What do you realistically expect in terms of tournament play over the next 3-5 years.

Next 5?

4 of 5 - Gone first weekend
1 of 5 - Gone second weekend

 

With how unpredictable roster turnover is in college basketball I find it pretty tough to project even a couple years out.

I see this year’s team as likely a 6-7 seed. Gators would obviously be a favorite in their first game, and they have taken care of business in those games and with such a veteran team I think they get it done, and then I’d say they lose the round of 32 game.

Looking forward to 2022-23, it would really all depend on who leaves and how the Gators do in the transfer portal. I could see it being a retooling year, where they’re on the bubble all year, and I could also very well see them getting appleby back for year 6, them landing impact transfers, Reeves returning and being incredible, and reneau being a stud instantly. And that could be a second weekend team.

And then they could lose a bunch of talent to the pros! So it’s just so tough to project exactly how teams will do even a few years into the future. But if nothing else I feel like they will continue to bring in great talent.

 

I don't know the point of trying to project our tournament experience five years out. I won't even project this upcoming season, until I at least get to see the newcomers against some good competition.

 

Well, being we are just a handful of teams to make the last four NCAA Tournaments (and the only SEC school to do so), let’s all hope that trend continues. At the same time, UF has never lost a first round in those Tournaments under Mike White so hopefully that continues also. Finally, when we do make Tournament appearances, let’s hope for favorable matchups and that the ball bounces our way so we can make a couple of deep runs.

 

Yes. This is basketball, not football. You can make a tournament run with 6 or 7 good players or one filled with seniors.

I expect an annual NCAA invite with a run into 16 or 8 every two to four years, further on occasion.

 

While this really doesn't address the OP's question I'll say that our maturity level is going to be much higher this season and I do expect that to pay dividends for us.

 

While some think that it is a real accomplishment just to be a regular in a field of 64, I think that we should have much higher expectations . Therefore just being ‘average’ in that field isn’t really gratifying. This program OUGHT to be able to regularly be among at least the 16 best programs in the Country. So making it to the sweet 16 on a regular basis should be within our expectations. It’s sad to me that the fan base doesn’t have much anticipation of that on a consistent level. How the gators have fallen.

 

I'm not a big Mike White fan, but I don't know that we've drastically underperformed our talent level over the last few years -- mostly we just haven't had very good teams, and the results have borne that out. So in a scenario where we have top 10 talent, I'd be relatively optimistic about our chances for a deep tournament run, though I would never place any bets on a specific tournament outcome -- results are too random and unpredictable.

 

Round of 32 consistently
Round of 16 occasionally

winning record every time paramount. Winning conference record would be solid.

 

Goal is to average being ranked in the top 10. Acceptable to be on average ranked in the top 20. Unacceptable beyond that.

(Note I said 'on average')

Tournament runs are a result of how good you are. There is a element of randomness (your draw + random variation in games). But if you are top 10 on average (or even top 20) you'll make some deep runs.

 

Well, the year we had top ten talent, we made the Elite 8.

 

Harry Fodder: 2021-22 Preseason Basketball Primer - Florida Gators

 

well that got me all fired up. ready for the season to see how the new guys and the returners mesh!

 

Good stuff! So practice starts today, eh?

 

I have long thought sweet 16 is the bar for success.

Getting to the tournament is the bar for not getting fired. Not that a coach should be insta-fired for failing to get there, but a major program coach shouldn’t last long failing to get there. White is in a weird place where he’s *barely* gotten there several times in a row. So in the “not gonna get fired for that” territory, but considering the mediocre play he really does need a couple “successful” seasons on the books. A failure to even reach the tourney may be a final straw.

No idea what this team will look like. Insane roster turnover makes things hard to predict. I doubt we are anywhere near top 10 or even 25, but then again we should have enough talent to be a solid bubble team. Maybe we’ll outperform for a change.

 

Bling -
Frankly my post is representative of tournament success under CMW to date.
(At UF)

As you are more than aware we have only advanced past the first weekend once under him.

 

I’d argue we only “barely” got there once. We’ve been comfortably in the tournament every other season other than 18-19, maybe not as high a seed as we would like at times but safely in. We’ve also won the first game every year, so to the top 32 consistently. I’d love to make a few more sweet 16’s (and hopefully further), but that’s no easy task. BillyD is a sure fire HOF coach that gave us greater success than any other coach ever will, and he fell short of the sweet 16 more than he made it (sweet 16 or further in 8 of 19 seasons). In my opinion, making the sweet 16 even somewhere around half of seasons would be really damn good (and hopefully once there an occasional deep run). We aren’t there right now, but we aren’t far off either.

 

Yes, we are all disappointed with losing to Oral Roberts last year.

But NCAA tournament success is not how to judge a program. BD had some great teams after his 2000 Final Four run that flamed out in the tournament in the first weekend year after year.

I have five Level 1 tickets and pay the booster fees for that so I have a lot of skin in the game. All I have as a bottom line is running a clean and competitive program with really high quality individuals and I mean that as people and not just athletes. You have to love having guys like Patric Young represent your school.

That eventually worked for BD in 2006 and 2007 and came close to working in 2014.