GAINESVILLE, Fla. — No college basketball coach checks all the boxes.
Florida’s Mike White is no different.
But when White and his Gators miss the mark, it often leaves scars and sends a fervent fan base into an uproar.
Gator Nation is rattled, ranting and in need of time to recover from Sunday night’s late-game collapse against Oral Roberts. Some perspective might expedite the process or further inflame fans whose decision on White’s future is final.
First off, White is not going anywhere, nor would it be reasonable to expect it.
Yet, evaluating White, who has four years remaining on his contract, also is complicated.
A pattern of sloppy turnovers, silly fouls, scoring droughts and head-scratching substitution patterns are hard to accept and explain away.
A look at the current state of some of the game’s bluebloods does offer White’s program some defense.
Kansas, Louisville and Arizona are under NCAA investigation, while White’s program by all accounts is squeaky clean. Kentucky — and Duke — missed the 2021 NCAA Tournament, making the Gators the only SEC team to qualify for the last four editions of the Big Dance.
Florida also is the only SEC team with a winning conference record the six seasons under White, who is 20 games above .500 in league play (63-43, 125-73 overall).
Statistics do not camouflage some ugly blemishes, be it the Oral Roberts’ flop or blowing a 22-point lead two seasons ago at home to Mississippi State, the one-time employer and alma mater of Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin.
South Carolina’s full-court pass for a buzzer-beating layup in 2019 was a breakdown in every sense. Squandering an 18-point lead to rival Kentucky on Senior Day 2020 was brutal.
The 2019-2020 Gators also came back from 22 down to beat Alabama and Nate Oates and 14 days later dealt No. 4 Auburn a 22-point beatdown.
Basketball is a game of runs, exhilarating highs and crushing lows. Even so, a little more consistency is fair to expect from the Gators under White.
Tre Mann’s expected departure to the NBA on Wednesday will be hard to overcome. But the Gators should return a solid core of players, including big man Colin Castleton, shooting guard Noah Locke, point guard Tyree Appleby and forward Anthony Duruji. Coming off a scoreless game and a sporadic season, the future of Scottie Lewis at UF is less certain; his need for another season in college is clear.
Whatever the future holds, White’s program proved to be resilient in 2020-21.
The loss of Keyontae Johnson following his collapse in December was something few teams would have handled. That, and a COVID-19 shutdown in February led UF to cancel seven games.
White and his team managed to stick together, get to the NCAA Tournament and pull out a first-round win in overtime against Virginia Tech.
Critics would point out the Gators could have won the game in regulation. Supporters of White, and there are some despite what social media tells you, would laud Florida for making it that far.
No one outside or inside the program is happy with the Oral Roberts outcome. A trip to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2017 seemed fairly certain until a series of lost opportunities and strategic miscalculations during the final 10 minutes.
The final snapshot of the Gators’ season wasn’t pretty. We’ve seen it before.
Perhaps a 30,000-foot view of White’s program is the best one to take in for now. From there, things certainly could look a lot worse.
