By Franz Beard
A few thoughts to jump start your Monday morning:
MIKE WHITE TAKES THE GEORGIA JOB
After days of speculation that Ole Miss was going to relieve Kermit Davis Jr. of his job and hire Mike White to return to his alma mater, White pulled a huge surprise Sunday by leaving the University of Florida for the job at Georgia. After a dismal 6-26 record that was the worst in school history, Georgia fired Tom Crean on Thursday. Some Georgia fansites were reporting that Georgia was trying to lure Baylor coach Scott Drew. Others thought Xavier assistant and former Georgia player Jonas Hayes would be the guy. Either that was wishful thinking or else Drew and Hayes said thanks but no thanks.
Crean was making $3.2 million at Georgia and White was making $3.2 million at Florida. It’s being speculated that the Georgia contract will pay White approximately $4 million per season.
White leaves UF with a 142-88 record, 19-13 this season when the Gators failed to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2016 (no tournament in 2020). Florida will host Iona (25-7) in the NIT Wednesday (9 p.m., ESPN2). Associate head coach Al Pinkins will lead the Gators in the postseason.
White and the Gators were two minutes away from the Final Four when they lost to South Carolina in the Elite Eight game, but they never got beyond the second round of the NCAA Tournament again. The Gators were plagued by injuries throughout his tenure, the most devastating John Egbunu’s ACL tear in February of 2017 that probably cost the Gators the Final Four, and Keyontae Johnson’s collapse on the court in Tallahassee on December 12, 2020.
The Gators always had good teams under White, but never could get those breakthrough wins that would give them a shot at winning the SEC or high NCAA Tournament seedings.
Despite fan discontent, White’s job was secure for at least one more season, but he chose to take the Georgia job. He gets a fresh start in his coaching career and Florida gets a chance to bring in a new coach who can perhaps elevate the program to the levels it achieved during the Billy Donovan era.
Athletic director Scott Stricklin said in a statement Sunday that the search for a new coach begins immediately. Here are seven coaches who should be on Florida’s short list (not in any particular order):
Brad Underwood, Illinois: First and foremost, if Florida hired him Eric Pastrana would probably stay since Eric was his top assistant when he was the head coach at Stephen F. Austin. He’s 202-92 as a Division I head coach with stops at Stephen F. (89-14 in three years), Okie State (20-13 in one season) and Illinois (93-65 in five seasons including a tie for the Big Ten title). Underwood (age 57) knows the state of Florida from his days as the head coach at Daytona Beach juco. Salary is $2.4 million.
Anthony Grant, Dayton: If it hadn’t been for COVID two years ago, Anthony probably would have had the Flyers in the Final Four. He’s 100-50 in five years at Dayton. Grant (age 55) got fired at Alabama despite a 117-85 record but only made the NCAA one year. He’s 293-160 with stops at VCU (76-25), Alabama and Dayton. Dayton is his alma mater. He’s well paid ($2 million), happy and I’m told he is not going anywhere.
Rob Lanier: He knows Florida from five years as Billy’s assistant (2007-11). Knows the SEC further as Rob Barnes top assistant both at Texas and Tennessee (2015-19). In three years at Georgia State he is 53-29. Lanier (age 53) won the Sun Belt Tournament this year and is in the NCAA Tournament. Outstanding recruiter. Makes a base salary of $575,000.
Wes Miller, Cincinnati: He took a dead end job at UNC-Greensboro and turned that program around, going 125-43 in his last five years there. Cincinnati was a train wreck when he took over this year, going 18-15. Miller, who is 39, played for Roy Williams at North Carolina so he runs the Dean Smith offensive system, which is about as efficient as there is. The question is does he take another job or wait to see if Hubert Davis is going to make it at UNC. Salary is $1.25 million.
