Florida basketball fans call for coaching change after worst home loss of Mike White era
Florida basketball had a rough outing on Saturday with a lopsided loss to Kentucky in Gainesville, 76-58.
The Gators trailed by six points at halftime, but the Wildcats outscored them by 12 points in the second half to pull away. After a historically slow start to the season, Kentucky improved to 3-0 in the SEC with its best win of the season, while Florida fell to 5-3 overall and 2-2 in the league.
Kentucky shot 55.8 percent from the field, while Florida was just 37.5 percent. At one point, Kentucky’s lead was 25 points.
The most alarming aspect is it matched the worst home loss during the Mike White era at Florida.
Here is a sampling of the White criticism:
Your program and employment of Mike White is an utter embarrassment to the University and the history of Florida Basketball. @ScottStricklin https://t.co/YqswMfCqAw
— T (@tdgator9) January 10, 2021
Final in Gainesville: Kentucky 76, Florida 58.
The 18-point margin matches the worst home loss in the coach Mike White era (or error, as some would say).
— Mark Long (@APMarkLong) January 10, 2021
Not only have the #Gators lost five straight to Kentucky, they have been unable to top 60 points in four of those games.
Mike White is now 3-14 all-time against Kentucky (3-8) and Florida State (0-6).
Fastbreak takeaways: https://t.co/GoQUpdwxGi
— OnlyGators.com Florida Gators news (@onlygators) January 10, 2021
Error about right. Assume fate bought himself another year but ♂️…
— Jeffrey Lau (@j_lau326) January 10, 2021
This is the worst loss of the Mike White era. It’s obvious this program isn’t heading in the right direction. I don’t know what else you need to see
— J (@UFPJR) January 10, 2021
I’ve seen enough, it is time for the Mike White era to end
— Michael Remeikis (@reMIKEis) January 9, 2021
Been saying Mike White needs to go before Florida basketball can be dominate again
— Ben J (@BEN__JAMMIN__) January 10, 2021
Florida now 3-8 vs. Kentucky under Mike White and have lost their last 5 since sweeping the 2017-2018 set
— Michael Remeikis (@reMIKEis) January 10, 2021
No idea. I haven’t watched a Florida basketball game since like 2019, or maybe 2018. I’ve been out until they fire Mike White for a minute.
— (@SultanOfShame) January 10, 2021
Florida basketball is just bad. Mike White is just awful. Are we sure that Jeremy Foley still isn’t calling the shots behind the scenes? He’s on the UAA at Florida.
— God Fearing Gator (PEWDIEPIE STAN ACCOUNT) (@GFgatorgamer) January 10, 2021
No need to have a paragraph post about Florida b-ball and missing Key it’s simple MIKE WHITE CANT COACH
— YEAR 2 JA (@EJ2k19) January 10, 2021
Mike White gets out prepared and then outcoached by just about every good opposing coach he faces. Florida definitely deserves a better basketball coach. Too much talent on this team to be totally outmatched by Bama and Kentucky. UF is an excellent basketball program and it deserves an excellent basketball coach to lead it.
Last year they had more talent than this year and they couldn’t seem to get it together. I don’t usually harp on coaches but if you can’t seem to get your team ready to play as hard as possible, then your not coaching. If your not coaching why are you here?
All of the tweets you posted had a combined THIRTEEN likes.
What a tsunami of criticism!
I agree we need a change, however Mike White is a good coach. He may not be ready to win on a big time level yet. I watched every second of that game tonight. The effort level was at all time high. He had them ready to go and those kids played extremely hard. They just could not get the ball to go in. It happens. The bad news is that all that hard work amounts to nothing if you do not get a W. It is probably time for him to go. So weird though. He is technically sound, pushes the kids, recruits well but can’t seem to get over the hump.
White always blames the players, which is why he has failed to grow and improve as a coach.
I know it was a hard spot to take over behind Billy D, but this Florida basketball program has seemed to be diminished a little each year under White. It’s like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in it.
White looks the part but I haven’t seen his system work at Florida. In fact, they have played good defense but this “system” on offense has looked undefined, pass the ball around the perimeter and take a contested jump shot late in the clock.
When you look at the coaching hires at rival schools, you have to realize whatever momentum the UF program had has been lost, and it’s trending in the wrong direction. They have to make a change.
You just knew ky was going to snap out of it at some point. I didn’t watch that game. The win is not all that surprising. They should be able to beat anyone on a given night with all that talent. Combine poor shooting with one team, no real home court advantage and your best player out (Johnson is your best right?). And it’s a recipe fir a loss. Probably the losidedness is what’s most surprising. The rest of the league better be ready to play. Starting to look like the usual ky teams, not the one that started the season so poorly.
I’ve been calling for Coach White to go for awhile. I can’t understand why he can’t win a big game. He drops a few of the winnable games and never wins win we are the underdogs.
When
Unfortunately, CMW gets a pass because of covid and what happened to Key.
He shouldn’t. He’s been here long enough for us to know that this is not that he’s had bad luck. He’s not head coach material for a big program.