Who would have thought we would be here in 2009?

In Tubby's second season, he goes 9-9 in the Big Ten and gets a berth in the NCAA tournament. The roster featured just two seniors in Jamal Abu Shamala and Jonathan Williams. The Gophers had two promising 7 foot freshman in Ralph Sampson III and Colton Iverson as well as freshman guard Devoe Joseph. The next season was going to add: Royce White, Rodney Williams, Trevor Mbakwe, and Justin Cobbs to a team that was returning Nolen, Hoffarber, Westbrook, JUCO's Bostick and Carter, and the previously mentioned freshman.

At that point, I think everyone thought this program was set up to be a conference contender for the foreseeable future.


Then the '09-'10 season happened and it was a mild disappointment at best with the Gophers going 9-9 again and putting up another poor performance in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Still, after two years of exceeding expectations most saw this as a minor bump in the road and it would have been a much better season if Mbakwe/White saw the floor. Even though it was looking like Royce may never see the floor, it still seemed like the program was in great shape.

The wheels completely came off in '10-'11 in all areas of the program and things have never got back on track. Recruiting that was going well, really took a downfall when Cory Joseph didn't pick Minnesota (writing was on the wall when it became common knowledge that Devoe didn't have a good relationship with Tubby as early as his sophomore season) and the Gophers responded to a flurry of transfers with a number of questionable Spring signings. As other Big Ten schools would add commitments from HS Juniors, Minnesota wasn't getting any early commitments. A roster that once looked so deep became so shallow over the next two seasons that it hasn't been uncommon this year to see the Gophers bench go scoreless.

I'd give almost anything to go back to the hope of March of '09 when the Gophers were headed to the Big Dance with what appeared to be the least talented team they'd have in a long, long time.

My compliments on your post and the historical perspective. Dang, when you line it up, it's borderline shocking how flush we were with players and recruits at that point and equally shocking how the whole thing progressively came apart. And you relate the cause and effect and the timing of how it all went down with the spring signings.

This is all strangely reminiscient of the promise of Monson's first recruiting class (Rickert, Hargrow, Holmann, Robinson). There was a lot of excitement and promise at that time. We thought, if this guy can recruit this nationally ranked class coming in cold, under sanctions, what is he going to be able to do in the coming years? In the meantime, we thought for sure the team had great promise. Monson had competed well with his undermanned holdover group (Simmons, Bickerstaff, Bauer) and now we would be loaded with talent by comparison. The sky was the limit. Well, the team underachieved the next couple of years, Hargrow transferred, Rickert went pro, Bauer regressed, and the bloom was coming off the rose.

When Dan was dismissed, he talked about how he and the program had lost momentum at some point, and it was impossible to get the car out of the snowdrift once it had gotten stalled. The 4th place team provided a boost for that one year, but it was senior powered, and the next class up couldn't keep the fire going. I start to wonder whether the same momentum issue is at play here. Had the Big Three come up when Tubby first arrived and there was all the excitement and hope, he might have had as good a chance with them as he had with Williams and White. But when you get the chance to make some hay like he had, you better be able to win some games. Otherwise it can stall out before the kite gets high enough to stay up. The fire analogy is a good one: once the firestarter and newspaper and birch bark is consumed, that's when you find out if you really have a fire.

Tubby should have stayed away from Mbawke. Yes, he has great ability, but his character was a detriment to the team. Also, he should have benched Nolen and Hoff in favor of Devoe and Cobbs. They would have had growing pains, but he would have been sitting pretty after they gained one year of experience.

Great breakdown. Said that the peak of Tubby's tenure was the tip-off event in 2009. That team had such promise. It never returned to that point.