ADVERTISEMENT

Can you smell the apples, BABY?!?!?!?

sadgator

sadgator

Bull Gator
Jan 9, 2002
22,543
15,092
113
Copper Monkey 30 minutes prior to kickoff
16-15…that NIT bid is looking promising…

Probably one or two wins in the SECT and we got it…

https://www.gatorsports.com/story/s...ors-basketball-win-vs-lsu-tigers/69965622007/

smelling-fruit.jpg
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: instaGATOR and fsu939913
I don't follow basketball. I had no idea what our record was.

Why are we so average? Talent? Coaching? Both?

We spend a lot of money, don't we?
 
  • Haha
Reactions: instaGATOR
GatorTheo said:
I don't follow basketball. I had no idea what our record was.

Why are we so average? Talent? Coaching? Both?

We spend a lot of money, don't we?
Click to expand...
Basketball relies way more on talent than coaching. It's probably 90% talent and 10% coaching
 
  • Like
Reactions: PacoGator19
fsu939913 said:
Basketball relies way more on talent than coaching. It's probably 90% talent and 10% coaching
Click to expand...
Agreed for the most part but there are instances where the 10% can make a difference. For example John Calipari. Guy can recruit but I think he’s a very average at best game day/X’s & O’s coach. So that team has mostly underachieved with him as the coach relative to the talent he gets.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ghost_of_ukalum1988 and fsu939913
PacoGator19 said:
Agreed for the most part but there are instances where the 10% can make a difference. For example John Calipari. Guy can recruit but I think he’s a very average at best game day/X’s & O’s coach. So that team has mostly underachieved with him as the coach relative to the talent he gets.
Click to expand...
Well as we all seem to agree, getting talent is the most important job a coach has and nobody gets more of it than Cal.

I’d take him in Gainesville every day of the week. Half the NBA played for the guy. It’s sick.
 
bradleygator said:
Well as we all seem to agree, getting talent is the most important job a coach has and nobody gets more of it than Cal.

I’d take him in Gainesville every day of the week. Half the NBA played for the guy. It’s sick.
Click to expand...

Still, one ring to show for it a decade ago, considering the talent he's had basically every season, is pretty underwhelming.

I think with him, as he's aged, it's really less about a deficiency with coaching ability and more his ability to gel a team of top recruits. He's turned into an NBA factory but can't get them together in the season.
 
  • Like
Reactions: IrishPokerDog and PacoGator19
bradleygator said:
Well as we all seem to agree, getting talent is the most important job a coach has and nobody gets more of it than Cal.

I’d take him in Gainesville every day of the week. Half the NBA played for the guy. It’s sick.
Click to expand...
And he has a total of 1 ring in 32 years of being a college head coach. So he has done less with more than just about any college coach that I know of.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ocalaman
PacoGator19 said:
And he has a total of 1 ring in 32 years of being a college head coach. So he has done less with more than just about any college coach that I know of.
Click to expand...

How many coaches have more rings in the last 32 years, probably like 4 or 5, and I'd take any of them in Gainesville as well. How many have more final 4s, elite 8s?

If you guys don't want a coach that recruits 4 first round NBA picks a year, then we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one.
 
  • Like
Reactions: GatorGray
bradleygator said:
How many coaches have more rings in the last 32 years, probably like 4 or 5, and I'd take any of them in Gainesville as well. How many have more final 4s, elite 8s?

If you guys don't want a coach that recruits 4 first round NBA picks a year, then we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one.
Click to expand...
I didn’t say he isn’t better than a Todd Golden or a Mike White or that he hasn’t been successful. Winning 1 national title is certainly better than most coaches.

What I did say is he isn’t that good of an X’s and O’s Coach and has underachieved based on the talent level he gets. You have to take into account he’s also the head coach of a blue blood program and one of the winningest programs in college basketball history. I still stand by that comment that he has underachieved.
 
Last edited:
Dannygator1989 said:
Still, one ring to show for it a decade ago, considering the talent he's had basically every season, is pretty underwhelming.

I think with him, as he's aged, it's really less about a deficiency with coaching ability and more his ability to gel a team of top recruits. He's turned into an NBA factory but can't get them together in the season.
Click to expand...

I mean since 2018 (including this year) he's 64-25 in the SEC and missed the NCAAT once (canceled in 2020). He's been to an elite 8 and lost once in the first round, along with whatever he does this year.

If we found someone to do that at UF, I'd turn cartwheels.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: instaGATOR
PacoGator19 said:
I didn’t say he isn’t better than a Todd Golden or a Mike White or that he hasn’t been successful. Winning 1 national title is certainly better than most coaches.

