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Michael White is a shrewd hire by Florida if not the safe one
The simplest move Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley could have made in the wake of the departure of Billy Donovan would have been to wave $4 million a year at Dayton's Archie Miller, Xavier's Chris Mack or another established coaching star.
Needless to say, Foley chose not to play it safe.
In an offseason in which Mississippi State and Tennessee both hired veteran coaches who have reached the Final Four and Alabama hired a former NBA coach of the year, Foley risked the future of the Florida program on a man who has never made the NCAA tournament. He quickly zeroed in on Lousiana Tech coach Michael White, a hire that surely sent all but the most basketball-savvy Gators fans scrambling to Wikipedia once it was announced on Thursday night.
Not bothering to interview other splashier candidates exposes Foley to criticism if the hire turns out to be a bust, but passing on bigger names in favor of White may turn out to be a shrewd gamble. The 38-year-old son of well-respected Duke athletic director Kevin White is an energetic, ambitious up-and-comer who embodies much of what Florida sought in a coach even if he doesn't have NCAA tournament appearances to offer as validation.
White's youth belies his experience because his childhood groomed him for a career in college athletics. Dinners with coaches, administrators and donors were regular occurrences throughout his youth as his dad jumped from athletic director gigs at Maine, Tulane, Arizona State and Notre Dame before arriving at Duke in 2008.
The jump to the SEC also shouldn't faze White, a former four-year starter at point guard for Ole Miss who later spent seven years as an assistant with the Rebels on Andy Kennedy's staff. White has longstanding recruiting ties throughout the Southeast and has been particularly successful mining the state of Florida for talent during his Louisiana Tech tenure.
Hired in spring 2011 to resuscitate a long-struggling Louisiana Tech program coming off a 2-14 season in the WAC, White engineered a turnaround in startlingly speedy fashion. He won 18 games his debut season and 27 or more games each of his next three, capturing at least a share of three Conference USA regular season titles with players few Division I programs even bothered to recruit.
Guard Raheem Appleby, Louisiana Tech's leading scorer last season, weighed less than 140 pounds in high school and only received scholarship offers from the Bulldogs and a Division II college in his native Arkansas. Center Michale Kyser, the team's top shot-blocker and rebounder, signed with White only after backing out of his letter of intent to Lamar when the school fired its coach. And Florida native Kenneth "Speedy" Smith, who was fifth in the nation in assists last season, had zero Division I offers when White fell in love with his passing ability while watching YouTube clips of him late in his senior season.
White will obviously need to do more than uncover below-the-radar recruits to win at Florida, but his style of play should make for a smooth transition. Whether or not he sticks with the full-court pressure he favored at Louisiana Tech, he's likely to play an aggressive, up-tempo style that mirrors how Donovan's teams won at Florida.
The challenge for White will be proving Florida's recent emergence as a basketball juggernaut is a product of the caliber of its program and not merely the caliber of its former coach. Before Donovan willed the Gators to two national titles, four Final Fours and seven Elite Eights, they had only been to the NCAA tournament five times in program history.
Donovan left White with a brand-name program but not with a loaded roster. The Gators failed to reach the postseason this past March and their second-leading scorer Michael Frazier declared for the draft, their third-leading scorer Eli Carter is transferring and their top recruit KeVaughn Allen intends to seek a release from his letter of intent.
Nonetheless, Florida remains a top 20 job nationally because the school has the resources and recruiting base to provide the right coach a platform to contend for Final Fours and national championships.
White clearly gambled wisely when he turned down opportunities at Missouri and Tennessee last spring in hopes of landing a better job in the near future. Now we'll see whether Foley too took a shrewd risk targeting a coach with zero NCAA tournament appearances rather than one with a more proven track record.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
