Good on Florida for identifying Billy Donovan 2.0.

Good on the Ags for 4 straight years or no tournament appearances being enough to earn a 5th season of Billy Ball.

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Good on Florida for identifying Billy Donovan 2.0.

Good on the Ags for 4 straight years or no tournament appearances being enough to earn a 5th season of Billy Ball.

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If true, then they struck out on trying to grab Archie Miller (Dayton) or Chris Mack (Xavier).

Micheal White is a promising young coach, but pronouncing him 'Billy Donovan 2.0', the second coming of a hall of fame level coach, is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay premature. I can't put enough 'a's in there.

We got no idea whether White is the next Anthony Grant (see a comparison below of Grant's resume before taking the Alabama job to White's resume), the next 'Billy Donovan' with numerous Elite Eight's, Final Fours, and Nattys coming, or anywhere in between. You just don't know for sure when a coach moves up in weight class, including the recruiting battles, how things will work out.

Anthony Grant (3 years at VCU) - 75.2% win percentage, 2 NCAA appearances, 1 NIT appearance
Michael White (4 years at La Tech) - 71.6% win percentage, 3 NIT appearances

So you can see that Grant had a more impressive resume than White does, was an assistant coach at Florida for 10 years under Billy Donovan, then won 75% of his games with a couple of NCAA tourneys in 3 years as a head man at VCU, and then he took the Bama job and eventually got fired.

Would be an interesting hire definitely. But somebody like Archie Miller would have been more impressive IMO. I do like the hire more for them than if they had just stuck with Pelphrey.

Texags is very funny sometimes. I am not a Kennedy supporter, and I believe White is a solid coach. What I can't understand is why does White get a "pass" from Texags. He has 0 NCAA tourney appearances. If our next ball coach has 0 NCAA tourney appearances, and is not named White, I think most posters would be pretty upset at the hire.

Grant took over a VCU program that Capel had turned around already into a mid-major prominent contender.

White took over a dumpster fire at La Tech, and has been able to fairly quickly get that team playing good basketball.

Not exactly good "comps." In fact. Donovan at Marshall is a better comp with White at La Tech.

But the point is fair. White has a long way to go before saying he's Donovan, 2.0.

It will just be interesting if he is the hire...as it would point to yet another guy in the region who has been a hot name that will be taking a big job, while the Ags continue to sit and hope.

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Texags is very funny sometimes. I am not a Kennedy supporter, and I believe White is a solid coach. What I can't understand is why does White get a "pass" from Texags. He has 0 NCAA tourney appearances. If our next ball coach has 0 NCAA tourney appearances, and is not named White, I think most posters would be pretty upset at the hire.

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White took over a program in the dumps and has 3 NIT appearances at that mid-major in 4 seasons.

That's vastly different from taking over a team that had gone to 7 consecutive NCAA tournament and immediately going dumpster diving for 3 years, before an ultimately embarrassing finish to a year 4 where the coach and team had to do everything possible to miss the NCAA tourney, and did.

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Grant took over a VCU program that Capel had turned around already into a mid-major prominent contender.

White took over a dumpster fire at La Tech, and has been able to fairly quickly get that team playing good basketball.

Not exactly good "comps." In fact. Donovan at Marshall is a better comp with White at La Tech.

But the point is fair. White has a long way to go before saying he's Donovan, 2.0.

It will just be interesting if he is the hire...as it would point to yet another guy in the region who has been a hot name that will be taking a big job, while the Ags continue to sit and hope.

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Somebody like Archie Miller would have been more impressive, and of all the new SEC coaches in this last cycle (Howland, Avery Sr., and Barnes), White's resume is the thinnest by far. But I like the hire for them more than Promoting one of the UF assistants.

He's supposed to meet with foley today.

Mikesyracuse1

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Texags is very funny sometimes. I am not a Kennedy supporter, and I believe White is a solid coach. What I can't understand is why does White get a "pass" from Texags. He has 0 NCAA tourney appearances. If our next ball coach has 0 NCAA tourney appearances, and is not named White, I think most posters would be pretty upset at the hire.

