The Head Coach’s Importance

Here is one of many issues with your position....Coach White gave Ques greater opportunity than every other coach at a major program. Every single one.
And all those other coaches had two shots at Ques...after high school, and during the portal.
Ques is at Samford.

 

I suspect we could go back and forth, as you've eliminated data points that don't fit the narrative. Castleton is doing better than he did at Michigan, obviously.

 

Can I have some of what you are smoking?

 

I don’t smoke. Way back in the day when posters were blasting Noah after his freshman year, I posted that he would be one of the greatest players in Gator history. How do you think that Noah would have done if he played for Mike White?

 

Castleton hardly played at Michigan, but he came to UF with a developed game. He also was fortunate under terrible circumstances that KJ got hurt. That forced White to change the offense in a way that made Castleton a focal point. Check out Castleton’s stats before and after KJ went down.

 

Well, CC didn't have a stellar career at Michigan and is doing fairly well at Florida.

And his game has expanded greatly from last season.

 

Signing a kid and developing and utilizing him unfortunately are 2 different things. Most of the kids that White gave an opportunity to left the program and got a greater opportunity elsewhere. Some of them dropped out of sight, including Hester, Ballard and Stokes. Who are the next guys to leave? Will Niels Lane be back next season? Al Maguire used to say that the best thing about freshmen was that they became sophomores. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to happen at UF nowadays.

 

I certainly hope that CC is improved. He was really good last season except for the ball sticking in his hands a little to long. He is by far our best player. Noah and Horford were like volleyball players when the ball went into them in the low post. CC spent the off-season working out for the pros. I don’t know to what extent the UF coaching staff also worked with CC in the off-season. Maybe they did.

 

His footwork is vastly improved. And I am guessing that due to strength and conditioning his ability to repeatedly go up for contested rebounds is much better.

I doubt that these improvements were taught with a few pro workouts.

I agree that he is our best player and was good last season, but he is even better this season.

 

CC gives a lot of credit to those workouts as they helped him understand what he needed to work on. It certainly could be that the coaching staff also deserves credit. However, I don’t believe that they have succeeded in developing the offensive games of any big men who have played for them with the possible exception of CC.

 

I thought that Egbunu really improved and unfortunately got hurt. We really had a good thing going that season.

Blackshear seemed to regress, but with that limp he might have arrived as damaged goods.

 

ok - but if Ques is as good as you suggest, why didn’t a single power 5 coach capitalize on this untapped potential? Why did they all pass on him... twice?
And I ask these rhetorical questions as someone who really liked Glover.

 

You described perfectly why Mike White did a really good coaching job last year. To make Castleton, who had major confidence issues at Michigan, a successful focal point of the offense once Keyontae went down was a gutsy decision that turned out to be a good one. Obviously, give Castleton a ton of credit but also credit White to build the kid back up and put him in a position to be successful.

 

When I think of Duruji in the first game last year, vs. last game last year, vs. start of this year...yeh, major regression.

 

Agreed…that’s why Mullen had to go.

 

Yeah, his footwork this season has gotten much better, and it wasn't bad last season. He's been putting in the work in the off-season. He's also better at drawing fouls and not fouling. The OSU post player, a beefeater, has apparently thrived on drawing fouls against taller players so far this season. I don't think CC will take the bait.
Now we gotta get JJ to defend without fouling. It seems like he just needs to foul, and most of them he gets are easily avoidable.

 

At the level Colin is currently playing at, it's hard to imagine him going undrafted.