--Mike White said he's worked with a ton of combinations as far as lineups, but for the most part has gone with conventional lineups. "We’ve been pretty much injury-free, so we’ve been able to play 4s and 5s together with a couple wings and have two very capable point guards. We have Chris (Chiozza) and Kasey (Hill) butting heads. So conventional lineups mostly at practice."
"I'm not sure we're going to have to play four-guard lineups, three-guard lineups we could," White added. "Whether you want to call them three-guard lineups or a point and two wings, you'd like to have three guys out there that can pass, dribble, shoot and make plays for others. I think we're going to be for the most part, I predict us being pretty conventional."
--White said Wednesday was the first "subpar" practice from the Gators. "We’re going to crank it up a notch today and get right at some competition earlier than we have been. Sometimes, when you’ve been going a week, week and a half, 10 days, what have you -- the all run together, especially as much as we’re throwing at our guys -- that the freshness can wear off. You have to dig a little deeper and continue doing those hard things you don’t necessarily like doing: transition defense, blocking out, all the dirty work. We’ll get back at that today. Defensively, that’s what we’ve spent more time on than anything. We’ve made strides. Yesterday wasn’t our best day. Hopefully we can make a big jump today. We’re defintiely a work in progress offensively."
--White on freshman guard KeVaughn Allen, who came back last week after suffering a concussion in UF's first practice: "Great to have KeVaughn back. He’s such an offensive weapon. He’s probably as pure of a natural scorer as we have on our team. He can go get baskets, he can create his own shots, he’s really, really athletic. But he’s got a ways to go, just like our other two freshmen."
White on Devin Robinson's development and where he fits rotationally: "We’ve haven’t really played Devin at the 4, again, because of the depth we’ve been fortunate to have at practice. But we know there’s always a possibility of doing that -- we’re playing a little bit small with him at the 4 -- in the future. But to answer your question, as a rangy athletic 3 who can shoot the ball, it gives you definitely a women offensively. It should give you a huge weapon on the offensive glass, and that’s a challenge with Devin. We have to get him to be more of a force on the offensive glass and use his length defensively. He’s really shooting the ball well now."
--White, on any changes he's made to Florida's full-court press: “Very much a work in progress. We piggybacked Coach Donovan’s man-to-man, run and jump, which he was really good at of course and I thought was really good to last year’s team on some occasions. That was the first press that we implemented and worked solely on it until yesterday. Now we are going to try to introduce some different things and evaluate over time what, we hope one of them becomes a bread and butter for us, but what our strengths are in terms of presses or even if pressing itself is a strength and something we're going to sell out to. We're pretty optimistic we can be a good pressing team but again we're trying to steal some of the concepts from Coach Donovan and his staff with his man-to-man run and jump but we didn't want to throw out the window some zone pressing stuff we did that was our biggest strength at Louisiana Tech. We've started to introduce that stuff."
--White on who has been vocal so far: "The first one that comes to mind is John Egbunu and Brandone Francis. Both those guys are very vocal. Dorian (Finney-Smith) as a fifth-year senior has challenged himself to become more vocal, to not only lead by example but to call guys out who need to be called out and get guys in the right positions at the right times and then we’ve challenged point guard both of those guys aren’t extremely extroverted in Kasey and Chris but they both know the game and they need to direct traffic at a high level. Overall, we need to do it by committee, communicate at a high level.
--White on what stood out to him from the Gators' first scrimmage last Friday: "First of all, I would say Doe-Doe was really good offensively. Schuyler Rimmer was really good offensively. Between those two guys, they were 11-11 from the field. If we get that every night, we'd be pretty good. Not sure we can count on that. It was really competitive. the defensive pressure was really good, led by Chris and Kasey. I want to say Kasey had four steals in a 20-minute segment. Just the activity level and competitiveness, I was really happy with."
--Injury-wise, the Gators are in good shape and aren't really dealing with anything.
--Robinson and Francis-Ramirez on the differences between White and Donovan's practices...
Robinson: “There’s a lot more of player development in these types of practices than there was last year. Last year, there was more team-based and just coming together as a team. But this one helps each and every one of us get better in the sense of the team. You work on each and every individual skill and put it together to make one instead of just practicing as one team.”
Francis-Ramirez: "Oh it’s different. We played more half-court with Donovan. With coach White we don’t play half court at all. Because the way we want to play, we want to play fast. I think coach Donovan’s were a lot of teaching. He teaches a lot of stuff. He was great. I learned a lot from him. And we just gotta move on. Now we’re in a new system, great coach in Mike White, and I think he’s doing a great job with us."
