ATHENS — Pat Dooley calls them “Gidiots.” It’s a made-up name he has given to what he deems as “Gator idiots.” They are a subset of Florida fans who are never satisfied with anything or anyone unless it results in multiple championships for them to celebrate.
Dooley says the Gidiots finally got to Mike White, and that’s why he wanted out of Florida.
“The first couple of years he didn’t let it bother him,” said Dooley, a retired columnist for the Gainesville Sun and star of the Dooley Noted podcast. “Then, it got to him. It frustrated him. They literally drove him out.”
Georgia hired White as its new men’s basketball coach on Sunday night. His appointment came three days after the Bulldogs parted ways with Tom Crean.
In White, the Bulldogs are getting a coach who has been doing what they couldn’t get done. While Georgia hasn’t received a postseason bid in six years, the Gators went to six straight tournaments. It would have been seven straight if the 2020 postseason hadn’t been canceled due to COVID-19.
Florida went to the NIT in 2016 and is headed there this year, without White. In between, the Gators went to four consecutive NCAA Tournaments, advancing to the Elite Eight in 2017 and winning at least their first-round game in the other years. Florida is one of only six schools to win a game in each of the last four NCAA Tournaments.
Conversely, Georgia hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game since 2002. The Bulldogs are 7-10 all time in the Big Dance.
Head-to-head, Georgia was 3-11 against the Gators while White was their coach. He logged a 142-88 overall record during his seven seasons in Gainesville, while the Bulldogs were 114-119 over the same stretch.
“If he has the same exact record he had at Florida, the Georgia fans will erect a statue,” Dooley cracked.
The fact is, there was a lot of grousing about White at Florida. While his accomplishments there look bright and shiny from Georgia’s perspective, they paled in the light of what Billy Donovan did with the Gators.
Donovan led Florida to four Final Fours and back-to-back national championships in 2006-07. He left behind a sparkling 467-115 record (.715) when he bolted for the NBA in 2015. The Gidiots got to him, too, Dooley contends.
That’s when White came in from Louisiana Tech.
“Same old thing: ‘You never want to follow The Guy,’” Dooley said. “He gets compared to Billy, and there never will be another Billy at Florida. What Billy did at Florida was unbelievable, and he did it at a school where nobody gives a (hoot) about basketball. And now that’s what Florida has to do now. They have to go big or go home.”
Dooley said some of the criticism of White is justified. Generally, the Gators never lived up to expectations in the postseason. And, like Crean, he struggled to transition to the age of the transfer portal.
“He’s got to do a better job with the portal,” Dooley said. “That’s where Mike White screwed up this year. He went deep into the transfer portal, and most of them didn’t work out.”
White had to go “deep in the portal” because he lost a lot of players to the portal. Over the last three seasons, Florida saw 10 players transfer out, including star point guard Andrew Nembhard, who ended up at Gonzaga. The Gators also lost some talent to the NBA draft.
But White has continued to recruit well throughout. His 2022 class is ranked 20th nationally and fourth in the SEC and featured five-star power forward Malik Reneau of Montverde, Fla.
“It just didn’t work out,” Dooley said. “People were down on him, and they wanted him fired. They’re all idiots and happy now. The Gidiots all got their way, and now they’re happy.”
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