Midseason Report: Mike White Has the Florida Gators Tied For Second In the SEC

Omar Payne dunks in the Gators win over No. 6 Tennessee. Photo Courtesy: SEC, Credit-Anissa Dimilita

Since the 2015-16 basketball season, Mike White’s first on the job at the University of Florida, the Gators have a 117-69 record. If you’re still hung up on Billy Donovan did it better (he did) and that maybe he will come back some day (he won’t) then you aren’t all that impressed. But consider this: Among the 14 teams that make up the Southeastern Conference, only Kentucky has a better record than the Gators and Mike White over that same stretch.

When the Covid-19 virus brought the 2019-20 season to a screeching halt, the Gators were mortal locks to make their fourth straight NCAA Tournament and for White to post his fifth straight 20-win season. Only Donovan, who belongs in the Basketball Hall of Fame, has posted a better mark than that in Florida basketball history.

Because of the ongoing problems of Covid-19 and the games missed following the on-court collapse of preseason SEC Player of the Year Keyontae Johnson, making it to 20 wins this season will be quite a challenge but the Gators are still in good shape to make the tournament, far better, actually, than Kentucky, which sits at 4-10 and in danger of spending March watching the madness on television. If Selection Sunday were held this week, the Gators would once again be mortal locks. As of Thursday night, the Gators were 9-4 with a 6-3 record in SEC play, but more importantly they were ranked 27th in the vital NCAA Net Rankings and 24th at Kenpom.com, the two rankings that matter most to the Selection Committee.

The Net Rankings and Kenpom tell us that the Gators are playing at a fairly impressive level right now. That three-game winning streak might seem modest to the naked eye, but the Gators have impressive wins at home over LSU and then 6th-ranked Tennessee plus two SEC road wins (at Vanderbilt and at Georgia).

These rankings are not buoyed by sympathy although the Gators get plenty from broadcast crews and the better basketball media in the country for not only forging on after Johnson went down but getting to the halfway point of the 18-game SEC portion of the schedule in second place. Not only have the Gators gotten there without Johnson but they’ve been forced to play three games without Scottie Lewis due to health protocols.

They say that necessity is the mother of invention. Perhaps that best explains how it is the Gators are emerging as a top tier team from an SEC that figures to get six teams in the NCAA Tournament. Out of necessity, Mike White has taken stock of all his moving parts and figured out combinations that work quite well. This may irk the Fire Mike White crowd but only Alabama coach Nate Oates has done a better coaching job in the Southeastern Conference and he hasn’t had to deal with anything close to the amount of adversity as White.

Necessity has meant shifting Tre Mann from the point to the wing where he can be a score first, pass second combo guard. On the wing, Mann no longer is forced to defend the quickest player on the other team and with Tyree Appleby at the point, Mann has been able to focus on looking for his shot. In the three games since Appleby became the starter at the point, Mann is averaging 17 points per game while hitting 5-11 from the 3-point line and 12-14 on his foul shots. He’s grabbed 14 rebounds, handed out nine assists, blocked two shots and picked up three steals.

Appleby, meanwhile, is working on four straight games scoring in double figures but the last three since becoming the starter at the point have been impressive. Appleby is averaging 13 points per game while hitting 13-26 from the field and 5-10 from the 3-point line. He has nine rebounds, 16 assists, two blocked shots and seven steals. The Gators are better both offensively and defensively when he’s running the point.

With Mann on one side of the floor and Appleby at the point, Noah Locke at the other wing is able to balance the floor from a purely shooting perspective. Focus on Mann and Locke will burn you from beyond the arc. In the last three games Locke has regained his shooting stroke and is getting 14 points per game while hitting 9-23 from the 3-point line.

Without Johnson in the lineup, Colin Castleton has become a go-to guy in the middle who has picked up some of the scoring slack. He scored 26 points total in the four games in which Keyontae played. In Florida’s nine SEC games, all played without Johnson, he’s averaging 14.1 points and 5.3 rebounds per game while hitting 63 percent of his shots including 13-17 in his last two outings. He has also blocked 20 shots. Teamed with Omar Payne, who has re-energized his game lately especially on the defensive end, the Gators have one of the better 1-2 combinations at the center position in the SEC.

Lewis is healthy again which bodes well for the second half of the SEC schedule. Combine him with Anthony Duruji and Osayi Osifo and the Gators have three very capable defenders who rebound very well. Lewis can score in bursts and can go off from the 3-point line when he’s feeling it. The three of them contributed 19 points and eight rebounds off the bench in the Gators most recent win over Vanderbilt. White needs that kind of production every night from them as we move into the second half of the SEC season.

White is also getting good minutes off the bench from Ques Glover at the point and from freshman shooter Samson Rhuzentsev who contributed five points in critical minutes off the bench when UF was saddled with first half foul trouble against Vandy.

It is still way too early and there are too many variables such as Covid-19 to predict where the Gators will be in another month, at which time we’ll have a pretty good idea who’s in and who’s out of the NCAA Tournament. But for the moment, Florida is in good enough shape that ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi has them sitting solidly on the seven line. A win against West Virginia, a Lunardi four seed, in Morgantown this weekend in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge could vault Florida even further up the brackets and would certainly improve UF in both the NCAA Net Rankings and Kenpom but all this is speculation. What is important is what we know right now and that is Mike White has the Gators playing a very entertaining and solid brand of basketball that has them tied for second in the Southeastern Conference even without Keyontae Johnson.

With Keyontae in the lineup, Florida figured to be one of the best four teams in the SEC this season. Without him, the Gators are clearly one of the four best and they have the entire month of February to prove they belong in the NCAA Tournament. In getting the Gators to this point, Mike White has a team that is quite capable of lighting up the scoreboard and is very, very entertaining to watch.

Due to the virus and Keyontae going down, many predicted this would be a mulligan year for Mike White, one in which he would scratch out a win or two here and there while simply getting his players experience for next season. All that has changed in the last month, however. We don’t necessarily have to wait until next year because White is showing what he’s capable of doing as a coach and the Gators are responding with solid wins.

By no means is this the team we expected when the season began back in November. The virus has postponed half of South Carolina’s SEC games and eliminated at least two weeks for Michigan up in the Big Ten, so what we see in March from any team in the country might not resemble what we see on the floor right now. The only certainty we have with Florida is that Mike White is showing he will adapt to whatever comes his way. And, if it’s anything like we saw in January, the Gators could be a very pleasant surprise.