Mike White

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First of all notice the progression Mike White has made this year. He has gone from a guy who can not get in the tourney even with his father on the committee, to a guy who made the tourney but a bad tourney coach to a guy who make the tourney and made a run. His star has really risen.

Now what do we know about him as fans:

1. He seems to be a good talent evaluator. His first UF recruit was Leon and I think Leon was productive beyond expectations and came up big in the tourney. He recruited Barry as a grad transfer and he ended up being a very useful player. Gak and Hester showed promise this year. We of course know nothing of Bassett. Still I think UF fans must be encouraged by White's evaluation of players.

2. White did a good job keeping Allen, Hayes and Stone. But I can not count them towards White's evaluation. We shall see how Hudson works out. It would be nice to see White capitalize on this years success and have a higher rated recruiting class in 2018. Still based on his players so far I trust his talent evaluation and think anyone he signs has a chance to play at UF's current level.

3. As a tactician perhaps White could make more in game adjustments. I am happy he has scrapped his terrible zone press that was eaten up alot his first year. White's teams have continued the solid defense UF played under Donovan. Offensively, a better half court offense would be an area for improvements.

4. White is really pretty good on special plays. He has used creative inbounds plays and UF has scored on a number of them. I think special plays are an area that UF is better in under White than in the recent past.

Donovan certainly grew as a coach at UF and White certainly can grow too. This season was really important for White to establish his credibility as UF's coach and I think he accomplished that.
 

GatorTAG

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He's going to be a pretty good coach but I worry he is too soft. Too much of a "player's coach", if you you get my drift.
 

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White has grown on me this year. I don't believe anyone ever picked us to make it to the Elite 8 but I also don't attribute getting there because of his coaching. The loss of the SCar game sits in his lap, in my opinion, but it is what it is.

I'm not a recruiting guru so I won't speak to that other than Allen has been impressive this year. I just wish we could get stud freshman that can come in and contribute right away. Always seems like our freshman have to be slowly acclimated to college basketball.

I believe he still a long way to go with in-game adjustments and setting offense, but I will give credit where it has developed more this year. Again, why he's grown on me. Still a lot of street ball being played.

Overall, he's our coach and I'll support him but that doesn't mean I won't blame him for inefficiencies. I'm a believer we shouldn't be the school that continues to bring in "Up and comers" but that's our reputation. I guarantee you Archie Miller won't have any problems at Indiana this next year.

The bar has been set and I think Sweet 16 should be the expectation. I'm sure other will feel differently.
 

Double Gator Dad

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I agree with all the improvements mentioned and I do think he is on track to become a really good coach.

I have only two negatives. I agree with Tag that he seems a bit soft on his players but I also believe that he is way too "soft" on referees.
I have read all of his comments about being calm and respectful and blah, blah, blah but I disagree. I am not suggesting that he go off like a lunatic, but even Billy knew when to give the refs some sh!t when they are sticking it to you. I have witnessed the impact many, many times it is simple human nature.
Call me crazy but we didn't exactly get the benefit of the doubt from the officials in the tourney and I can't help but think that a travel would have been called had Mike jumped their a$$es a couple of times during the game.

Hopefully, with some more time he will figure out that the nice guy thing is the nice guy thing.
 

Thick&ThinG8r

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My biggest problem with White is basically the same problem I had with Billy no mid range offense, when SC took away the 3 point line and with no inside presence we were in deep trouble. As for being soft I just don't see it he is as intense as any coach I've ever seen.
 

Double Gator Dad

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My biggest problem with White is basically the same problem I had with Billy no mid range offense, when SC took away the 3 point line and with no inside presence we were in deep trouble. As for being soft I just don't see it he is as intense as any coach I've ever seen.

You are right, while the refs were missing call after call he was silent and intensely stared at nothing in particular
 

t-gator

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He's going to be a pretty good coach but I worry he is too soft. Too much of a "player's coach", if you you get my drift.
I think that's crazy talk . He looks like nazi out there. He coaches em hard even when we're up by 20. One thing that's stood out to me from day 1 is how hard his players play for him.
 

