If You Still Need Reasons to Trust in Todd...

Taoist principal. Can't copy the gifts of another. Must be true to one's own gifts.

 

There are a LOT of older coaches out there that trust their eyes more than anything else. I think of Calipari who seemingly aggregates talent with less thought of the whole and little thought of the individuals willingness to play for a team (hell, he brags of 1 and done).

Todd does run by the numbers. I was thrilled when Todd fouled late in a game and just spouted the odds of them making both ends of a 1 and 1 versus us being forced to huck up a 3 with 6 seconds left if no foul stopped the clock. He KNOWS the data and trusts it.

In addition to the above, and probably more importantly, I think TG is a leader with vision. He seems to build guys up to play both freely and within the system. They play FOR the team knowing that success of the whole will bring individual success. Achieving THAT is really hard. To gather talent based on specific talent and mentality to create a team surely relies upon data, and so much more. Being able to do all that is very rare.

Many rivals say last years success was the result of a generational player or a group of mercenaries developed by others. That team, though, sure looked like they played for each other so however they came in, somebody got them to gel. And, yes, Clayton saved our bacon more than once, but no team wins the title without a star. I leave room for the possibility that last year was lightning in a bottle, but watching TG operate belies that notion in my (admittedly biased) opinion. Gonna enjoy TG as long as possible!!!

 

Watched the TT E8 game last night on the NCAA Channel - so it's like watching "live" - no pauses, no rewind - and it really struck me of the confluence of skilled coaching and superb player execution. Many hands on the rope, but doubtless Walter was the one, in this game, who pulled the most weight. Still love seeing Alijah's side-of-the-mouth "Ballgame" comment to the TT player.

 

I have been meaning to post about this same thing! I noticed in games this season and particularly the tourney games, several staff coaches are reporting certain information to Golden. After most plays and particularly in a timeout or play stoppage for review, etc., one or two coaches are relaying some info to Golden very quickly and usually Golden shakes his head to acknowledged the data was received. It’s rarely more than a second or two and it’s presented and received very fast. I can’t say I’ve ever noticed this too much until this year. I’m assuming certain coaches are tasked with curating needed info to relay to TG; the very cool part is how fast TG absorbs it in the midst of all he has to do as head coach and that he acknowleges receipt. Watch the latter part of the Texas Tech game and you will see a lot of this taking place. Golden is a great coach, very cerebral, and obviously processes game facts and scenarios lightning fast and utilizes and trusts his staff implicitly.

 

One of the things that's struck me about the last couple years in terms of the difference with Mike White's tenure is the sense that Golden is carefully following a thought-out plan and White never really got there.

I don't mean that to sneer at White as an idiot or anything -- that's not what I'm saying. He dealt with a lot of bad luck and he had to navigate some crummy situations.

But that's always what he seemed to be doing -- scrambling to plug holes and shore up crumbling foundations. He never seemed to be in a position where he could make a plan, pursue it, see it through and reap the fruits of it.

Golden, on the other hand, clearly has a plan and a vision and he's executing both of them. It's not that everything has gone perfectly (nothing ever does), but the program looks the way he envisions it looking, and when he needs to do a little ad libbing outside the structure of his plan it's not an emergency situation.

 

I agree with sentences 1, 3 and 4. However I disagree wholeheartedly with Sentence 2, as I do believe that Mike White is not only an idiot, but too stubborn to ever change. He is a perfect UGA bulldog.

I also attribute no portion of his failure at UF as being bad luck, as I would argue he got handed one of the best possible situations in following a coaching legend who built up UF's program that White then clearly left in a worse position. UF should have been a Final Four Team in his 2nd season, but unfortunately Mike White ran our offense. Once Billy's players were gone, it was all downhill. I mean how do you "never really get there" when you are at a program for 7 seasons? It ain't on anyone but you at that point...

 

I’ll just say Golden is a better coach than White, MUCH better. It couldn’t have turned out better for us!

 

Keyontae Johnson was certainly bad luck. Nobody could have seen that coming or prepared for that as it really was a 1 off situation.

The year we lost Castleton late was 2022-2023, Golden's first year. Castleton only went down for 5 games in White's last 2021-2022 season during SEC play, and the Gators went 3-2 in those 5 games....

 

Mike white was a relatively high floor low ceiling coach.
He is a good recruiter, a good defensive coach, his kids seem to play hard for him, but a below average offensive coach, below average developer of talent, below average in roster construction (he is scrambling to fill holes constantly) and a well below average in game coach.
His defensive coaching and recruiting mean his teams will usually be decent, everything else says that is all they will ever be. For me he was the most frustrating coach I can remember at UF in any sport, because he had an almost pathological aversion to self introspection and growth. It was the exact same issues from the day he was hired til the day he ran away, nothing ever changed. Golden adapts constantly. He made mistakes team fit wise in who he recruited in year 1, in year 2 it was fixed. He realized the team was lacking in rebounding after year one, that’s what he focused on. He realized we were defensively weak in year 2, that’s what he focused on.
Just no comparison between them really.

 

I wonder what's to "dislike" about my post RE re-watching the TT game.

 

Agree with this with two additional thoughts. First, I think MW was terrible for some of our players (ie, Nemhard). Failure to maximize talent is bad. Damaging players confidence and forcing a style that harms the team (and players' future prospects) is indefensible. Second, and related, that style of ball that makes players play like they have a leash on and causes second half collapses is not fun to watch as a fan. Other than the Cheese era, there was little joy seeming to come from the players/teams. That makes a high floor, low ceiling less palatable, and I think explains some of the antipathy toward MW.

 

Uh oh, that was my fat finger mis-hitting the rating. I actually liked that post of yours, and just gave you a Winner in lieu of my fat fingered bacon. Sorry!
Why do they put the Disagree/Bacon between the Agree and Thanks/Fistbump icons?!
I’m not sure I’ve ever given a Disagree/Bacon rating intentionally.
I certainly like and agree with your posts as well as others here!