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White has definitely been a hot up and coming coaching prospect it seems for a couple of years now. He seems interesting. 'Donovan 2.0' though? I would think the odds are overwhelming that he will be a downgrade from Donovan. It is not going to be easy replacing a top-5 coach who had a fantastic 19 year run. Of course, you can be a downgrade from Donovan and still be pretty good.

agree it's thinner than Archie's resume. But to me it appears more of the same type of hire they made when they got Donovan, which is why I said 2.0 originally(albeit partially joking).

Archie's resume is much more impressive than Billy D's was when he was hired.

Only thing that White is missing is that Rick Pitino type letter of recommendation that Donovan had.

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agree it's thinner than Archie's resume. But to me it appears more of the same type of hire they made when they got Donovan, which is why I said 2.0 originally(albeit partially joking).

Archie's resume is much more impressive than Billy D's was when he was hired.

Only thing that White is missing is that Rick Pitino type letter of recommendation that Donovan had.

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Pitino is endorsing his boy!

Mikesyracuse1

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Pitino is endorsing his boy!

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Well yeah I know that. I just mean that Michael White doesn't have a big name he coached for to pimp his name out there and make it more impressive like Donovan did back in the day.

Been saying this is the next Billy Donovan. Ironic if UF gets him. But hey BK top 5 class!

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But hey BK top 5 class!

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not anymore. Only a top 7 class.

Reason I've said next Billy Donovan, is style. Same sort of coaching style and style of play of BD early UF teams and Marshall teams.

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Texags is very funny sometimes. I am not a Kennedy supporter, and I believe White is a solid coach. What I can't understand is why does White get a "pass" from Texags. He has 0 NCAA tourney appearances. If our next ball coach has 0 NCAA tourney appearances, and is not named White, I think most posters would be pretty upset at the hire.

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The world isn't black and white. It requires critical thinking.

Yea shame on Pitino for trying to help his son. I think Richard is going to be a good one.

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agree it's thinner than Archie's resume. But to me it appears more of the same type of hire they made when they got Donovan, which is why I said 2.0 originally(albeit partially joking).

Archie's resume is much more impressive than Billy D's was when he was hired.

Only thing that White is missing is that Rick Pitino type letter of recommendation that Donovan had.

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I became a huge Archie Milker fan when mid- last season he had to kick all of his centers off his team for an on-campus theft incident, such that he did not have a single player left over 6'6" able to play...and he STILL made the NCAA tourney. Color me very impressed on that one.

Archie Milller is a fantastic coach. Might be better than his big brother. Guy had a up hill battle last year and still got in.

No critical thinking needed on Texags...I like White, I believe he's a good coach. I personally post on Texags to get a break from the critical thinking world. My only point was Texags would flip if our next coach has 0 NCAA tourney appearances. Not comparing White to Kennedy at all either.

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agree it's thinner than Archie's resume. But to me it appears more of the same type of hire they made when they got Donovan, which is why I said 2.0 originally(albeit partially joking).

Archie's resume is much more impressive than Billy D's was when he was hired.

Only thing that White is missing is that Rick Pitino type letter of recommendation that Donovan had.

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He is certainly seems similar to Donovan 19 years ago in some regards. 19 years ago, in retrospect we can see that Florida hit a grand slam home run. I figure if they at least hit a double with White that is still pretty good. An early step if hired is he is going to have to try to salvage the 2015 recruiting class, as there are at least two recruits who appear to have their fingers currently on the 'release me from the LOI' button.

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No critical thinking needed on Texags...I like White, I believe he's a good coach. I personally post on Texags to get a break from the critical thinking world. My only point was Texags would flip if our next coach has 0 NCAA tourney appearances. Not comparing White to Kennedy at all either.

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Why waste your time if you aren't going to think before you post? We have enough dumdums around here, we could use more people that actually contribute.

White has been winning 27 games and the regular season conference a few times. This isn't a typical hasn't made the tourney coach. Very young, looks in total control of things during a game. Watch his teams, they look well coached. They attack on offense and defense. This is the same mold of BD hire 19 years ago.

