Minutes after the Gators basketball team lost to Texas Tech in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, Twitter was awash with calls for head coach Mike White’s firing, so much so that Scott Stricklin felt he needed to issue a vote of confidence immediately after the game.
.@MikeWhiteUF IS my guy. Don’t @ me. https://t.co/7Zcu4XqHYH
— Scott Stricklin (@ScottStricklin) March 18, 2018
This isn’t anything new for anybody using that particular app this season. The Gators have been maddeningly inconsistent, especially considering the way they looked early in the season.
The win against Gonzaga and the late loss against Duke early in the year made it seem like this Gators team was ready to compete for a championship. The thought was that any inconsistencies would resolve themselves with center John Egbunu returning from a knee injury.
But Egbunu was never able to come back from that injury and the inconsistencies persisted. Even worse, Egbunu’s absence was perceived by some as an excuse similar to those used by Jim McElwain’s defenders who wanted to give him another year of offensive futility.
I understand that sentiment.
But by the end of his third year, there were clear statistical reasons to part way with McElwain. Add to that the way he alienated many within the athletic department and then the ridiculous death threat fiasco and most reasonable people had to admit the time had come for him to leave.
But what does the statistical record say about Mike White?
The Billy Donovan Standard
Billy Donovan was a great coach, and certainly the first thing that comes to mind is that the standard he set is championships.
He won the SEC regular season six times. He won the SEC tournament four times. And of course, he won the national championship twice.
But Donovan was not Mike Krzyzewski. Coach K has a .787 winning percentage at Duke along with his five championships. Donovan was not John Calipari either, at least not Calipari at Kentucky. Calipari has compiled a .811 winning percentage with the Wildcats. He wasn’t even his mentor Rick Pitino, who compiled a .767 winning percentage at Kentucky and Louisville.
Instead, the coach I would use as a comparison to Donovan is Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim. Boeheim is 925-367 at Syracuse, for a .716 winning percentage. Donovan was 467-186 (.715) in his time at Florida. Boeheim only has one championship, but could easily have another instead of two runner-up finishes.
For a 35 game season, that .715 winning percentage equates to 25 wins. That also means that his teams lost 10 games on average. 25-10 is a very, very good record. But it isn’t a record that portends constant national championship contention.
Again, I think Boeheim is a good comparison. Syracuse makes the tournament nearly every year. But they are only a true contender for a championship every once in a while. The supposition that Florida built a program like Duke, Kentucky or UCLA under Donovan is misguided.
The Mike White Standard
In White’s time at Florida, he has a winning percentage of .657. In that same 35 game season, he would average 23 wins, a tick off of Donovan.
The same gap in performance is seen if we look at point differential, something I think is a better measure than won/loss record (especially in smaller sample sizes). White’s teams have averaged 77.1 points for and 68.2 points against, for a differential of 8.9 points. Donovan’s teams averaged 75.8 points for and 65.5 points against, for a differential of 10.3 points.
Of course, if we look at Donovan’s first three years at Florida, his point differential was 4.6.
As many people will point out, that isn’t completely fair to Donovan, as the program he inherited was worse than the one White inherited from Donovan. It is true that the Gators were coming off of a 12-16 season, but they were also only two years removed from an appearance in the Final Four.
I will stipulate that there was more work to do for Donovan than there was for White, but let’s not pretend that Florida was the equivalent of Northwestern prior to Donovan’s arrival.
And if you look at point differential, there’s actually a fairly promising story to tell for White.
The chart above shows the Gators point differential since the 1996-1997 season. The red circles indicate Final Four appearances. There appears to be a threshold for teams to reach that point, and White’s teams have not yet achieved that threshold.
But the good news is that he is getting close. After achieving a point differential of 5.5 in year one, the Gators increased that to 11.4 in his second season. That metric took a step back this year to 9.9, and so it shouldn’t be a surprise that this team wasn’t quite as good as the one from the 2016-2017 season.
And that leads us to a discussion of talent.
Recruiting
One of the reasons that Donovan is more Jim Boeheim than Coach K is based on recruiting.
In Donovan’s last six seasons at Florida, he had a national recruiting ranking average of 24.3. His best ranking was 5th and his worst was 58th. In the same timeframe, Duke had an average ranking of 11.3. More than that, Duke brought in 1.8 5-star recruits per year in that span, compared to 0.8 for Florida.
Mike White started out rough in his transition year, with a national recruiting ranking of 69th. He has followed that up with rankings of 20th in 2017 and now 17th in 2018. That 2018 class includes 5-star point guard Andrew Nembhard (26th nationally) and 4-stars Noah Locke (69th nationally) and Keyontae Johnson (80th nationally).
