The White Era Is Over, What And Who Is Next?

The timing and the destination were a shock to the system, but no one seems to be surprised that Mike White chose to reboot his coaching career somewhere else. Absolutely no one thought White would say adios with games still to play, however, even if it is the NIT. You’ve probably heard it said a hundred times – NIT means Nobody’s Interested Tournament. Mike White obviously wasn’t interested, nor were Florida fans, who stayed away in droves from Wednesday night’s first round game at the O-Dome, missing out on one of the better performances by the Gators all season long.

Mike White was never going to get fired, but you could sense the growing discontent among the fan base with the administration. Fans looked at only one year in seven years on the job that finished with 10 or fewer losses. They saw a program that plateaued and was spinning its wheels. Florida fans and perhaps even the UF administration breathed huge sighs of relief when rumors White was finalizing a deal to go somewhere else began to surface Sunday morning. That the deal was with Georgia is a surprise, a big one actually. Yet, it does make more sense than some of the other places he could have landed. Louisville is toxic. LSU is going to get the hammer dropped on its basketball program by the NCAA. Missouri seems to be a ship adrift in the ocean with no visible direction or plan.

Georgia is the place with the lowest expectations, the least amount of recent success and yet the highest ceiling. Hugh Durham is the winningest coach in Georgia basketball history and he won only 57.9 percent of the time. The most recent coach – Tom Crean – never had a winning record and had the worst season in school history (6-26, 1-17 SEC) in 2021-22. At Florida, White went 142-88, which is 61.7 percent and although he made it to the Elite Eight game in 2017 and the NCAA Tournament four times in seven years, it wasn’t good enough for a fan base spoiled by the success of his predecessor. At Florida, White was measured by Billy Donovan’s 467 wins in 19 seasons, six SEC championships, 14 NCAA Tournaments, four trips to the Final Four and back-to-back NCAA championships (2006-07).

Measured against Donovan’s success, White was under constant pressure and in the end, it’s the pressure that made him think it was time for a fresh start. So, he left for a place he won’t be measured by a legend and where duplicating what he did at Florida will draw rave reviews from a fan base that views basketball as what you do between football season and spring football practice.

The timing was weird but Georgia was motivated to get White signed, sealed and delivered. Georgia, you see, wasn’t the only place that thinks Mike White will be one dandy of a fit. There were other suitors, but Georgia beat them to the punch with the right offer and the deal was done in a single day. White saw the timing as perfect so he took the deal and left his team behind with a tournament still to play.

“It’s basketball, it’s life,” Colin Castleton said Wednesday evening after the Gators had advanced in the NIT by knocking off Iona, 79-74. “Things happen. You’ve got to respect people’s decisions and you’ve got to move on from anything in life. You’ve got to move on from stuff that happens that you don’t think is going to happen. We all respect him [White], but he moved on and he knew what he wanted to do.”

It took a day for the Gators to move on. They were so emotional Sunday after finding out that White was leaving that their practice was about as close to rotten as you can get. By Monday, however, the shock had worn off and instead of an emotionally distraught team, interim head coach Al Pinkins found one that was in a that was then, this is now mood. They showed up at the practice facility focused and intense, ready to do the necessary work to deal with Iona.

“Monday and Tuesday, I thought were probably the best we’ve had all year with energy and focus,” Pinkins said after the win over Iona. “I thought our walk-through today was unbelievable – walked through everything … details and I thought they were as good as they’ve been in a long time with just details.”

Most coaches, no matter the sport, will tell you good practices usually result in good games. In beating Iona, a 25-win team coached by Hall of Famer Rick Pitino that owned a win over Alabama, the Gators played without Anthony Duruji (ankle) and CJ Felder (hip), so an already short bench got even shorter, particularly in the post. Colin Castleton (18 points, 13 rebounds) got six minutes of relief from skinny freshman Toungthach Gatgek, otherwise he was on his own in the paint. Pinkins kept shuffling his guards in and out of the game and they chipped in mightily to help Castleton on the boards. In the final 10 minutes, Pinkins had Iona constantly trying to adjust to an ever-changing lineup and it worked well enough that the Gaels started missing shots on one end and couldn’t get stops on the other. Down eight in the second half, it was a 13-point turnaround in the end.

Pinkins got a win in his first ever game as a head coach and a locker room bath of bottled water and Gatorade. You expect those things after championships are won, but the relief the players must have felt after losing their coach was indeed cause for celebration. If nothing else, they proved to themselves that it is more about them than a coach who left them for another job.

With one NIT game under their belts, Florida travels to Cincinnati for a second round game Sunday with Xavier. This will be a duel of interim coaches since Xavier fired head coach Travis Steele Wednesday morning after the Musketeers had won their opening game of the tournament. While Xavier’s players may be in shock from the firing, Pinkins and the Gators already have a win and they’re believing that even if this isn’t the NCAA Tournament, it is a tournament that can be won.