What I did say is he isn’t that good of an X’s and O’s Coach and has underachieved based on the talent level he gets. You have to take into account he’s also the head coach of a blue blood program and one of the winningest programs in college basketball history. I still stand by that comment that he has underachieved.
Click to expand...
As far as the blueblood comment, that is true, but that job was open for a reason. And his program at Memphis was better than any stretch UF has had without Billy D.

My point is it's kind of silly to nitpick how a coach goes about going to the elite 8 every other year. Out-recruit, out-scheme, however you want to do it. I'd just like to see someone do it in Gainesville.

One thing I have definitely learned from the recent mediocrity (and that's charitable) of our hoops and football teams, is that coaching in the NCAA is hard, very hard. There's a handfull of guys capable of running a program that can win consistently.
 
bradleygator said:
As far as the blueblood comment, that is true, but that job was open for a reason. And his program at Memphis was better than any stretch UF has had without Billy D.

My point is it's kind of silly to nitpick how a coach goes about going to the elite 8 every other year. Out-recruit, out-scheme, however you want to do it. I'd just like to see someone do it in Gainesville.

One thing I have definitely learned from the recent mediocrity (and that's charitable) of our hoops and football teams, is that coaching in the NCAA is hard, very hard. There's a handfull of guys capable of running a program that can win consistently.
Click to expand...
Still easier to recruit and do well at UK basketball than 95% of the rest of the country because of their tradition/history, etc. Dont forget even Tubby Smith won a national title at UK.

Don’t forget he cheated at UMASS and Memphis as well and had wins vacated.

He’s also currently the highest paid men’s college basketball coach in the country and makes $2.5M more than the next highest paid coach.

That is pretty much the definition of overrated/underachieving. If you are being paid much much more than anybody else in your profession but haven’t won a national title in over 10 years.

You’d like to see someone do it in Gainesville? We’re you not around for Billy Donovan who did it at a “football” school and a non-blue blood program?
 
PacoGator19 said:
Still easier to recruit and do well at UK basketball than 95% of the rest of the country because of their tradition/history, etc. Dont forget even Tubby Smith won a national title at UK.

Don’t forget he cheated at UMASS and Memphis as well and had wins vacated.

He’s also currently the highest paid men’s college basketball coach in the country and makes $2.5M more than the next highest paid coach.

That is pretty much the definition of overrated/underachieving. If you are being paid much much more than anybody else in your profession but haven’t won a national title in over 10 years.

You’d like to see someone do it in Gainesville? We’re you not around for Billy Donovan who did it at a “football” school and a non-blue blood program?
Click to expand...
Yeah I know about Billy Donovan. I was actually hoping we might have a competitive basketball program again post-2014.

As far as being overpaid, if your point is you’d rather continue to suck on the cheap, again we’ll have to agree to disagree.
 
bradleygator said:
Yeah I know about Billy Donovan. I was actually hoping we might have a competitive basketball program again post-2014.

As far as being overpaid, if your point is you’d rather continue to suck on the cheap, again we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Click to expand...
Well I wouldn’t say we are being cheap. UF isn’t going to pay $8.5M per year for a basketball coach, which is what Calipari is making. Also I think the buyout for Calipari is like $48M right now as well. It is ridiculous. So yes UF has had its fair share of buyouts. Certainly wouldn’t want to be a part of a deal as bad as the one UK has with Calipari right now. Calipari completely has UK by the balls. He has all the power.
So if you think we are being cheap then so it every other basketball program in the country. He makes 2.5M more per year than Bill Self is who is the 2nd highest paid coach in the country.

In fact Calipari was just listed as the most overpaid college basketball coach in the entire country.

news.yahoo.com

Five most overpaid men's college basketball coaches: Looking at you, Calipari and Hoiberg

Several college hoops coaches are struggling to match the expectations that come with a contract worth multiple millions in annual salary.
news.yahoo.com news.yahoo.com
 
Last edited:
It's going to take longer to get the Gators back to competing for an SEC title because our AD took too long to get rid of Mike White. Other SEC programs hired quality coaches and have bypassed us while we floundered and allowed a bigger and bigger talent gap to grow. Basketball can be turned around more quickly than football or baseball, IMO, but it will take us another 2-3 years to see if Todd Golden can bring the program back.
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: instaGATOR, PacoGator19 and Countygator1
ocalaman said:
It's going to take longer to get the Gators back to competing for an SEC title because our AD took too long to get rid of Mike White. Other SEC programs hired quality coaches and have bypassed us while we floundered and allowed a bigger and bigger talent gap to grow. Basketball can be turned around more quickly than football or baseball, IMO, but it will take us another 2-3 years to see if Todd Golden can bring the program back.
Click to expand...
Yep. White should have been let go 2-3 years sooner. Good guy but couldn’t develop players, horrendous roster management and had no offensive identity. And he wasn’t any better of a coach the day he left UF then the day he was hired. He was young and he didn’t improve as a coach which is what you would hope when hiring a young coach.

