as far as coaching candidates go, I'd love to throw a blank check at Brad Stevens and try to lure him back to college hoops. I wouldn't be super excited about hiring Anthony Grant but he's a great Gator who knows the program and would have a lot of fan support. and if we go with an up and comer type I really like Mark Pope from BYU or Grant McCasland from UNT.
Not a big fan of Pitino at this point, but he might be able to give us a few good years. I would LOVE to get Musselman.
I forgot Andy Enfield - I'd also love to see UF try to pull him back to Florida. He'd be a more realistic target than Stevens for sure.
you're right that we definitely weren't doing anything in hoops back in 1965, and didn't have sustained success until Billy got here in the mid-late 90s. If you mainly focus on the 60s/70s/80s as our basketball identity, then I can see why your outlook might be bleak on the program overall. but since Kruger's 93-94 team, though, UF looks like a totally different program. I look at it like this: we're one of only 21 schools in the country with 5 total Final Fours and one of only 15 with multiple national championships. in 2015 Sporting News ranked us the 6th best program in the nation over the past 15 years with only Duke, UNC, UConn, UK and Kansas ahead of us. 15 years is a pretty good chunk of time to be on top of the heap like that! And we went to an Elite Eight in 2017, so most people still think of us as a very good program despite the current trajectory. UF football was a lot like UF basketball in 1989, kind of middle of the pack overall with no sustained success. Then Spurrier came along and built us into a powerhouse. Nobody was content for the Gators to slide back into mediocrity after he left, though, so why should we accept any less from our basketball program after Billy? We've been to the top of the mountain, it can be done here. I love Gator hoops too - I like coach White a lot as a person, and I hoped he'd work out great. But we can all see the program steadily going in the wrong direction and I really don't want that, so I think it's time to make a change.
Which years? There was one bad year before Donovan, but that year (95-96) was two years removed from the Gators' first Final Four. It was a very young team. The 94-95 team didn't have a great record, but beat some name teams (BC, Wake, TX, FSU) and made it to the tournament.
Waaaaaa This is a reasonable take. Some of your comments the past year or two haven't reflected what you just wrote though. I think the consensus here is UK and Ark are better basketball jobs. I'm not going to put Tennessee over Florida for several reasons though. That's besides the point. Most people here haven't been clamoring for national championships as a barometer for success though. Even if you florida is only behind uk and ark then it stands to reason that the gators should at least be in the mix for an occasional SEC or SEC tournament title and we are not. Billy was a special coach but he was not the only coach to have success here. We've been to the final 4 with the two prior coaches here. All people want is to see a coach that can maximize our potential. Can we really say that about the product on the court the past 7 years?
Really great post. I wrote my abbreviated rushed version before i saw this. I don't understand how people can continue to dismiss what this program has accomplished since the mid nineties. That's a substantial run and better than most as you stated and then supported with facts.
In my mind, reasonable expectations for this program is to make the Tourney every year. Finish in the Top 4 consistently and make a deep run (EE or better) 2 to 3 times a decade. I think anything above that is way beyond what we can do in today's SEC. I'm soon to be 57, I really don't expect to see another national championship in my lifetime. I was lucky to be here to see the two we have.
The only way any of this changes is if we can recruit at a very high level. We have only had one recruiting class since Billy left that would qualify. Even Billy struggled in some years to recruit highly ranked players in his later years, after Cal and WWW took over that department in the SEC. I think the recruiting problems are far deeper than Mike White. We just won't fight Cal and others at their level. As they say, its unilateral disarmament.
So we have established the Floor for Gator basketball is making the Tournament? I can live with that. The ceiling ???…..
GM - WE ALL got a lesson of the realities of NCAA Basketball after the 04's run was over. Yes, Billy recruited some good players but I was expecting a "FLOOD" of top level talent to want to come to Florida. As in 5 STAR talent. Didn't happen, again, yes he picked up some players but IMO what was revealed was that UF was not structurally sound foundation wise. In other words BILLY WAS THE PROGRAM. and it took him 5 - 6 years to "BUILD" another great team. Our current guy has not demonstrated those kind of chops.
I'm not endorsing any of these coaches, but here are a few who have taken at least two programs to the NCAA tournament. Greg McDermott Creighton Mark Turgeon Maryland Kevin Keatts North Carolina State Dan Hurley Connecticut Fran McCaffery Iowa
Didn't Billy flirt with the NBA soon after? He was literally announced as head coach of the magic and then backed out. I think that had something to do with our lull before our elite 8 run
yeah, good post - I was typing a response and you beat me to it. I think that the NBA flirtation definitely contributed to the program's slight down period following the championships - I love Billy D and was overjoyed when he got out of his Magic contract and came back. But it was basically a choice between a brand new challenge with the Magic or a comfortable, familiar job where he was the unquestioned king with nothing left to prove, so in hindsight I wonder whether he may have lost a just little bit of his edge there for a few years with that decision. but he was still pulling in top recruits and after 2009 we went on a really great run. There weren't any more national championships, sure, and the 14-15 season was pretty painful, but I felt like we were still very successful overall during the period after he came back. As a fan, I can live with occasional disappointing seasons and NIT appearances when they're alternating with SEC championships and highly ranked successful teams.
Seriously? I wasnt referencing just the Kruger era. I was a Kruger fan, yet outside of the Final 4 team his overall record at UF was inferior to White's. He only made the NCAAs twice in six years. Norm Sloan, most would consider a very good coach, but his SEC record is worse than White's, not to mention he left the program in a scandal. Then there is the Don DeVoe debacle and John Lotz experiment. Clearly, the program is now in a far better place thanks to BD and Lon Kruger, but let's not forget where the program once was. Im not defending MW at all and this has been a disappointing season. We all want to be competing for titles, but no one wants to be down at the Georgia level either. Tom Crean, a Final 4 coach at Marquette was supposed to be the guy that got them to national relevance, hasn't happened, not even close. A new hire isnt an automatic savior, just look at our recent football coaching history. That was my point.
Kruger and Sloan were much better coaches than White, but it was harder to recruit for Florida back then, and they had a bit of rebuilding to do. I find myself shaking my head at the incompetence nowadays when I am watching the Gator games. However, the gymnastics meets have been great. There’s one tonight against Arkansas, I believe.