And that is important when looking at the differences between the 2016-2017 seasons and the 2017-2018 seasons. That 69th ranked class consisted of three 3-star recruits: Eric Hester (140th nationally), Dontay Bassett (290th nationally) and Gorjok Gak (248th nationally). None of those players played major minutes this season.
But the team lost 5-star talents Kasey Hill (8th nationally) and Devin Robinson (18th nationally) from the team that made the Elite-8. That meant White had to lean on transfers Jalen Hudson (197th nationally) and Egor Koulechov (340th nationally) as starters. Those players played quite well, but they also have limitations.
White had to lean on Hudson and Koulechov because he’s still making up for that transition year lapse in recruiting. But White has also is recruited at a level on-par with Donovan the past two cycles.
The national rankings of Donovan’s last six classes were 5th, 58th, 18th, 34th, 14th and 17th. White’s three classes at Florida have ranked 69th, 20th, and 17th.
The loss of Chiozza (44th nationally) will be a hit. But Nembhard, Locke and Johnson will immediately be three of the most talented Gators. If Egbunu decides to come back after testing the NBA Draft waters, this team could be a contender as soon as next season.
Takeaway
My freshman year, I watched in my dorm room as Florida lost to Mateen Cleaves for the championship and assumed that it was the beginning of a dominant era of basketball at Florida. Instead, Donovan’s teams followed that season up with losses in either the first or second round of the tournament.
Then in the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 seasons, Donovan caught lightning in a bottle with Joakim Noah, Al Horford and Corey Brewer (who were ranked 73rd, 42nd and 23rd nationally, by the way). That’s true both from the perspective that they turned into the players they became, but also because they decided to stay an extra year in an era when nobody stays.
Mike White is going to be held to the championship standard that Billy Donovan set, and I think that’s fair. But let’s also be fair to White. He inherited a program coming off of a 16-17 season that had a point differential of 3.6 points. It wasn’t a very good team, and turning that around will take some time.
White has proven that he can coach, shown by his impact on the point differential metric referenced above. In the past two seasons, White’s teams have been better or close to the average under Donovan (10.2 points). He’s also showing he can recruit at Donovan’s level. This isn’t a McElwain situation.
With McElwain, his recruiting lagged well behind his three predecessors in every way in each of his first three years. Heck, Dan Mullen just put together a class that rivals any of the ones put together by McElwain in his time at Florida.
But ever since his transition year, White has proven that he will bring in similar quality players to Donovan. That bodes well for being able to accomplish similar things to what Donovan accomplished. That doesn’t mean he’ll win multiple national championships. But it does mean he should be able to compete for SEC Championships.
I love Florida fans. They are passionate and really care about their teams. Part of that passion means that when things don’t go well, questions are asked about what needs to be changed, sometimes forcefully. When it came to the football team this past season, they were correct to want to move on from McElwain, many of them sooner than I was.
But I don’t think that makes sense with White. His teams are performing the way you would expect based on the quality of player he has, and he has reinforcements coming soon. Give him two more years to develop them and bring in more talent, and if we’re having this same discussion at that point I’ll have to eat some crow.
But I think it may end up the other way around. These metrics suggest the program is moving in the right direction.
Carl W.
Exactly right. These fans who panic after every loss or decision by a recruit to go elsewhere is destructive and mindless. I realize that people expect Florida to compete for championships, and so do I, but Too many people seem to think Florida should win every game in every sport, and if they don’t, something is wrong. Who they would hire is the question, since they don’t seem to realize that the coaches at Duke, Kentucky, etc. are not leaving for Florida. White looks like a good young coach, while still needing to improve to reach the highest level. He clearly deserves a chance to show what he can do recruiting, and then coaching those recruits. Florida already has a rep as a fan base that is never happy short of a N.C., and turns on coaches quickly. White has earned a chance to prove himself.
Thei Fam
I think the biggest concern is the opportunistic element. Florida unlike other non traditional powerhouse programs in basketball, does have two championships in the the past 12 years. That puts them on par with any traditional powerhouse. When you add that subsequent to the championship years, we have been to 5 Elite 8s (one of those a Final 4) and one can see why there is frustration in the fan base. While the majority of those Elite 8s were under BD, they nevertheless seemed to create a momentum for achievement, and if nothing else RECRUITING! When year in and year out, your team is one of the final 8 teams in the tournament, HS players have to in 9-12 grades be exposed to our brand more than any other brand in the country!