“You’re in a tournament,” Pinkins said. “Is it the ideal tournament or the tournament we all strived to be in, no it’s not, but you’re in a tournament and you’ve got a chance to win a tournament. Our staff did a really good job, too. We did a really good job of talking about the tournament in Fort Myers (Gators won it in November). We referenced that tournament quite a bit and said, ‘Hey, we won a tournament at the beginning of the year, how good would it be to just win it at the end of the year, regardless of what tournament it is.”

Beyond the NIT, however, what’s next for the Gators? Maybe the better question is who’s next because who’s next will go a long way toward determining what’s next. There are six seniors on this team but because of the COVID year rule put in place by the NCAA, Castleton, Appleby, Duruji and Myreon Jones all have the option to return. As they were leaving the postgame media room Wednesday, both Castleton and Appleby said they’ll address the future when the season ends.

Because there is an NCAA portal that allows first time transfers instant eligibility, if athletic director Scott Stricklin doesn’t land the right coach to replace White, Niels Lane, Kowacie Reeves, Gatgek, Felder, Elijah Kennedy and Jason Jitoboh will have the option to leave for someplace new. Then there are three signees – Malik Reneau, Jalen Reed and Denzel Aberdeen. None of them have asked to be released from their letters of intent but they could if Stricklin doesn’t move quickly or if he brings in a coach they believe will be a bad fit.

So, what’s the procedure here? How does Scott Stricklin move quickly and land a new coach who not only checks all the boxes for what the UF athletic department demands, but also satisfies players currently on the roster and the signees?

To find the answer to those questions, go back to December of 2020. Remember those juicy rumors that football coach Dan Mullen was flirting with the NFL? There wasn’t any real interest from the NFL at the time, but Mullen was putting his name out there to see if there was a team that would swallow the bait.

Stricklin perceived Mullen’s flirtations as a coach who might want to move on to the next level, so he put together some task groups within his administration and charged them with coming up with a short list of candidates in case a move had to be made in the fall. By the time the 2021 season began, the list had been narrowed to a few who were being closely monitored and vetted.

When the season tanked and Mullen was pink-slipped, Billy Napier was at the top of the list, already vetted. It only took a first interview for Stricklin to know he had his man. It was a very quick process to hire Napier, who has totally transformed the Florida football program in just three months.

Stricklin was not going to fire Mike White even though there was growing discontent in the fan base. When the Gators lost to Texas A&M at the SEC Tournament in Tampa, Stricklin sat quietly with associate athletic director Chip Howard toward the back of the media room as an obviously upset and frustrated White addressed the media, ironically with Georgia associate athletic director for communications Claude Felton acting as the moderator on the podium.

Seeing White on the podium tight-lipped and stressed while Stricklin sat almost motionless, this postgame press conference did have somewhat of a farewell feel to it. Consensus among the media was White did not want to be at Florida much longer. Farewell by Sunday, no one would have predicted, however.

When it happened, it’s highly doubtful that Scott Stricklin was caught by surprise. Judging by the way he went about compiling a list of candidates for a football coach, narrowing it down to a few and then landing No. 1 target Billy Napier to replace Mullen, it seems likely that Stricklin already had a target list with top candidates vetted and ready to be interviewed even before the loss to Texas A&M.

The big question moving forward is does Stricklin go for a big name, experienced coach or does he roll the dice with a coach from a non-power conference? On the surface it seems that he rolled the dice when he hired Billy Napier from Louisiana of the Sun Belt, but Napier worked for Dabo Swinney at Clemson and Nick Saban at Alabama before going 40-12 as a head coach. That pedigree eased the tension among the Florida fan base and has a lot to do with why the hire of Napier is being hailed as a home run by fans and media alike.

Because White came to the Gators after four years at Louisiana Tech, fans seem to be skittish about the idea of bringing in a new basketball coach who has never led a big time program, and especially one who’s never experienced the pressure of the NCAA Tournament. That doesn’t mean Stricklin won’t target an up-and-coming coach, but it seems more likely that would be a fall back position if the established, experienced head coaches elect to say no.

Here are several coaches who might be on Stricklin’s short list starting with older, experienced coaches:

BIG NAME, EXPERIENCED COACHES

Scott Drew, Baylor: This is Drew’s 19th year at Baylor. He’s 400-221 at Baylor with a national championship, 10 NCAA Tournament appearances and an NIT title. Stricklin was the associate AD at Baylor and the point man in the coaching search that landed Drew in 2003. The two remain friends. Baylor could make it a second straight NCAA title this year. Would Drew leave for another job having won two in a row? As much as Florida can offer, Baylor alums have very deep pockets. Consider him a longshot.

Tony Bennett, Virginia: He is 315-116 in 12 years at UVA with eight NCAA Tournament appearances and the 2019 NCAA title. His teams are known for their ferocious defense. The offense is boring but the Cavaliers win. Virginia pays $4.15 million and he’s under contract through the 2025-26 season. Florida could do much better. Word on the street is Bennett wants 10 years and $6 million a year. Ten years seems excessive but not the $6 million. If the length of the contract can be cut to perhaps seven years, this could be do-able, particularly since Bennett and the Cavaliers are in the NIT this year.

