re: UF basketball has made it to the national championship game 4 times; LSU has been 0 times

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Is it just a matter of our administration actually giving a shite and making a good faith effort to invest money into the program or are there some other factors at play?

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Hire the right HC. That's it.

Florida had marginal success prior to Donovan (save for an outlier Final Four in 1994 under Lon Kruger). They hire a 36 year old HC from Marshall, Billy Donovan, and are in the NCAA Championship game 4 years later. (Fun fact to piss everyone off and start a debate. Former LSU Associate AD, and current Houston AD, Eddie Nunez, played for Donovan and was on staff as GA. When LSU was searching for the replacement for Johnny Jones, Nunez was instrumental in the process. There was a candidate in the process whom Nunez told Alleva reminded him of a "young Billy Donovan". That candidate was...Will Wade).

After flaming out on Mr. Middle of the pack, Mike White, Florida hits again on yet another young HC who has them quickly playing for a NC.

It's not that Florida was outspending the Kentucky's, Arkansas's, Duke's, etc. of the world and eventually all that money was going to make a bad coach great. They found the right guy, twice.

Maybe LSU should surreptitiously reach out to Florida posing as a reporter asking the powers that be "that if Florida had to 'hypothetically' hire a new HC next year, who would that be?"

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Florida and Donavon had one of the best recruiting classes ever with Noah, Green, Horford, and Brewer.

It was a different time back then. 3 of the 4 I mentioned were sons of millionaires. Florida was the flashy new thing. Everyone wanted to be a gator. They caught lighting in a bottle.

LSU will be back. These things always happen in cycles.

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And yet they're back in the NC game with a different coach. Their catching lightning in a bottle game is much better than ours.