Unfortunately, despite the major exposure, the numbers in recruiting rankings have continued to sag, and in fact teams that have had much less success both from the standpoint of winning championships recently or getting deep into the tournament consistently as we have, have inexplicably leaped frogged us in recruiting.
If you look at the recent exploits of FSU and Miami, both programs seem (notwithstanding this year) to be bringing in higher ranked HS talent than we have. As the article pointed out, but for our transfer history – Rosario, Macklin, Barry, Horford, Hudson, Koulechov, Carter, Egbunu and Smith- Florida would probably barely be a regular NIT participant.
The fact that we have relied on transfers has enabled us to remain viable as a respected program in the NCAA, but it also underscores a glaring inability to recruit marquee players as freshmen to come in and gel with the program.
I think this has changed with Okauru, Stokes, Johnson, Ballard, Bassett, Gak, Nembrand, Johnson and Locke. We have nine players plus Stone, Hayes and Allen who have come via recruiting. Hudson will be the only transfer on the roster if he even stays or Egbunu.
I think once White gets full usage of his complement of inside players, we can then make a better assessment of him as a coach. To get to the round of 32 with virtually no inside presence whatsoever, is a standard that barring an upset, should be easily achievable with a 6’8″ Stokes and a 6’9″ Johnson and perhaps an Egbunu added to the mix.
If Ballard let’s go and refuses to relegate himself to lesser dedicated talent of opponents, we could have an amazing year next year.
Malik
Nice article, Will. Two important notes, though: 1 – Egbunu would have to apply for a 6th year and would be 24 next year, making a return unlikely, 2 – UF also didn’t have the services of big men talents Chase Johnson (85th) and Isaiah Stokes (123rd) this year but will in 2018
Pc
I mean everyone needs to CHILL OUT. MW is a very good coach-the same coach who took us to elite 8 and was a shot away from the 16 w a limited squad. My goodness y’all are delusional about what this team was.
Chris Varney
Hi Will! Another great article. I agree, White is a good coach and is closer to greatness than he is mediocrity. In your research, or possibly going forward, did you (or could you!) look at his point diff and recruiting compared to say the top 25 coaches/teams during his time here? Thx!
Darrick
Great article. I think White is definitely a good coach. My only question with him is recruiting and developing big men. As long as he is at Florida, I think he can recruit big time guards (and wings), given his reputation and the style he plays. The problem, as with everyone not named Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, and North Carolina, is getting quality big men. Hard to do when those schools suck them all up. And it is something Billy couldn’t really do consistently either when you think about it. (Who knows–maybe the FBI thing will make it easier on him, though I doubt it.) Still, I think he is a good coach–I saw individual improvement in a lot of players this year, even if they were wildly inconsistent as a team, which I marked down to injuries and roster imbalance.
Eli Anderson
I really like the article Will! I wish you would’ve made the point that Donovan got significantly better once he added Larry Shyatt to the bench to help. Mike is a great defensive coach and I think he just needs someone to help with the offense like Shyatt did to Donovan’s defenses!
Gary taft
you are 100 per cent right will great observation go gators chomp chomp dilly dilly
Kristopher
No one ever seems to mention that White brought us to a third place finish in the SEC this year. A historically great year when 8 teams made it to the big dance. Yes, we were wildly inconsistent but the SEC was wildly more improved than it has been in the last decade.
Billy (and I love him) won all those games in an SEC that traditionally had only Kentucky to deal with each and every year. And the majority of those years the SEC didn’t include Missouri or A&M. Occasionally Vandy, Tennessee or one of the Miss. schools would challenge but that’s it! Remember when everyone said Billy couldn’t win the big games and then won 2 national championships?
Give the guy some time to build his version of the program without a bunch of impatient and unrealistic goombas calling for his job after every loss. He’s a good young coach and we are lucky to have him! Go Gators!
MalikG
Important justified actual criticism of Coach Mike White: in his first 3 recruiting classes, he hasn’t signed a top-60 big man. In fact, John Egbunu, when he transferred from USF, was the last big UF got that was rated that high. Before that? Chris Walker, who flamed out from the Class of 2013.
Really, the last recruited top-60 big men that contributed to UF (I’m not including Dorian Finney-Smith, who came out as a SF but progressed into a PF and was a transfer) were Erik Murphy and Patric Young, who Billy Donovan recruited way back in 2010.
That’s a LONG time without getting an elite big man. Coach White needs to land PF Omar Payne for the Class of 2019 as a must-get.
Will Miles
Fair criticism. I’m not saying he’s an elite coach. I’m saying that people who expect Florida to be an every year power in basketball have a false memory of what Billy D accomplished. What he did was great. But it wasn’t Duke.