This is a show me game imo. Need to reaffirm that we are a superior program to Georgia. Would be a bad look losing to the guy we didn’t want here while he builds up an inferior program to equal to or even better than us. I expect us to come out swinging and win the game handily. Effort 100% from all is a must. Go Gators!
Mike White chose to quit on the Gators, he wasn't shown the door. Let's make that clear. He was never a BAD coach, contrary to what many here believe. He's a fair-to-middlin', slightly-above-average coach. And after the Donovan players were gone, that's what he maintained at UF. A fair-to-middlin', slighlty-above-average SEC program. A perennial bubble team. That's what Georgia will be for his tenure. They'll be good enough to beat you but will lose a few they have no business losing. I have faith that the Gators are on track back to the top tier of the SEC. But back to your point, yes, we do need to beat UGA. Not so much because of Mike White, but because it's friggin' GEORGIA.
Mike did resign. It was, however, under the pressure of growing fan discontent. It’s safe to say, most fans wanted change. And so, the timing was right for both parties. I agree his coaching is underrated on these forums. But in fairness, Mike never really coached to the style for which he was hired. And that led to some justifiable frustration. We absolutely need to win Saturday… not only to aid our resume, but also to not boost that of Georgia. At some point… these type head-to-head matchups may determine a bid.
I can't buy the argument that "Mike never really coached to the style for which he was hired." I have a hard time believing the UF brass went looking for a coach they could dictate the style of play to if they knew he ran different schemes. You find the coach you want and trust them to coach their way. It's possible he misjudged the skills of certain players and it turned out they weren't suitable to his style of play. As an acknowledgement of CMW's talents, his inbounds plays under the basket were the best I've seen by any coach. CTG is lacking in that area, and he should dig out the archival footage and steal a few of those plays. Actually, he needs to do it TODAY because we'll see a few of them tomorrow.
The simple fact is Mike White drastically underperformed based on the salary he was earning. The results were underwhelming, and the player development was lacking. I've never seen a coach spoil so many great crowds by poor home performances. Whatever he was good at, he had a hard time converting that to results. I think the book somewhat closed him due to circumstances completely out of his control; and he was not able to recover from that. That said, by all accounts, he is a super nice guy. I hope we beat the ever-loving snot out of his basketball team (and also score more points). Go GATORS! ,WESGATORS
mike’s La-tech teams played fast, high scoring, exciting basketball. And that was part of his appeal as a candidate for the Florida job. i think most would agree… we didn’t play much fast, high scoring, exciting basketball during his tenure.
I'll meet you halfway; I could see how "drastically" could be considered opinion. I used the term as acknowledgment that the disparity was severe enough to justify a separation. But what's not factual about the notion that his teams underperformed relative to the amount he was paid? If you did a ranking of salary vs. team performance, I would be intrigued to see if anybody could come up with an agreeable concept of "performance" that would suggest he was being paid appropriately or, perhaps, even underpaid for the results he provided. I'm quite certain I could draw it up to show that he was overpaid relative to the results delivered. Go GATORS! ,WESGATORS
Yes, CMW has a knack for inbound plays. But at what cost? Coaching college is all about tradeoffs. Could the time spent practicing inbound plays be better spent elsewhere? What's the expected value of under-the-basket inbound plays per hour spent on practicing them compared to other aspects of the game? I don't know the answer. My guess is spending time on practicing those special situations is fine if you have an experienced team of players who have been playing together for a while and are full command of both offense and defense, which is definitely not what we have right now. And the fact that White is pretty unique in his focus on inbound plays tells me it is probably not an optimal use of precious time, but hard to say for sure. My biased opinion is that it makes the coach look good, especially when those plays are pointed out during the broadcast, without benefiting the team overall.
Was that White or Dusty May? Genuine question. I think that’s a strength of FAU and I don’t remember the BLOB plays being as great later in White’s tenure. But I really don’t know.
I tend to be a coach defender- right or wrong- and I thought Mike White would work until... The Oral Roberts disaster. We had a good lead in the 2nd half and looked like we were on our way to the Sweet 16 and then... We played tight as a drum and simply blew it. A version of that had happened before- the guy was just wound so tight here and IMO coached not to lose instead of to win. Almost like he felt unworthy or unconfident to be the HC of our school. (Imposter syndrome.) That's when I gave up on him. I think he could be successful in another place- if he can act like he belongs and the job isn't too big for him. All that said- tomorrow's game is huge.
The Oral Roberts was just like the UK game to end the COVID ended season. We had an 18 point lead with 12 minutes remaining and ended up losing by 1. We had too many games like that under MW.
Ok, thank you. For some reason I don’t remember much of them towards the end and always wondered if they were largely designed by an assistant that moved on.
