Mike White tells the Gators not to take the NCAA bid for granted

GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- Coaches are never shy to use the old, 'we take it one game at a time' cliche in press conferences.

Mike White is one that believed in focusing on each practice and each game as it comes and leaving the tournament talk for later in the season.

However, in 2019 he changed his philosophy.

"I had a senior come to me about this time last year and say he was happy that, though the year hadn’t gone quite as well as he would have hoped individually, he was just happy that we were going to the NCAA Tournament," White told reporters on Tuesday.

"I looked at him and I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ 'Cause I think there was three or four games left. He must have read something that if it ended today, so-and-so had us in the tournament."

Florida managed to secure a 10-seed in the tournament last season and is still projected in many brackets for this year's tournament, but things change rather quickly in college basketball.

"I addressed it with last year’s team at that point and I thought it was fitting to do the same with this group," White said.

"It kind of woke us up a little bit," guard Tre Mann said. "Like we’re right around the corner so we don’t have time to be taking chances and stuff."

However, unlike last year, White did not wait too long to approach this team about the NCAA tournament.

"I probably did it a couple months ago and this is probably the third or fourth time I’ve done it with this team," he said. "I didn’t want it to be a, ‘Oh, well I didn’t know.’ Every one of these (games) is huge. Huge. North Florida at home. Marshall at home. UConn. They’re all huge opportunities. Every practice is a huge opportunity. I don’t know if that’s the right answer, but that’s what I did."

"We control our destiny, and that’s like a luxury we have as a team," Kerry Blackshear said. "We can decide whether we want to maybe finish out in the NIT, not make a tournament, or make a run in the NCAA Tournament, and I think we do that day by day by competing against each other, learning from like these past mistakes that we’ve made, but also from our good experiences, too. Because I think we’ve shown that we can be a different team depending on each night, and we just want to make sure we reach our ceiling when it’s time."

Blackshear and the Gators will hope that the good Florida team steps on the court on Wednesday night.

Florida (17-10, 9-5) is set to face off against LSU (19-8, 10-4), a team UF has played close the last few times.

"Two good teams," said White. "Seems like the few times we’ve played have been a little bit later in the year, with a bunch on the line for both teams. Both teams prepare. Both teams have good players. Both good programs, of course. Just so happens we’ve played close games."

"I remember they came out real aggressive and they were just like real aggressive from the jump," Mann said about the last time they faced off against the Tigers. "So I know that we got to stay calm the whole game and not get rattled because I feel like we got rattled a couple of times the last time we played them."

"They're a really tough team," added Blackshear. "They haven't been doing as well recently as they want to, obviously. But we understand that it's going to take a full 40 minutes to beat those guys. We gotta prepare today and prepare tomorrow in shootaround. Just understand they're a team that needs a win just as much as us."