I’m honestly on the fence with Golden but he did go 7-0 against other 1st year SEC head coaches and if we gave White 7-8 years to destroy what Billy D built then I think it is probably fair to give Golden at least 3 years to see if there has been some improvement.

Very similar to the football program that the previous coach didn’t leave much to work with. White left Castleton and then the 3 next best players on the team were players that Golden brought in. Golden does a tough road ahead though IMO. The UF basketball program definitely isn’t held in the same regard nationally now as it was the day Mike White was hired. We are very far removed from the successes of Billy D so Golden has a tougher sell.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: instaGATOR
I think Golden can coach. 9-9 in the SEC with this roster is impressive. But it’s looking pretty sketchy whether he can get players. Our recruiting currently is non-existent.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: instaGATOR
Golden isn’t recruiting high school prospects much in this next class because he doesn’t have the relationships yet, especially coming over from the West coast. He’s going to go heavy transfer portal and then more high school prospects the following year. However, I even think he said that he may focus more on transfer portal. It can probably work better in basketball than in football just because you don’t need as many players, etc. We will see how that works out.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: instaGATOR
Random thoughts:

At least Golden didn’t have a losing record, so that is a positive…and he beat Mike White twice.

We’ve done very-well in the transfer portal in basketball.

It’s so annoying that we have to keep saying “when this happens or that happens we’ll SEE if our coaches are any good.” It’s like we’ve been doomed to perpetual sports success purgatory!
 
  • Haha
Reactions: instaGATOR
sadgator said:
Random thoughts:

At least Golden didn’t have a losing record, so that is a positive…and he beat Mike White twice.

We’ve done very-well in the transfer portal in basketball.

It’s so annoying that we have to keep saying “when this happens or that happens we’ll SEE if our coaches are any good.” It’s like we’ve been doomed to perpetual sports success purgatory!
Click to expand...
Good point. Haven't been able to make the right hire since Urban and Billy D.
 
I thought he showed that his team will play for him and they played defense all year and he had to play completely different without Castleton and still won a couple SEC games, so I think he can coach. But he doesn’t sign ANYBODY. I’ve never seen anything like it.

It is hard to run a big time college sports program and I’m not sure you want to be targeting all these young guys. You see a bunch of guys coaching this weekend, on their second or third jobs, that are all going to the tourney, all of which we probably would have been competitive with if we had pursued them.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: instaGATOR
sadgator said:
Random thoughts:

At least Golden didn’t have a losing record, so that is a positive…and he beat Mike White twice.

We’ve done very-well in the transfer portal in basketball.

It’s so annoying that we have to keep saying “when this happens or that happens we’ll SEE if our coaches are any good.” It’s like we’ve been doomed to perpetual sports success purgatory!
Click to expand...
At least the guys were getting decent shots without having to jack up a desperation heave at the end of the shot clock. Didn’t hit very many but still much better.
 
I don't want to pile on the program here, but I really don't get what's going on. I just looked at our 2023 commits and the one we have chose us over an offer list of Army and BU.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: instaGATOR and fsu939913
bradleygator said:
I don't want to pile on the program here, but I really don't get what's going on. I just looked at our 2023 commits and the one we have chose us over an offer list of Army and BU.
Click to expand...
Read my post about recruiting above. Golden intentionally didn’t go after a lot of high school prospects this cycle.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: instaGATOR
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

JasonHigdon

Florida Basketball to Touch Down in Baton Rouge

Replies
2
Views
499
The Swamp
Steveerino
S
JasonHigdon

No. 6 Florida Drops Opener at No. 5 LSU

Replies
1
Views
258
The Swamp
Bayou Gator
Bayou Gator
JasonHigdon

Florida Set for SEC Post-Season Round Three vs. Ole Miss

Replies
2
Views
343
The Swamp
gator1776
gator1776
JasonHigdon

Florida & Alabama Pre-Game News & Notes

Replies
8
Views
573
The Swamp
mefflaw
M
JasonHigdon

Orange & Blue Game, Presented by Florida Victorious: What You Need to Know

Replies
0
Views
2K
The Swamp
JasonHigdon
JasonHigdon
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest posts

ADVERTISEMENT
Top Bottom
Back