For the first time in 19 years, Florida's men's basketball team is opening a season with a head coach other than Billy Donovan. Fortunately for Mike White, whose Gators open the 2015-16 season this Friday night with a road game at Navy in the second game of the 2015 Veterans Classic, there have been harder openers.
Navy finished at No. 266 in KenPom in 2014-15, with a 13-19 record that was bereft of wins against top-150 schools. Former Penn State head coach Ed DeChellis mans the helm for the Midshipmen, and he's been gradually steering them out of deep waters — Navy went 3-26 in his first season in Annapolis in 2011-12, and has improved every year since — couldn't steer them out of the middle of the pack in the Patriot League.