Stats indicate White defenders are “out of touch with reality” rather than the other way around

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Full disclaimer: I’m not all that invested in the Gators basketball program.

I like to see the Gators do well, as I do in every sport, but I grew up in Indiana rooting for the Hoosiers and I’m far more invested in the success of new head coach Mike Woodson in Bloomington than I am in whether Mike White can make Florida’s basketball program elite.

So I hadn’t planned on writing anything about White or his job status. It just doesn’t mean that much to me. Besides, I wrote about it in 2018 and 2019 and he has yet to live up to the promise that I identified back then.

But what does mean something to me is when someone insults a broad swath of the Gators fanbase as Mike Bianchi did this weekend calling Florida fans “Gator Twitter trolls”, “out of touch with reality” and “UF’s lunatic fringe.”

That’s just unfair.

It’s mostly unfair because calling people critical of White the “lunatic fringe” suggests they don’t know anything about basketball or that they are being unreasonable. Instead, all I see from White’s defenders are wildly random – and non-statistical methods – being used to defend their position.

When you ignore the evidence they’re ignoring, I struggle to see how they can call anybody being critical out of touch with reality.

NCAA Tournament – Whoop Dee Doo

Let’s get this out of the way. Making the NCAA Tournament isn’t all that impressive for a Power-5 team.

68 teams make the tournament out of 350 schools. That means you’re in the top 20-percent of programs if you make the tournament, right? Except that the Power-5 schools are disproportionately represented. Those conferences (the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC and Notre Dame) made up 34 of the 68 spots this year, meaning that there were less Power-5 teams who missed the tournament (31) than there were that made it.

The Big Ten absolutely flamed out in the tournament this season after getting nine teams in. Do I think the Big Ten was a better conference than some of the others who’ve had better luck? Absolutely, but it turns out that one game sample sizes are rife for upsets; you know, the thing that makes the NCAA Tournament fun.

I mean, let’s think of it the other way around. I don’t think less of Coach K because Duke didn’t make the tournament. Having a bad season – or taking time for a rebuild to then grow the program stronger – happens in college basketball.

It’s certainly better that White is getting to the tournament. But all it really says about the Florida program is that it is in the top-half of the Power-5 programs in the country.

That’s something, but it’s hardly a solid rock upon which to base an argument.

Mike White vs. Billy Donovan

You’ll also hear White defenders talk about Donovan and his early exits in the tournament prior to the National Championships in 2006 and 2007. The implication is that Donovan was struggling with early exits in the tournament just like White and that success came because the administration was patient.

But that argument doesn’t hold statistical water. I’m a big believer in point differential as an indicator of how well a team actually played. If we look at the point differential in the Donovan era, what we see is why fans should have been encouraged, even with the early tournament exits prior to the ascension of the oh-fours.

Gators point differential under head coach Billy Donovan. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

Donovan took over and had poor point differentials in 1997 and 1998, but immediately jumped to 10 and then 14 in 1999 and 2000. Not coincidently, that 2000 team is the one that lost to Mateen Cleaves in the championship game.

Donovan was able to nearly sustain that level of play in 2001 and 2002, but then the program took a step back in 2003 and 2004. But the same jump that Donovan oversaw in 1999 occurred again in 2005. The reason that the 2005 loss to Villanova in the tournament was so heartbreaking was because that was a really good Gators team, with a point differential of 13.1 points per game. That team probably still loses to eventual national champion North Carolina (17.7 ppg differential) in the next round, but it would have been a heck of a game.

Donovan again was able to sustain that success for two more seasons, bringing Florida its two national championships before another drop-off came. But again, he was able to build again for the 2013 season, losing to Michigan in the Elite-8.

So what about White?

Gators point differential under Mike White. (Will MIles/Read and Reaction)

We have one decent data point (2017, 11.4 points per game differential) and five bad ones (an average of 5.2 points per game differential). That 2017 team was mostly recruited by Donovan but you have to give White credit for getting them to perform.

But if you’re going to give White credit for 2017, don’t you also have to cast blame for the four subsequent seasons? There is no build. There is no progress. It’s basically Groundhog Day from 2018 to 2021, just with different excuses as to why things didn’t pan out.

SEC Success

But maybe you’re someone who thinks it’s unfair to compare White to Donovan. After all, Billy built the program into something that would be hard for anyone to maintain.

So for those defenders, what would be an acceptable standard to hold White to?

Florida is nearing its 250th SEC Championship for all of its varsity sports teams. Maybe you don’t like Billy Donovan-level success as a standard, but surely competing and winning the SEC is something that a coach who makes $3.2 million annually should be able to do every once in a while?

Again, I go back to point differential to point out something about winning the SEC in basketball (regular season champs, if there were co-champs, their point differentials were averaged).

Point differential for every SEC regular season champion since 2000. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

The first thing that you’ll notice is that while there are peaks and valleys, the average SEC Champion has had a point differential of 11.9 points per game. Mike White has yet to achieve that kind of differential in six seasons.

The other thing you’d notice is that the SEC has been down for the past four seasons, with the regular season champion averaging a differential of less than 10 points per game. That means that there hasn’t been some sort of Alabama-type team like in football that the Gators have been going up against and just coming up short. Instead, this is like had McElwain figured out how to screw up winning the SEC East in 2015 and 2016 when the toughest opponent in the east was probably South Carolina.

Takeaway

There may be good arguments to keeping Mike White as the head coach at Florida. But if those arguments center around making the tournament, you should acknowledge you’re making an extremely flawed argument.

Also, let’s be honest and acknowledge that there are good arguments that he isn’t the man to take the program to the next level.

If you’re okay with just making the tournament and bowing out early, that’s fine. But at least make that argument instead of arguing that he’s about the turn the corner like Donovan did in 2006. There is zero statistical evidence to suggest that is going to happen.

It’s insulting to call fans who take a look at what White has done – in a down SEC – and talk about how they lack perspective. He isn’t showing any sort of progress indicating the program is building towards something. And now half the team has transferred out of the program and fans are supposed to trust that White will be able to strike oil through the transfer portal?

Might he? Sure. But my point isn’t that he should be fired or that Scott Stricklin isn’t right for being patient. My point is that calling Gators fans names for coming to the conclusion that White isn’t the guy to take the program to the next level takes a hubris that requires ignoring the statistics and pushing forward with blind hope.

If you’re one of those fans, maybe you’ll be rewarded for that hope. But from where I stand, those fans are the ones that are “out of touch with reality” instead of the other way around.

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