"I'm not sure we're going to have to play four-guard lineups, three-guard lineups we could," White added. "Whether you want to call them three-guard lineups or a point and two wings, you'd like to have three guys out there that can pass, dribble, shoot and make plays for others. I think we're going to be for the most part, I predict us being pretty conventional."
--White said Wednesday was the first "subpar" practice from the Gators. "We’re going to crank it up a notch today and get right at some competition earlier than we have been. Sometimes, when you’ve been going a week, week and a half, 10 days, what have you -- the all run together, especially as much as we’re throwing at our guys -- that the freshness can wear off. You have to dig a little deeper and continue doing those hard things you don’t necessarily like doing: transition defense, blocking out, all the dirty work. We’ll get back at that today. Defensively, that’s what we’ve spent more time on than anything. We’ve made strides. Yesterday wasn’t our best day. Hopefully we can make a big jump today. We’re defintiely a work in progress offensively."
--White on freshman guard KeVaughn Allen, who came back last week after suffering a concussion in UF's first practice: "Great to have KeVaughn back. He’s such an offensive weapon. He’s probably as pure of a natural scorer as we have on our team. He can go get baskets, he can create his own shots, he’s really, really athletic. But he’s got a ways to go, just like our other two freshmen."
White on Devin Robinson's development and where he fits rotationally: "We’ve haven’t really played Devin at the 4, again, because of the depth we’ve been fortunate to have at practice. But we know there’s always a possibility of doing that -- we’re playing a little bit small with him at the 4 -- in the future. But to answer your question, as a rangy athletic 3 who can shoot the ball, it gives you definitely a women offensively. It should give you a huge weapon on the offensive glass, and that’s a challenge with Devin. We have to get him to be more of a force on the offensive glass and use his length defensively. He’s really shooting the ball well now."
--White, on any changes he's made to Florida's full-court press: “Very much a work in progress. We piggybacked Coach Donovan’s man-to-man, run and jump, which he was really good at of course and I thought was really good to last year’s team on some occasions. That was the first press that we implemented and worked solely on it until yesterday. Now we are going to try to introduce some different things and evaluate over time what, we hope one of them becomes a bread and butter for us, but what our strengths are in terms of presses or even if pressing itself is a strength and something we're going to sell out to. We're pretty optimistic we can be a good pressing team but again we're trying to steal some of the concepts from Coach Donovan and his staff with his man-to-man run and jump but we didn't want to throw out the window some zone pressing stuff we did that was our biggest strength at Louisiana Tech. We've started to introduce that stuff."
--White on who has been vocal so far: "The first one that comes to mind is John Egbunu and Brandone Francis. Both those guys are very vocal. Dorian (Finney-Smith) as a fifth-year senior has challenged himself to become more vocal, to not only lead by example but to call guys out who need to be called out and get guys in the right positions at the right times and then we’ve challenged point guard both of those guys aren’t extremely extroverted in Kasey and Chris but they both know the game and they need to direct traffic at a high level. Overall, we need to do it by committee, communicate at a high level.
--White on what stood out to him from the Gators' first scrimmage last Friday: "First of all, I would say Doe-Doe was really good offensively. Schuyler Rimmer was really good offensively. Between those two guys, they were 11-11 from the field. If we get that every night, we'd be pretty good. Not sure we can count on that. It was really competitive. the defensive pressure was really good, led by Chris and Kasey. I want to say Kasey had four steals in a 20-minute segment. Just the activity level and competitiveness, I was really happy with."
--Injury-wise, the Gators are in good shape and aren't really dealing with anything.
--Robinson and Francis-Ramirez on the differences between White and Donovan's practices...
Robinson: “There’s a lot more of player development in these types of practices than there was last year. Last year, there was more team-based and just coming together as a team. But this one helps each and every one of us get better in the sense of the team. You work on each and every individual skill and put it together to make one instead of just practicing as one team.”
Francis-Ramirez: "Oh it’s different. We played more half-court with Donovan. With coach White we don’t play half court at all. Because the way we want to play, we want to play fast. I think coach Donovan’s were a lot of teaching. He teaches a lot of stuff. He was great. I learned a lot from him. And we just gotta move on. Now we’re in a new system, great coach in Mike White, and I think he’s doing a great job with us."
