SEC Basketball: Expectations for each first-year head coach in 2022-23 season

Mike White – Georgia

Mind-boggling. That’s the only word that should’ve come to mind when Georgia hired Mike White. Despite having a ton of talent and coaching at a basketball program that had a ton of success in the years before him, Florida was never able to get higher than a four seed in the NCAA Tournament. They reached one Elite Eight (in the same season they were a four seed) and quite frankly made the Elite Eight despite White and not because of him.

Now, White did manage to bring in some nice transfers for his first year at Georgia and while the team shouldn’t be expected to be in the tournament or even competing to get in, they should be better than they were last season.

Mardrez McBride and Terry Roberts aren’t two names that the casual college basketball fan will recognize, but they are both solid players. McBride averaged 11 points per game and shot 38% from three on a good North Texas team that fell just short of the NCAA Tournament. He’ll be a good floor spacer for Terry Roberts who not only averaged 14.5 points per game last season but led the Missouri Valley Conference with 4.1 assists. Those two guys paired with Georgia’s best player in Kario Oquendo could be a sneaky good backcourt that wins some games in SEC play.

Matthew Alexander-Moncriefiffe and Frank Anselem should also be impact players that add depth in the frontcourt for White. Anselem especially should be a guy that Syracuse fans are upset about losing.

In terms of production, we haven’t seen much from him yet, but Anselem is a player whose 6’10 frame combined with his length and bounce gives him a potential that is much higher than a lot of people realize. Playing in the Syracuse offense where Buddy Boeheim was used in about 1/4 of Syracuse’s possessions (Kenpom) and wasn’t very efficient, was probably a really bad recipe for success for Anselem.

Overall, if the transfers mesh well, this is a team that can avoid playing on the first day of the SEC tournament. However, Mike White was probably the worst hire out of the six new SEC coaches and Georgia might be set up worse than the other five programs.