Florida whipped by Tennessee - Fire Coach White?

[MidwestChomp]

Will Foley give White enough time to build a program? From the looks of it, that might take way too long. Next season will be tough as the O'Dome is being renovated so home games will not be in Gainesville for months. By that time, we may have 2000-3000 fans populating the 60 million arena.

 

[Double Gator Dad]

A few more comments from a longtime Gator basketball fan and then I will move on.


1) Don't kid yourself there is a lot of talent on this team we just don't see it on the court right now.

2) Last year was the "once every ten years" rebuilding year for Billy he was poised to have a great team this year. If he was here, this team would be ranked.

3) The offense, using the term loosely, makes no sense and rarely leads to good shots. Instead it seems to be a contest to see who can launch a three the fastest.

4) Regardless of the talent level of the team, there is no excuse for the lack of effort on defense. It appears that White does not know how to prepare his team to play.

5) There will be nights when a team starts out sluggish. The difference is a good coach knows when to light up his players during timeouts to get them going. I saw NONE of that last night.

6) Unlike football, a basketball program can collapse in one year which is why I have said all along that it is critical that White win now not next year. I hear people say "Allen is the future." I guess you don't follow college basketball, Allen could very well declare this year.


We will lose DFS , Murphy and possibly Robinson and Allen after this season. White has already whiffed on several top recruits for next year. If we finish the year in the NIT, we may be watching all of Billy's work vanish and we will have the answer to the burning question. Is Florida now a basketball school or did we just have an iconic coach? I think we are getting the answer.

 

[ATXGator]

Mike White lasts 4 years and gets fired at the same point in time that Billy decides he doesn't want to be in the NBA anymore. He comes back to Florida and with new energy brings the program back to the top!

 

[MidwestChomp]

A few more comments from a longtime Gator basketball fan and then I will move on.


1) Don't kid yourself there is a lot of talent on this team we just don't see it on the court right now.

2) Last year was the "once every ten years" rebuilding year for Billy he was poised to have a great team this year. If he was here, this team would be ranked.

3) The offense, using the term loosely, makes no sense and rarely leads to good shots. Instead it seems to be a contest to see who can launch a three the fastest.

4) Regardless of the talent level of the team, there is no excuse for the lack of effort on defense. It appears that White does not know how to prepare his team to play.

5) There will be nights when a team starts out sluggish. The difference is a good coach knows when to light up his players during timeouts to get them going. I saw NONE of that last night.

6) Unlike football, a basketball program can collapse in one year which is why I have said all along that it is critical that White win now not next year. I hear people say "Allen is the future." I guess you don't follow college basketball, Allen could very well declare this year.


We will lose DFS , Murphy and possibly Robinson and Allen after this season. White has already whiffed on several top recruits for next year. If we finish the year in the NIT, we may be watching all of Billy's work vanish and we will have the answer to the burning question. Is Florida now a basketball school or did we just have an iconic coach? I think we are getting the answer.

Forgot about that one and done rule. Wonder if Foley is nervous about his "diamond in the rough" find.

 

[Double Gator Dad]

I have a better idea. Have Foley admit he blew it again and make the change at the end of the year.
Although I was against this initially, I now realize that we may have been better off handing the keys to Pelphrey.
At least he can recruit and would have provided continuity.

John was not given much of a chance at Arkansas and had forces working against him (Nolan Richardson) that wanted their guy. That was about 5-6 years ago. How is Arkansas doing so far with Nolan's guy?

 

[MidwestChomp]

I was thinking about Pelphrey this morning as well, and wonder how the team would be with him at the helm. I always felt bad for John that he didn't get the job, especially after Foley hired a young coach with not much experience.

 

[PhD Gator]

What's even scarier to me right now is that FSU is somehow building a pretty solid basketball program. I believe this year will be their second straight top 5 recruiting class. With us apparently falling off the map, they will be able to grab all the state's basketball momentum (though Miami is doing pretty decent as well) and could basically replace us as the team from the state that makes noise nationally. Scary, scary thought. It was nice being the state's powerhouse in basketball, but I'm afraid those days may be over.

 

[ATXGator]

I've always been a huge supporter of Foley, but I never understood this hire. I figured with where Billy had brought the program he could go after an Archie Miller type coach. I'll give White time and I really hope he succeeds, but he needs to figure out how to recruit and build a solid offense. This is big boy basketball, you need more than just athletic guys... you need Xs and Os.

 

[lagator]

This is looking more and more like a really bad hire by Foley. As someone pointed out above, and I have been stating the last few BB threads, this is probably the best team White has ever had by a longshot talent wise, and looking at his (not Billy's) first recruiting class probably the most talented team he is going to have for the foreseeable future. The fact that we are sucking so bad with this talented bunch, we have crap coming in, and anyone projected to be drafted is likely to bail, the future looks bleak.

Unless we find a way for a remarkable turn around this season (which is possible if not likely) we should fire White at years end before we fall too far to recover fir years.

 

[TheBigClaw]

You guys are funny, one bad game and let's fire white? Our fan base sucks


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[lagator]

You guys are funny, one bad game and let's fire white? Our fan base sucks


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One bad game? Now that's funny.

 

[Double Gator Dad]

If it was one bad game none of this would be posted. We are talking about half the regular season.
The point PhdGator makes above further escalates the issue. I mentioned we are missing on recruits but as PhdGator stated, FSU and Miami have completely knocked us off the pedestal.
I have been a season ticket holder since Sloan's third year and our recruiting situation is beginning to look identical to what we faced 35 years ago. Forget getting the best players in the country, we can't even get the better players in Florida.

We are now the third horse in a weak basketball state. Great Move Foley!

Since most of you guys are football fans only I will translate. We are becoming the Wake Forest of basketball

 

[lagator]

I'm pretty sure he meant Gator Basketball = Wake Forrest Football if we're not careful. In other words we will suck and wont be able to compete with the top half of our conference.

 

[Double Gator Dad]

Correct. I am comparing our basketball program to Wake's football program.

I wish I was exaggerating

 

[TheBigClaw]

This is practically the same team Billy D won like 16 with last year and you guys want to fire white?


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