Danny Hurley, UConn: He is 53 and has spent his entire life and coaching career in the northeast, working for his legendary dad at St. Anthony and then as the head coach at St. Benedict, which was 223-21 in nine seasons. As a college head coach at Wagner (38-23), Rhode Island (113-82) and UConn (73-45) he has taken over programs that were in bad shape and turned them into winners. UConn is 23-8 and a No. 5 seed. Hurley does have a long friendship with Montverde head coach Kevin Boyle, which could help in keeping Malik Reneau and recruiting Sky Clark. Salary is $2.75 million. The UConn athletic department is swimming in debt. He might be looking to leave for a more stable job in a league where money is no object.
Rob Golden, San Francisco: He’s 36 years old and he’s done a tremendous job resurrecting San Francisco where he’s 57-35 in three years as the head coach. He was a Bruce Pearl assistant at Auburn from 2014-16. His teams play like clones of Bruce Pearl teams. His salary is thought to be in the $500,000 range (San Francisco is private so doesn’t have to disclose).
Matt McMahon, Murray State: He is 43 years old and his only high major or SEC work came as a grad assistant at Tennessee 20 years ago. He is 153-66 at Murray State, but his last five teams have gone 120-35. The Racers are 30-2 this season and a No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament. His salary is $500,000.
UF WOMEN: No. 10 SEED IN BRIDGEPORT REGION
It has been a remarkable turnaround for Florida women’s basketball under Kelly Rae Finley. After five straight losing seasons and two coaching changes (Amanda Butler fired after 2017; Cam Newbauer fired in the summer of 2022), the Gators (21-11) are back in the NCAA Tournament as a No. 10 seed that will face American Athletic Conference and No. 7 UCF (25-3) in a first round game in the Bridgeport Region. UCF comes into the tournament with a 13-game winning streak. Should the Gators get past UCF in the first round, their likely opponent is UConn, whose campus is 79 miles away.
It's a bit perplexing that the Gators are a No. 10 when they beat LSU, Tennessee, Georgia and Kentucky when they were ranked.
Besides the Gators making it into the NCAA Tournament are (seedings listed): 1. South Carolina; 3. LSU; 4. Tennessee; 6. Georgia; 6. Kentucky; 7. Ole Miss and 10. Arkansas.
UF WOMEN WIN NCAA INDOOR TRACK TITLE
This merits more than a few words midway through this column, but with all that happened with Mike White taking the Georgia job, the Gators going to the NIT and the women’s basketball team making the NCAA Tournament, the Florida women taking the NCAA Indoor Track and Field championship in Birmingham doesn’t get the publicity it deserves.
The Gators won five individual events, which tied an NCAA record, as they ended a 30-year drought between national championships. Florida finished with 68 points, followed by Texas (56), Kentucky (44), Arkansas (40) and LSU (29.5).
Winning individual events for UF were Anna Hall (pentathalon), Grace Stark (60 meter hurdles), Talitha Diggs (400 meters) and Jasmine Moore (long jump and triple jump). Natricia Hooper had a second place finish in the triple jump, while Stark placed fourth and Semira Killebrew sixth in the 60 meters and Claire Bryant seventh in the long job.
For UF coach Mike Holloway, the national championship was his 10th as Florida’s head coach (men’s indoor champs 5 times, men’s outdoor champs 4 times).
UF MEN’S TENNIS: NO. 4 GATORS 5, NO. 1 TENNESSEE 2
With senior Duarte Vale earning his 100th career singles win (6-7, 6-3, 6-1) over Tennessee’s Angel Diaz the 4th-ranked Gators (11-2, 4-0 SEC) overpowered No. 1 Tennessee (14-4, 2-2 SEC) in Knoxville, 5-2, Sunday afternoon. The win completed a dominating weekend for the Gators, who won last year’s NCAA title. On Friday, the Gators blanked No. 8 Georgia (11-4, 3-1 SEC), 4-0, in Athens.
Next up for the Gators is a midweek matchup with Illinois. The Gators will be home next weekend to face Ole Miss on Friday and Mississippi State on Sunday.
GATORS WIN TWO OF THREE VS. SETON HALL
The 11th-ranked Gators (13-4) spotted Seton Hall a 3-0 lead and never recovered Sunday afternoon, dropping a 6-4 decision in the final game of a three-game weekend series. The Gators won the first two games, 16-4 and 11-9.
