Pat Dooley’s High Five: How These Gator Basketball Coaches Fared In Season 2

Todd Golden may be causing you some heartburn, but even the most cynical of Gator fans (what, Gator fans cynical?) will begrudgingly give him credit for where the Gators are this season.

At 17-7 and 7-4 in the SEC, Golden’s second Florida team has fallen somewhere in the upper half of second seasons for the previous five Gator coaches.

The High Five gives you the second seasons of the last five coaches at Florida (although I couldn’t include Don DeVoe because he didn’t have a second season):

1. Mike White 2016-17

White’s second team was a good one that went 27-9 and 14-4 in the league. It also gave us the Chris Chiozza buzzer-beater in Madison Square Garden and nearly a trip to the Final Four.

2. Lon Kruger 1991-92

Kruger actually had a winning SEC record in his second year at 9-7 and the Gators ended up with a respectable 19-14 record. They made it all the way to the Final Four of the NIT.

3. Billy Donovan 1997-98

This team had a shot at the NCAA tournament. But Jason Williams was booted after 20 games and Florida lost five consecutive at the end of the regular season. The Gators did make the NIT only to lose a home game to Georgetown to finish 14-15.

4. John Lotz 1974-75

Lotz lasted seven years at Florida, coming from the North Carolina school of coaching. His second team was hardly his best at 12-16 and 8-10. In the stands at Alligator Alley was a young hipster doofus who would go on to write the High Five.

5. Norm Sloan 1981-82

After Sloan came back to Florida for the new O’Connell Center, he basically gutted the team and brought a lot of freshmen in. The result was a 5-22 season with a 2-16 SEC record. It took some time.

WRUF.com sports columnist Pat Dooley can be heard on “The Tailgate” along with Jeff Cardozo from 4-6 p.m. Monday-Friday on 98.1-FM/AM-850 WRUF.