Championships and Fan Expectations

As we watch this thinly-stocked, blandly-coached and frustratingly mediocre Gator basketball team passionlessly fade further and further in the 2nd half of their 2nd round game, to "get it" you have ONLY to consider the connection between consistent results and the staff that recruited and coached them TO this level: As has been MORE than amply demostrated by actual events, if/when anything LIKE this kind of mediocrity is made manifest in our football program, we fans are relatively QUICK to howl for their heads--and correspondingly quick to make changes, WHATEVER CHANGES THAT ARE NECESSARY, to at least TRY and change things. Dramatically. And if they don't work, and work WELL, change 'em AGAIN!
If there is no similar commensurate will and expectation forthcoming with respect to the roundball program, well, this is what we will get. Oh, we'll manage to "get lucky", see a combo of "pretty good" talent and luck come together and take us to the Sweet -16, maybe even the Elite Eight now and then--but we'll not be mistaken for any kind of "SEC Powerhouse". Ever. At this point, that strange "peak" a few years back where a combination of basketball talent and coaching coalesced at exactly the same point as the same thing (more planned and predictably) came together on the FOOTBALL side and altogether had us riding high, a Champion in BOTH endeavors, is fading from memory; by now it seems almost unreal.
But we ARE "a FOOTBALL SCHOOL": There is a huge, strong and traditionally dominant portion of students, alumni, Florida natives and those who have in some tangential way FOUND themselves a part of GATOR NATION who simply just live and BREATH Gator Football. I am happy and proud when we do well in other sports, might even follow a few games at the very end of a potential Championship run by our Baseball, Track, Women's Vollyball and yes, Men's Basketball (ok, ok--with March Madness and all Basketball is no doubt "number 2" after football by now in this regard)...But the point is, no matter how much the REST of the national sports media may hype it, it just ain't the same as Gator Football to a whole BUNCH of us. Not even close. Sorry.
So the 2nd round game against Michigan just ended: a game we were still "in" at the half turned out to be a bit of a yawner, one of those "inevitable slow death" games that, frankly, our talent-level and coaching acumen pretty well promised and deserved.
When we HAVE managed to make an unexpectedly deeper run into the Dance last few years, when we do eventually lose we've been able to hold our heads high, then turn those heads, say "Nice run, boys...Now: When's the Spring 'Orange'n'Blue Game', or whatever they are calling it?!!"
I won't do that this year. For the true Roundball-obsessed Gator fans, I have to ask: "Is this 'good enough' for y'all?" 'Cause unless and until you see it for the "acceptance of mediocrity" coach, staff and program currently represent and accept, get thoroughly PISSED about it and DEMAND BETTER--at the very LEAST turn your BACKS on them until they make the changes, spend the money and get the people who can and WILL change the culture over there--then this is about all you can expect. It SEEMS all you DO "expect".
It is a MUCH harder, longer and more expensive process changing the direction, momentum and longterm fortunes of a football program, that's just a fact. But we have not just managed it, finally (or at least by every measure well along in the process of DOING so), but had to REdo it, CHANGE it TWICE along the way during the same period in which the basketball program fell from grace, lost its motivational edge and kept compromising itself in a long slow slide.
Over on the football side we couldn't LIVE with ANY of that. We'd be drowning in painful angst about now. Maybe there are Gator Roundball fans who ARE that down now, but me and a whole LOT of my friends, brothers and sisters who follow our Fightin' Gators year round, well, sorry, but here it is ten minutes after what was (frankly) an "expected loss to a much more talented team" by 16 points--and I KNOW I'm far from alone in simply shrugging, wishing maybe we coulda "kept it going a little longer this year, but...oh well", and moving on--turning back to Gator Football and how things are progressing with spring ball.
For those fellow Gators whom ARE truly aching now, I do feel for you: As Billy D and that talented group he assembled here (Joakim et al) ten years back showed, it ISN'T that it CAN'T be done at UF. But it DOES take a deep will and committment to DO SO. How to find and force THAT where it seems to have dried up and disappeared some time ago, well, fortunately, no matter how bad things got over the years, on the football side since SS finally really got the fires roaring a generation PLUS back, it has never really been allowed to go out; Oh, it HAS seemed dark, even tamped down to EMBERS at times--but enough of us still BELIEVED, and soon thereafter issues were forced and we found the person to FUEL THAT FIRE, get it raging once more.
If you want that for BASKETBALL, if enough Gator roundball fans FEEL that way too, then there is your blueprint. I don't KNOW if that is the case, if there IS a large or committed enough foundation to demand and upon which to BUILD a consistent program of that kind, but that's what it will take. Otherwise, y'all will just have to be content with what we got: Make the Dance most years, even make a "bit of a run DEEP" from time to time, and "now and then" maybe write some headlines, get excited, grab a true star or two or come together as a team and make the Final Four.
But personally, I won't get sucked in, won't LET "luck" or "a bit of a run" to fool me, get me to BELIEVE...In the final analysis, I'm a Gator, and it hurts too much. I TAKE THAT CHANCE WITH THE FOOTBALL PROGRAM, because (and as long as) I SEE them going all out to GET there--for themselves AND all of us. And when I don't, BELIEVE ME: Me and a WHOLE BUNCH of my fellow Gators will be raising HELL, far and WIDE!!!
I myself won't do that for this Basketball program unless and until I see it from THEM.