Hitting stars for the weekend were Jud Fabian (4-8, 2 HR, 1 3B, 7 RBI) and Wyatt Langford (7-12, 2 HR, 7 RBI). Hunter Barco (3-1) and Brandon Sproat (3-1) got the two wins.
The Gators play Florida State Tuesday (6 p.m., SEC Network+) at the Florida Ballpark. The Gators open SEC play on the road next weekend at Alabama (12-5).
UF SOFTBALL: GATORS, MISSISSIPPI STATE ONE WIN APIECE
Florida’s bats took a powder Sunday as the No. 3 Gators (22-2, 1-1 SEC) dropped the second game of their 3-game series with Mississippi State (16-10, 1-1 SEC), 1-0, at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium. Saturday, the Gators opened the series with an 8-4 win over the Bulldogs.
Mississippi State managed only five hits off Natalie Lugo (5-1) Sunday, but three of them came in the third inning when the Bulldogs scored their only run. The Gators had runners on first and third with one out in the second inning and had a runner gunned down at the plate for the final out in the fourth.
The final game of the series will be tonight at KSP (7 p.m., SEC Network).
Other UF sports: The No. 15 Florida women’s tennis team (9-4, 2-2 SEC) split two matches over the weekend. The Gators lost to No. 23 Georgia (7-2, 4-0 SEC) 4-1, on Friday but rebounded Sunday with a 4-1 win over No. 16 Tennessee (8-4, 2-2 SEC) … The 12th-ranked women’s lacrosse team (2-4) dropped a 12-9 decision to Loyola.
ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Remember that old joke I’ve referenced before, the one that goes there are 14 schools in the Big Ten and 19 of them will play in the NCAA Tournament? Well, it wasn’t 19 when the Tournament Selection Committee announced the brackets Sunday night, but it was nine. One of them was Michigan, the same Michigan that is 17-14 without a single decent out of conference win. The same Michigan whose thug of a head coach started a brawl after his team was poleaxed by Wisconsin when he punched a Wisconsin assistant. Among Michigan’s out of conference losses was a blowout to UCF.
The other eight Big Ten teams to get into the tournament are Wisconsin, Illinois, Purdue, Iowa, Ohio State, Rutgers, Michigan State and Indiana. Basically, it came down to every team that had a winning record got into the NCAA Tournament. I would argue there are maybe six that actually deserve to be in and the NCAA Tournament will prove it. Every single year, the NCAA rewards the Big Ten with more teams than anyone else and every single year Big Ten basketball teams do a remarkable impersonation of Big Ten football teams.
Quick now: How many Big Ten teams have won national championships in basketball since 1990? Answer: Michigan State 2000. How many SEC teams have won national championships in basketball since 1990? Answer: Arkansas 1994; Kentucky 1996, 1998 and 2012; and Florida 2006-07. How many Big Ten teams have won national championships in football since 1990? Answer: Michigan 1997, Ohio State 2002 and Ohio State 2014. How many SEC teams have won national championships in football since 1990? Answer: Alabama 1992, 2009, 2011-12, 2015, 2017, 2020; Florida 1996, 2006, 2008; LSU 2003, 2007, 2019; Tennessee 1998; Auburn 2010; and Georgia 2020.
Meanwhile the SEC got six teams in this year’s NCAA Basketball Tournament: No. 2 Auburn (Midwest), No. 2 (East) Kentucky, No. 3 (South) Tennessee, No. 4 Arkansas, No. 4 (West), No. 6 (West) Alabama and No. 6 (Midwest) LSU. The only SEC team that should have gotten in but didn’t was Texas A&M, which made a great run to get to the SEC Tournament championship game by whacking Florida, No. 4 Auburn (a No. 2 seed) and No. 15 Arkansas (a no. 4 seed) on consecutive days. Even with a spotty non-conference schedule and an 8-game losing streak midseason, the Aggies did win 23 games. I’m not a math major but that’s six more wins than Michigan and Buzz Williams (Aggie coach) never got suspended for punching another coach.
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