What do you realistically expect in terms of tournament play over the next 3-5 years.

The issue with White's tenure is not really the lack of tournament success, which I generally don't hold a coach accountable for until it reaches a really impressive sample size. The issue is that we just generally haven't been very good in the regular season -- the last three years we've either been on the bubble or bubble adjacent, and we've generally just run out average-ish squads that haven't been very entertaining to watch and never seriously competed at the highest levels.

At least in 2017-2018 we were a competitive, entertaining team that finished third in the conference, played some good basketball and never made us stress about making the tournament. That team lost in the second round, same as the 2018-2019 and 2020-2021 teams, but it was a much better experience to watch them.

 

The meltdown on Swamp Gas is a sign of things to come here most likely. I've always wondered what thing of great value people lose when the Gators dont win? And, is it serious enough to call for someone to lose a job or think it's OK to denigrate players?

 

I joined the faculty at UF in 1982. At that time we had NEVER been an NCAA tournament team.

 

I joined in 85, and the same. It was a big deal (in 86 or 87) when we made the NIT final four

 

And we finally won an SEC basketball Championship in 1989.

Before the football team ever did ever win one cleanly.

Folks need to remember how bad it used to be.

 

Was that the year of the three pointer by Crawford

 

I don’t remember a Crawford. One of the Lawrence brothers hit a big 3-pointer against TCU, but I don’t remember if that was the game that sent us to NYC

 

Oops.

 

More importantly, we need to remember how good it used to be.

 

Yeah, this has been the biggest issue for me. We should be competing for SEC titles, but we consistently lose to bad teams and remove ourselves from contention. Winning the SEC would go a long way IMO to getting fans to come back around.

 

To the OP, I think the answer is kind of easy (I guess simple is a better word). I think this team is going to show that Mike has FINALLY found the magic formula and we will be expected to be an average of a Sweet 16 kind of program (some better, some less) with a bouncing ball chance of reaching the Final Four. But if the moving parts - and there are a LOT of moving parts this season - do not mesh then I see the inevitable loss of the Mike White audition. And with that (because of the negative recruiting tactics by the competition) we will become fence-sitters to make the tourney. This is a HUGE year for Mike.