Looking at the bigger picture, this shows how difficult it is for deep south football schools to compete with basketball schools. Florida has the best track record in men's basketball for the last 10 years for all deep south football schools and they can't get who they want, so they have to settle for who they can get. Fans down here just don't care as much about the sport, relatively speaking, as fans up North do. Coaches and players recognize this and act accordingly.

Billy Donovan was Rick Pitino 2.0 before having any kind of postseason success in his two years at Marshall, but then made the sweet 16 in year 3 at Florida...the rest is history.

For funzys, who's got a higher upside...bk or white?

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No critical thinking needed on Texags...I like White, I believe he's a good coach. I personally post on Texags to get a break from the critical thinking world. My only point was Texags would flip if our next coach has 0 NCAA tourney appearances. Not comparing White to Kennedy at all either.

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He plays in a one bid league. One screw up in the conference tournament and he's done. Given that reality, I actually would prefer to see consistent winning than meh seasons followed by a stellar run in the conference tournament.

Obviously it would be better if he was getting in the tournament every year but he's won 27+ games 3 years in a row after a only a single 18 win building year. That's pretty good, tournament appearances or not

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Billy Donovan was Rick Pitino 2.0 before having any kind of postseason success in his two years at Marshall, but then made the sweet 16 in year 3 at Florida...the rest is history.

For funzys, who's got a higher upside...bk or white?

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For funzy's, who has the higher upside? Miller, Mack, or White? They are going to pay less for White than the first two guys.

Or, just looking at the newer SEC coaches, who would you most want to hire out of Pearl, Howland, Barnes, Avery Sr, or White? is Florida by swapping Donovan for White going to be able to maintain their position as a top team in the conference?


Kennedy is a dead horse tired topic. I know very few basketball fans who feel A&M is keeping up in the coaching arms race. Hopefully that situation will eventually rectify itself and until then, we will have to hope recruiting at least keeps going good.

I can't even imagine going into 2016-2017 with a coach making $1 million a year. Something's got to give. Some people are really going to have to dig deep to root for us to make the NCAA's next year if it means BK gets that raise to competitiveness.

Every single school has a hard time if they aren't deeply tied into the shoe companies. Has nothing to do with being in the south.

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Every single school has a hard time if they aren't deeply tied into the shoe companies. Has nothing to do with being in the south.

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Doesn't matter what you say, Jeff has spent 3 months on here creating a narrative about basketball in the south. He interjects it randomly into so many threads, I'm wondering why he hasn't written an entire book, or at least a hot fresh opinion piece for SI, about it.

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No critical thinking needed on Texags...I like White, I believe he's a good coach. I personally post on Texags to get a break from the critical thinking world. My only point was Texags would flip if our next coach has 0 NCAA tourney appearances. Not comparing White to Kennedy at all either.

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He plays in a one bid league. One screw up in the conference tournament and he's done. Given that reality, I actually would prefer to see consistent winning than meh seasons followed by a stellar run in the conference tournament.

Obviously it would be better if he was getting in the tournament every year but he's won 27+ games 3 years in a row after a only a single 18 win building year. That's pretty good, tournament appearances or not

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lost to UAB twice last season, lost by 20 points in a game during conference play and then lost to UAB in their conference tourney. UAB just appeared to be just bad news by end of the season, even beating Iowa State in NCAA.

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Pitino is endorsing his boy!

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Well yeah I know that. I just mean that Michael White doesn't have a big name he coached for to pimp his name out there and make it more impressive like Donovan did back in the day.

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is not White's dad the athletic director at Duke? His 'pimp' contact list may not be completely empty.

True

Jeff should write a book on struggling southern squads. Problem is it isn't a geographical problem.

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Pitino is endorsing his boy!

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Well yeah I know that. I just mean that Michael White doesn't have a big name he coached for to pimp his name out there and make it more impressive like Donovan did back in the day.

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is not White's dad the athletic director at Duke? His 'pimp' contact list may not be completely empty.

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His dad is coach k's boss. I would say his pimp list is not too bad. He also recruits the state of Florida well. There's some talent in Florida if they can keep the players from leaving.

Mikesyracuse1