Let me address the elephant in the room right now: Florida isn’t going to fire coach Mike White. It simply won’t do it. At least, not right now. Right or wrong, the gap between the perception of White among fans (and some members of the media) and the UF administration is vast.
I, for one, have never been bullish on the #FireMikeWhite movement. Not because I’m convinced White is the one to lead this program back to its national championship days (I’m not), but because, despite the frustrating way in which his teams tend to flame out, he has achieved a relatively impressive level of consistency.
Florida has only missed the tournament once during his tenure, and that was White’s first season. That team improved on its record from Billy Donovan’s last season, and it immediately followed it up with an Elite Eight run in 2017.
That tournament run, understandably, bought White quite a bit of political capital with Scott Stricklin and the rest of the UAA. But should it have? Florida reached the Sweet 16 with two impressive wins over East Tennessee State and Virginia, but it managed to avoid a top seed in the following round as No. 1 Villanova was upset by No. 8 Wisconsin (sound familiar?).
Everyone remembers what happened at the end of the game against the Badgers. Chris Chiozza drilled a miraculous, buzzer-beater three to win the game in overtime and avoid elimination. But what is less frequently remembered is what happened before that shot left Chiozza’s hand, and before that game even went to overtime.
With just 5:24 to play in regulation, Florida held a 12-point lead. In classic Gators fashion, that lead evaporated, and the game came down to chance. You can give White props for taking a team to the Elite Eight in his second season, but let’s get real. If the arc on Chiozza’s shot guided it anywhere except through the bottom of that net in Madison Square Garden four years ago, are we even having this conversation right now?
If the crowning achievement of a regime is a lucky shot in overtime to win a game that should have been easily won in regulation, only to miss out on the Final Four in a seed upset against a conference rival in the following outing, is that really all that impressive?
I’m legitimately not sure if Florida should move on from White. Though he’s still a young coach who will certainly improve throughout his career, six years seems like a large enough sample size to start drawing conclusions. But at the same time, the Gators are not a blue-blood program, and if they made a coaching change, they’d likely be back scraping the mid-majors for an unproven up-and-comer like they were when Billy Donovan left six years ago.
That’s far from a guarantee for success, and though White’s teams have underachieved to a painful degree, there’s still something to be said for getting into the field in March and having a chance for a run. But just getting to the tournament isn’t enough, and Florida should still be playing basketball right now. The fact that it’s not should be sounding the alarms to the folks in charge.
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