Welp. There goes the big dance!

I am curious about this as well. Just put $65 million into an arena renovation. Recently expanded the weight room in the practice facility and currently planning a larger renovation over there. Pay our coaches well. Ticket sales remain strong and even more money is going to start flowing into the program through new TV deals and SEC contributions.

I get that we don't travel as well as some other fan bases and actual attendance isn't always great, but there is obvious interest in the program. The message boards are some of the most active I've seen for a dedicated basketball forum at a non blue blood basketball program. There are successful UF basketball podcasts. Social media goes crazy over Gator basketball.

That's not to say we can't be better or shouldn't invest more, but I think sometimes we are a little hyper-critical of the program and fans because it is what we are most familiar with.

 

I've said this the last couple of years but hammered by too many. They aren't hammering me now. The question is, will we even make the NIT and will it be 1 and done there too? This is an enigma. This team is not even close to the team that started 6-0.

 

Assistant coach salary pool; staff positions, such as recruiting director or analytics; recruiting budget; marketing and promotional efforts;

And then there are the proverbial “little things”, that collectively, speak to a lacking priority. For example…. we had a preseason scrimmage versus unc on our home floor. Tar Heels sent a photographer and released a highlight video. Florida did …. absolutely nothing.

I’ll never forget when Florida hosted recruits Tre Mann and Scottie Lewis during a “basketball signing event”. There was virtually no promotion of this, and it took place an hour prior to a football game. My son and I attended. At one point, I was standing nearby and talking with a friend. A uaa staffer approached and began telling me about these two recruits, of which I obviously knew. “Oh great,” he says. “Can you guys go ask for an autograph or picture? It would really help”.
Ugh.

 

Thank you. Thought he got one after he left did not know he did before he. came.

 

It would look like this: Flip the friggin' camera!

 

Florida basketball - the University's best kept secret!

 

Don’t the cameras always show the team benches and scorers table? If so, you would have to flip the Rowdy Reptiles.

 

Almost always

 

Which is why we are in the maintain top 25 program status at this point.

 

Isnt that on White?

Lack of support was a Mullen gripe, and now we have Napier doing all the small things. Do you really think the admin just won’t approve it or the HC isn’t into these minute details?

 

Hard to get riled up about basketball right now.

 

I am not sure how much White has pressed, or what type of leverage he has. Certainly, a football hire has more leverage than that of hoops.
Napier, wisely, made it known what he needed in order to accept and succeed. White, famously, told foley he is taking the position before even looking at the offer. That was an effort to show his enthusiasm, but maybe not the best tactic. Still, I do not think he had the leverage- nor did/does basketball have the same priority (and rightfully so). Mike did want an additional staff position, but it was declined. How much he pushed for that, or any other perceived shortfalls…. I don’t know.
And I can only speculate whether or not it would have mattered.

 

More and more schools have the cameras facing their student sections….for the reasons of televisoon optics.
Scott Stricklin has told me Florida DOES want to do this, but just needs to find the needed money. The price tag apparently approaches $1 mil.
I think it’s particularly important for Florida due to the renovation design. The current backdrop often looks very empty bc the lounge pulls folks from their seats.

 

amazing - you'd think it'd be fairly simple and cheaper than $1M to build a camera support platform and run some wiring, but who knows.

I will say that from my perspective over the last 20 years or so, though, the administrations of both UF and the UAA have trended a lot more towards bureaucratic complexity than dynamic leadership, so it doesn't really surprise me at all that something like this that seems relatively straightforward might be mired in red tape and bean counting.

 

The admin people that work at the dome, should have standby people that want to go to the game ready in an area of the dome, when someone, their party just spends the whole time drinking in the lounge and watching the game and socializing, the standbys get to go down to the empty seats and fill the lower bowl. Camera problems solved.
They could return to the area/room if the patrons come back, but as we have seen time after time, the big donors spend more time in the lounge.

 

Would there be cameras on both sides ? I don’t recall watching college games where you don’t see the team benches and scorers table?

 

Maybe this is why there is some noise about White maybe looking elsewhere. I expect it had a hand in why Coach Krueger left (though that was a very different environment). I think most of us can agree that Coach White would likely be more successful with a similar commitment to basketball as we're seeing in football. All boils down to whether or not the administration wants to compete at the highest level.

 

I don't know if folks outside the area have an appreciation for how far our in-game experience has fallen off in terms of game atmosphere. But Billy emphasized it (or the UAA emphasized it and encouraged Billy to emphasize it). We don't see the same effort now, and some things are unnecessarily restrictive (re: student enthusiasm and efforts to engage the student sections to be a bigger part of the atmosphere).

Why does the in-game experience matter? Ok, teams play better at home; most of this is comfort and familiarity, but some of it can be chalked up to having a home crowd that gives you a little extra boost. Even when this boost is negligible or potentially not a factor leading to a W, it still helps with making the experience overall more fun. It also helps to build that idea of "I want to go to the games, that looks like fun!" This is part of how you build a fan base. The players feel more appreciated, maybe they give just a little bit more, and the wins resonate with more people and it all has a reciprocating effect.

It's time we invest in the students again, we should have 1,500 students down low having a significant impact on the game atmosphere in a mostly positive way.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

No, the man main broadcast camera is only on one side. Every game has camera people who are court side and can film different angles.