidence and lift them up. Jalen, and to a lesser degree K. Allen, really struggled under his tutelage.
CMW team fading down the stretch after a good start and having “his best team”. Stop me if you’ve heard this before…
Yep, they were up 3 at the half then were down 19 with 9 min to go. Finally lost by 13. So predictable….
Mike White never reached the level with me he needed to be fired, but I was not upset that he went to our rival either. I always made the comment that you could never count his teams out, but the minute you felt good about them they’d lose the next game! Seemed like we were perpetually on the bubble for that reason. You have to say he had his fair bit of bad luck, esp the KJ thing as that team felt primed to do some good things. But in CBB coaches are pretty much everything AND get paid millions so over 5 or 6 years you can’t point to “bad luck” (at some point they have to make their own luck and earn those egregious salaries).
Time to park this thread. Why are we even discussing UGA or Mike White? He is history and Georgia sucks!
Watching Mike white teams was like watching paint dry. I think he preferred losing ‘his way’ over winning out of his system. Great coaches adjust to their talent and opponents. MW pounded his square peg into any whole no matter the shape. No excuses for that or his lack of developing players. Nice guy? Jerk? Doesn’t matter. Lack of ability to maximize talent, especially when your style isn’t even entertaining, equals gone. You don’t get paid $4M to be a boring nice guy. Just happy to have Golden and a great, fun team to watch.
To try to get what Im getting at in my above post and what I believe others are trying to say as well is this... If you are gonna play a sport that you've never played before against someone who has and does it pretty well, the best chance you have to at least not look like an idiot isn't to try to learn the sport really fast, its to make them look like an idiot too. And the fastest way to do that is by making them think about what they're doing. Cloudy mind = Slow hands and feet. The inverse is when a player finally "gets it" is when he stops thinking and just starts doing and you see that magic leap. So the best way to accomplish this is by asking them to teach you about the game. Explain everything they're doing to you. This makes them think about what they're doing. And clouds their mind and turns instinctive, fluid motions into jerky and slow ones. Mike White does this to his own team. He's so obsessed with a style of play and controlling the tempo, keeping to fundamentals that when it all starts clicking, his team stops thinking and just starts doing, he starts making them think about what they're doing again at halftime or during a TO and pours water on his own team. Thus, every single time it looks like they're about to start doing good, you see them regress back to trying to nail down fundamental stuff. As I said in my comment above: Sometimes you just have to let the horses run. Billy D was legendary for this in the amount of green light he would give his shooters so they wouldn't have to worry about if the coach wanted them to shoot it when they got hot, they always would have a green light to fire away without worry of being admonished for it. Its one of the things that made Little Erving Walker so successful and play like he was 6 inches taller than he was and like he was out of his skull with ice in his veins sometimes.
“It’s one of the things that made Little Erving Walker so successful and play like he was 6 inches taller than he was and like he was out of his skull with ice in his veins sometimes.” Funny, unrelated anecdote… Bill Sr. nice told me how Billy loved Erv and his competitiveness… but he drove him absolutely bonkers. They’d be in a timeout, and Billy would explicitly tell Erv NOT to shoot. And seconds later… he’d bomb one in from 30’!
Exactly this. He's the type of coach who is so stuck on fundamentals that even on fast breaks, he's telling his players to pass the ball around 10 times before taking a shot or to take their time getting back down to the other end. That, and his inability to sense when to call a timeout and settle the guys down or make adjustments.
