Florida Basketball: 8 candidates to replace Mike White as head coach

Jerome Tang

For our final coach, we circle back to the first name on this list. Scott Drew is likely not coming to Florida. It’s not impossible, but it’s far from likely that he’ll leave the Bears just a year after breaking through with the national title. Instead of poaching Drew, Florida could instead hire away Drew’s top assistant, someone who’s been with him through all of the rebuild.

Tang spent time at the high school level before his collegiate coaching career began on Drew’s staff with Baylor. He’s been at Baylor since 2003, spending all 19 years of the painstaking rebuild and reformation of Baylor’s basketball program. The Bears won the national title last season and have been one of the sport’s best turnarounds, and Tang certainly played a role in that development.

With what Tommy Lloyd has done at Arizona this year, Tang is going to be a popular name this offseason, considering at Baylor he’s very similar to what Lloyd was for decades at Gonzaga. Whether or not Florida wants to hire someone without any head coaching experience remains to be seen, but Tang’s hire could be seen as getting a Drew-like hire without spending the extra millions.

We have completed looking at each of these eight potential candidates for the Gators; who do you think is going to wind up as Florida’s next coach?