New Richard Pitino Blog: Early Season Review

per Pitino's blog:

Overall assessment of Maui - Overall, we played four-out-of-six great halves of basketball. The second half of Arkansas and the first half of Chaminade were major learning experiences for us. We took the red-eye back Wednesday night in hopes of getting our players bodies adjusted back to Central Time for tomorrow's game.

Scheduling - There has been some speculation about a game between us and Louisville next year. We are currently working on scheduling a game with ESPN against Louisville in Puerto Rico in a military hangar on Nov. 14. We are 99% sure it will happen but we are just ironing out some details. We are also confirmed to play in the Preseason NIT next year around Thanksgiving time in Madison Square Garden.

http://www.gophersports.com/blog/2013/12/richard-pitino-blog-early-season-review.html

Go Gophers!!

Coach Pitino Blog: Early Season Review, Louisville game: "99% sure it will happen"

He also confirms we will be part of the preseason NIT next season.

http://www.gophersports.com/blog/richardpitino/

I notice he doesn't even imply fatigue as a reason for the collapse in the second game. I don't think he ever wants that to be a safe haven excuse for the team. If they're going to use a pressing style, they have to have the mental and physical stamina to play through it. The Big Ten Tournament will be their next chance to test themselves with games on consecutive days. I expect them to be tougher by that time.

Bad Gopher said:

I notice he doesn't even imply fatigue as a reason for the collapse in the second game. I don't think he ever wants that to be a safe haven excuse for the team. If they're going to use a pressing style, they have to have the mental and physical stamina to play through it.

Click to expand...

You're probably right but there is no denying the fact that fatigue was a factor. Gophers played 7 players the day before and Ark had 11 players that played 10 or more minutes the previous day.