With Mike White’s seventh season in charge of the Florida basketball program beginning last Tuesday, Gator nation’s good will towards the UF boss is approaching a very apparent breaking point.

The last two seasons, plagued with untimely scoring droughts, youthful mistakes and a lack of off-ball movement, have eroded much of the positivity around the UF program and birthed the #FireMikeWhite hashtag.

But it’s one consistent failure that has frustrated Gator fans more than anything else: White’s 0-7 record against Florida State.

“It'd be huge, you know,” White said about the prospect of ending his skid against FSU. “I do say this every year, that every single game on the schedule is really, really important. This game is really really big, for different reasons of course.”

This flawless record alone still doesn’t establish the true dominance FSU has shown in this matchup since 2014 — the Gators have lost each of the last four matchups by double-digits with an average margin of defeat close to 16 points.

Florida State’s patented combination of length and tempo — FSU consistently ranks inside the top 40 for adjusted tempo and as one of the tallest teams in the nation — has caused nightmares for the Gators.

Coach Leonard Hamilton embraced this philosophy in the Seminoles’ season-opening matchup against Penn. With an average height of 79.4”, FSU boasts the tallest rotation in college basketball for the third season in a row, and raced up and down the floor with this length to hoist a whopping 75 shots against the Quakers.

Still, senior transfer Brandon McKissic believes that this is a very different Gators team, one with an invigorated defensive backbone that can stand up to the garnet and gold Goliaths.

“They're (FSU) very physical,” McKissic said. “They play hard. But that's who we've started to become, too, a team that's played really hard and is very gritty and is aggressive as well. I look down the line at those guys on the Gator roster and I feel confident about our team.”

The Seminoles suffered a number of notable departures this offseason, losing their two of their top four scorers along with 7-foot-1 rim protector Balsa Koprivica. But with savvy additions in the transfer portal paired with a strong recruiting class, the Seminoles showed their potential to be just as efficient on the offensive end with a 105-point output against Penn.

Hamilton welcomed point guard Caleb Mills as a transfer from Houston after he announced he was leaving the Cougars program in January, and Mills excelled during his first game as a ‘Nole with 14 points, five rebounds and three assists.

“He (Mills) plays hard. He’s got good length, he has the ability to pester the basketball. Offensively, boy is he versatile. Going either way, hesitate, step-backs, inside moves, you name it - has a lot to his offensive game.”

Ultimately, it was returns Malik Osborne and Anthony Polite that led the Seminoles in scoring, but five-star freshman Matthew Cleveland impressed with nine points in a 20-minute cameo and Kentucky transfer Cam’Ron Fletcher tacked on another nine from the bench.

But while the new-look Florida State roster looked potent through game one against Ivy League opposition, analytics sites aren’t quite as optimistic about the ‘Noles. FSU’s KenPom rating of 23 is its lowest entering a matchup with Florida since 2017 and the site predicts the Gators to steal a 75-72 victory.

With an expectedly raucous environment at the O’Connell Center, a Florida team particularly oriented around defense and a FSU squad continuing to integrate new players, the Gators project to have a uniquely good shot to stop the seven game skid against their in-state rivals.

Stay tuned to Gators Territory.