FireFoley

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We all seem to share the same sentiments regarding Mile's weaknesses. His biggest strength IMO, is that the guys play really hard for him. That is big in the day of me only and me first. I agree that his biggest weakness is his terrible ability to come up with X's and O's on offense, especially a zone offense. Against a zone his systems flat out stink. No movement just perimeter passing. His game management skills are no worse than almost every other coach. That is why I say if you can be good at game management you can steal a few wins each year. Teaching your guys to understand good shot vs. bad shot. always knowing time/score. Always knowing the situation. That is a part of the game that has long gone and I believe that almost no teams practice it. I call it physically practicing the mental aspects of the game. I believe coaches are so afraid they don;t have enough practice time, that they ignore those mental areas. I agree with another who said he seems to be pretty decent at underneath out of bounds plays, which leads to my surprise at his lack of ability to have an offensive set or play late in games. When you do not have a great offensive one on player ( and no Allen and Robinson are not), you need to involve everyone in those situations to truly stress the defense. Having guys stand around and watch is a defense's best friend. This team was good enough to make it where it did and I am not as surprised as many. They were a good team. a small improvement in the mental aspects of the game would have made them a real threat. We may never be at the top echelon talent wise, but we will have enough talent that if we can just get that mental/game management understanding, we will be a top 10 team annually.
 

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I think he is still coaching/teaching/evaluating during the game...letting them learn from their mistakes. I also think he has trained them to make the right decisions given the situation. He may be hard headed or he may not see the opposition doing anything to stop what we should execute. All in all, I like him and he is also a Gator, so I definitely like him.
 

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For anyone that may still have the opinion that White didn't orchestrate Cheese's buzzer beater, watch this video. As the substitutions are happening after the second made free throw, he gets Cheese's attention and you can see him pantomime the route with which Cheese takes after receiving the inbounds pass. Not only that, just prior to the ref handing Barry the ball, he gets Canyon's attention and tells him to pass the ball to Cheese instead of Hill, who is standing further up court. You can also see him placing all our players on the court after the second made free throw, as well. He spread the other three guys out to clear a lane for Cheese to do what he did without any defensive interference. Brilliant strategy making on the fly.

 

TN G8tr

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Good analysis Sas. I think White has the potential to do well but it looks very much like he was orchestrating players where to go.
 

Gator by the Sea

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Solid post indeed. The team won a lot of games this year that they would have lost last season. White brought a guy in during the offseason to improve their FT shooting, too, which was much better this year. And the part I agree with the most is that he is indeed a class act. Has anyone else noticed....and I know this is a little thing, but sometimes little things are the best indicators of a persons' character...that he always makes a point to call every sideline reporter by their name. I can't recall any other coach doing that. For some reason that stands out to me a classy move by Coach White. Gator basketball is in good hands.
 

GatorTAG

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I think that's crazy talk . He looks like nazi out there. He coaches em hard even when we're up by 20. One thing that's stood out to me from day 1 is how hard his players play for him.
You clearly have forgotten the lollygagging performance the guys had against Vandy. They were soft as cotton candy until he put his foot in their azz after that loss. He even called them out for being soft. Thats when they went on a tear and started beating teams big and even blew out Kentucky.

Every video I've ever seen of him at practice or coaching his guys he's clowning around like he's one of them. That's usually how you get to be a players coach. He's young and still learning his craft. We'll see.
 

t-gator

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A couple things stood out to me this year on white's improvement. White was more flexible defensively. We didn't press as much and we would show a little zone here and there.The players rotations on defense were more crisp which tells me they're more bought in this year. I think his off season player development was pretty good. I feel like everyone got better individually with a full off season of coach white. Hell, even hill was hitting jumpers and free throws. We have top 10 recruiting class by espn rankings. 2018 recruiting class has a chance at being top 5 imo. The arrow is definitely pointing up with coach white. I understand some complaints with how we play on the offensive side of the floor and i too would like to see more movement when we get on those droughts. But we scored a ton of points this year. We busted the clock twice i believe. I can't remember a year we scored this many points. Didn't we win like 3 games in row by 30+ points? We beat Kentucky by 20+ ,our largest margin if victory over them ever. We scored the ball pretty good this year.
 

Bernardo de la Paz

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White has grown on me this year.

I was very disappointed with the hire and I thought last year's team had the talent to make the tournament.

This year I thought we had the talent to make the elite 8, but I thought White would blow it. After Egbunu went down I thought we'd be lucky to make the sweet 16. Getting to the elite 8 after that definitely exceeded expectations.

I think it's too early to judge him as a recruiter, but I agree with a bunch of the other points above.

Great job dumping his ineffective press.

He's exceptional at drawing up inbounds plays.

Almost every player improved from last year and they play their tails off for him.

He still needs to improve on things like working the officials and some of his late game decisions like when to foul, but those are easy to correct.

I am optimistic about the future of gator basketball.
 

Bernardo de la Paz

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One other note. I spent plenty of time in the box complaining about how disorganized our offense looked, especially early in the season, and I complained that it's too much like cal's awful dribble drive BS. We've still got a long way to go in that area, but in hindsight it seems like we struggled the most against zone and it's awfully tough to beat a zone when you don't have any good shooters or post players.
 

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