I'm surprised the B-Ball made it to the NCAA tournament this season. I do like what Mike White is doing, three straight seasons in the tournament is nothing to complain about. I know it's not going to be like the team of Donovan at least not until Coach Cal retires. Kentucky is going to recruit the big names along with Duke and other schools that don't care about the one and done players. Plus basketball is tricky the predict especially with these schools like Loyola-Chicago last year that come out of nowhere and make it to the Final Four, so it can be possible for anybody to win the championship or at least make it to the Final Four. I know it's going to be hard because seven teams in the SEC made to the tournament so it's going to be interesting next season.

There are arguments for and against Mike White.

For: White has a better tournament record at this point of his career than Billy Donavan.

Against: Donavan built the basketball program from nothing. White should be building from Donavan's success.

The next two years are where White will separate himself from Donavan, or fall to mediocrity.

Escambia94 said:

There are arguments for and against Mike White.

For: White has a better tournament record at this point of his career than Billy Donavan.

Against: Donavan built the basketball program from nothing. White should be building from Donavan's success.

The next two years are where White will separate himself from Donavan, or fall to mediocrity.

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Well Lou Kruger did lead the Gators to the Final Four in 1994 and maybe with a little more luck the Gators would have beaten Duke and face off against SEC rival Arkansas and probably beat them (unsure what the Gators record against that Arkansas team was that season). Kruger lay the floor plans and Donovan build the foundation.

Leakfan12 said:

I'm surprised the B-Ball made it to the NCAA tournament this season. I do like what Mike White is doing, three straight seasons in the tournament is nothing to complain about. I know it's not going to be like the team of Donovan

Leakfan12 said:

Well Lou Kruger did lead the Gators to the Final Four in 1994 and maybe with a little more luck the Gators would have beaten Duke and face off against SEC rival Arkansas and probably beat them (unsure what the Gators record against that Arkansas team was that season). Kruger lay the floor plans and Donovan build the foundation.

Click to expand...

at least not until Coach Cal retires. Kentucky is going to recruit the big names along with Duke and other schools that don't care about the one and done players. Plus basketball is tricky the predict especially with these schools like Loyola-Chicago last year that come out of nowhere and make it to the Final Four, so it can be possible for anybody to win the championship or at least make it to the Final Four. I know it's going to be hard because seven teams in the SEC made to the tournament so it's going to be interesting next season.

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...All good and fair points--BUT:
MY point is a general feeling of pessimism aroubd this team and program, where it's at and where it's going...We would NOT accept the direction nor the pace at which we were headed there in our football program at season's end, were it similarly "irrelevant"... and maybe that's an unfair standard--but if it is, then let's admit it and try to be happy with making tge Dance and MAYBE making a bit of a run to the Sweet 16 or even the Elite 8 once every few years, with a hot young "one and doner" or simply "the stars aligned just right" here and there, now and then. Otherwise, idea as always I think is to get "The Right Coach" and stick with him, I think. Similar situation here in Austin and UT, btw, which sorta underlines the general trend for me, anyway: I don't claim to know or understand all the forces at work with Billy D moving on back there, but Horns seemed to have taken a similar stumbling mistep in losing Rick Barnes, who like Donovan has gone on to more of the same kind of transformative upward promise (in his case, with a MUCH improved Tennessee) since moving on.
Atmittedly I am more the typical UF college-FOOTBALL-obsessed fan who loves, follows and supports my SCHOOL, but HEY: I was already "a GATOR" and CHOSE to come to Gainesville in the FIRST place as much to see and follow GATOR FOOTBALL as any other clear and solid reason when I made that choice. I admit that; Fortunately, UF was and IS and was a fine University with strong credentials across the board, and Gainesville was (and, though a much larger place than it was back then, by all impressions still IS) a great place to go to live while attending and LIVING that "college life" (I loved it there then: a time when the undergrad population was LARGER THAN THAT OF THE TOWN ITSELF, the latter just round 30,000--so we basically dominated the place...and the locals indulged us accordingly, btw), so it turned out a good and correct choice, for me purposes, in every way.
I WENT to all kinds of athletic events, Basketball included at the then-brand new "Con-Dome" (teflon-roofed "O'Connel Center"--can even now admit to a run across that roof during a big event there its inaugural year, as was the new "do-it-on-a-dare" craze then: Yeah, I was one of THOSE idiots), baseball, swimming, our worldclass track team and annual meets, etc--but lets face it: Almost EVERYTHING ultimately revolved around Fall Saturdays at Florida Field (SS hadn't returned yet to christen it "The Swamp").
So except for the annual pangs of disappointment round now each early Spring, personally I can live with the difference between how we approach Basketball mediocrity, and the slightest hint of anything LIKE it on the gridiron. But those who really wish to see that change (and I have to admit how great and FUN that was, that brief coupla years there where we had the best Football AND Basketball teams in the Nation, Nattys on BOTH! there for a brief, blinding moment) have to honestly understand what that would take: Ya gotta get the RIGHT COACH and STICK WITH HIM, mainly.