Brad Underwood, Illinois: Underwood coached Illinois to the Big Ten championship this year. He’s 202-92 for his Division I coaching career that includes stops at Stephen F. Austin and Oklahoma State. He spent three years in Florida as the head coach at Daytona Beach State College where he was 70-25. Underwood got a contract extension through 2025 and a pay raise to $3.4 million after the 2021 season. His buyout is $6 million after this year. His teams get up and down the floor offensively and play tough straight up man defense. If he were to land the UF job, the Gators likely retain assistant Erik Pastrana, who recruited both Reneau and Reed.

Danny Hurley, UConn: He has resurrected three programs – Wagner, Rhode Island and UConn – while compiling a 224-151 career record. He’s 73-46 at UConn including 23-9 this year when the Huskies are a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament. He’s the son of legendary high school coach Bob Hurley. Hurley worked for his dad before turning St. Benedict into a prep powerhouse. His salary is $2.75 million at UConn. Because the school is swimming in debt and the athletic department is in danger of insolvency, it is thought Hurley would leave for a good situation. Buyout is in the $3 million range.

Anthony Grant, Dayton: He was Billy Donovan’s chief lieutenant when the Gators won the 2006 national championship. Since then he’s been the head coach at VCU (76-25), Alabama (117-85) and Dayton (101-51) and has taken all three teams to the NCAA Tournament. His 2020 Dayton team went 29-2 and could have won the national title if the NCAA Tournament had not been canceled because of COVID. He does not have a charismatic personality but his quiet demeanor resonates well with recruits and parents. He makes $2 million at Dayton, which is his alma mater. He’s quite content there. Would he leave if UF offered? Would UF offer?

Shaka Smart, Marquette: There is a connection to Billy Donovan. Shaka was a Donovan assistant in 2008-09. He’s 291-154 as a head coach with stops at VCU and Texas prior to Marquette, where he is 19-12 after a first round loss in the NCAA Tournament. His full court pressure defense worked wonders at VCU, which he took to the Final Four in 2011. He never duplicated his success at VCU (163-56) at Texas (109-86). He left Texas one step ahead of the pink-slip. He is a dynamic recruiter. Would he leave Marquette, which threw him a lifeline after the Texas debacle?

Rob Lanier, Georgia State: He knows the SEC inside-out from his time working for Billy Donovan at UF (2007-11) and Rick Barnes at Tennessee (2015-19). He’s in his third year at Georgia State (Sun Belt) where he is 53-30 including a Sun Belt Tournament title this year with an NCAA berth. He’s 53 years old, a dynamic recruiter and makes $550,000 a year.

Mark Pope, BYU: He played for Rick Pitino on Kentucky’s 1996 national championship team and worked as an assistant at Georgia (2009-10), so he knows the SEC quite well. He is 143-81 in seven years as a head coach including 66-25 at BYU in three years. The Cougars are in the second round of the NIT. He’s 6-10, makes approximately $2 million and is said to be willing to leave BYU for the right offer and situation.

YOUNG GUYS WITH A BRIGHT FUTURE

Wes Miller, Cincinnati: He’s a product of the North Carolina system, which means he runs the Dean Smith offense and that means a lot of points. Miller is only 39 years old. He is 203-150 in 10 years as a head coach at UNC-Greensboro and Cincinnati, 18-15 in his only year at UC. He makes $1.25 million per year with a buyout in the $2.5 million range.

Matt McMahon, Murray State: He’s 153-66 in seven years at Murray State including 30-2 this season. He is 43 years old and has a base salary of $500,000. His teams score points in bunches. Played collegiately at Appalachian State.

Todd Golden, San Francisco: He’s a former Saint Mary’s point guard and Auburn assistant (2014-16) who knows the SEC from his time working for Bruce Pearl. He’s 57-35 as the head coach at San Francisco since 2019. Salary is estimated in the $450,000-500,000 range.

Dennis Gates, Cleveland State: He’s a former Florida State assistant (2011-19) who is 50-40 (39-19 last two years) at Cleveland State. He makes $550,000 a year. FSU people like him as the natural successor to Leonard Hamilton when he retires.

Grant McCasland, North Texas: He’s a former Baylor point guard who was an assistant for Scott Drew from 2011-16. He’s 178-81 as a head coach, 103-57 at North Texas where he’s 24-6 this year and has the Mean Green in the second round of the NIT. He has four 20-plus win seasons in five years at North Texas. He’s 45 years old and makes $500,000.

Mike Rhoades, VCU: Only 49 years old, he’s been a head coach since he was 27. He’s 345-180 as a head coach at Randolph-Macon, Rice and VCU. He is 101-52 at VCU where the Rams are in the second round of the NIT. He has a base salary of $459,000 and a buyout of only $1 million if he elects to leave on his own volition.