Souhan: It's time for Pitino to show he's more than a name

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BleedGopher

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per Souhan:

Then the Big Ten season started, and Pitino’s veterans blew a lead at Purdue, lost convincingly at Maryland, lost in overtime to Ohio State and blew a lead against Michigan.

Pitino responded to adversity Saturday at Michigan with a brusque, short, quavering news conference. Monday, at the news conference that exists to excite the faithful about another important game at The Barn, Pitino was petulant, walking off the podium as if questions about losing were beneath a man of his stature.

Pitino’s had it pretty good. He grew up rich and privileged as the son of a great coach. He landed a major college job early in his career. Until this month, Pitino had given no indication he was anything but a promising and likeable personality in a bleak sports scene.

Late Tuesday, Pitino displayed that face, eschewing the snippiness, praising his team’s effort and defending Hollins.

“Seniors are tough — they kind of, in my opinion, stress too much, I think, about next year,” Pitino said. “I think he’s doing a lot of really good things.’’

Hollins missed all eight of his first-half shots and finished with seven points.

Pitino sounded another optimistic note, saying his team’s “breakthrough” could come as early as Saturday.

Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, Pitino is in the process of flopping in his second year at Minnesota, and there’s no one else he can tastefully blame.

Whether he likes it or not, that’s the nature of the family business.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/288502901.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue

Go Gophers!!
 


Not interested in anything with this guy's byline and WILL NOT click a link to his awful fishwrapper.
 


Apparently Souhan needs to rely on rash headlines for people to read his garbage.

I believe how Pitino responds to this adversity will define his career as a gopher and a Big10 coach. Can he build something here? I think so. But this is the exact same situation that buried tubby when his team struggled after the royce white fiasco (players leaving, limited bench and testing the temperament of fans).

I think Pitino can do it and considering the outside pressures of being a coach in this conference and the demands to be competitive he is handling this well considering his smallish resumé. The responses he was giving the public post Michigan had me a little worried.

For Souhan: to give Pitino a jab about not being able to pass the blame. Get some class man. Pitino has not distribute blame at all this season and thats why I respect him. He talks about what he sees and he is working with the team to solve problems. He has not pulled a Brewster and hide under excuses. He's lived up and addressed every issue the team has experienced so far; some of them — like McNeil — are incredibly tough ones to deal with during a season.

The fact that he hasn't been public about what he is doing is justified. Iowa's coach said he knew the gophers were going to be different in our game last night because he read Pitino's mention of changing lineups in the newspaper.

Souhan you dweeb.
 


Soupcan needs to move on. Time for Glen to can him and send him off down the road.
 

Drink your glass of raw eggs Souhan. It makes you fit.
 

woozee said:
Apparently Souhan needs to rely on rash headlines for people to read his garbage.

I believe how Pitino responds to this adversity will define his career as a gopher and a Big10 coach. Can he build something here? I think so. But this is the exact same situation that buried tubby when his team struggled after the royce white fiasco (players leaving, limited bench and testing the temperament of fans).

I think Pitino can do it and considering the outside pressures of being a coach in this conference and the demands to be competitive he is handling this well considering his smallish resumé. The responses he was giving the public post Michigan had me a little worried.

For Souhan: to give Pitino a jab about not being able to pass the blame. Get some class man. Pitino has not distribute blame at all this season and thats why I respect him. He talks about what he sees and he is working with the team to solve problems. He has not pulled a Brewster and hide under excuses. He's lived up and addressed every issue the team has experienced so far; some of them — like McNeil — are incredibly tough ones to deal with during a season.

The fact that he hasn't been public about what he is doing is justified. Iowa's coach said he knew the gophers were going to be different in our game last night because he read Pitino's mention of changing lineups in the newspaper.

Souhan you dweeb.
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Some would argue that the Ben Johnson fiasco against Michigan could be interpreted as "passing the blame." As soon as the wheels fell off, what does Pitino do? Hey lays into an assistant coach.
 

savagerube said:
Some would argue that the Ben Johnson fiasco against Michigan could be interpreted as "passing the blame." As soon as the wheels fell off, what does Pitino do? Hey lays into an assistant coach.
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Come on...that's just nonsense. I'm not apologizing for what Pitino did, nor am I trying to deflect blame, but to suggest that he was "passing the blame" by yelling at Ben Johnson during the game is taking quite a leap.

Go Gophers!!
 



savagerube said:
Some would argue that the Ben Johnson fiasco against Michigan could be interpreted as "passing the blame." As soon as the wheels fell off, what does Pitino do? Hey lays into an assistant coach.
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You have no idea what he was saying to Ben during the game!!!! and after the game he didn't trash Ben at all!!!

What a terrible comment.
 

Tim1406 said:
You have no idea what he was saying to Ben during the game!!!! and after the game he didn't trash Ben at all!!!

What a terrible comment.
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You're right.. No one knows what was said. I'm just saying some fans might perceive it as such.
 

savagerube said:
Some would argue that the Ben Johnson fiasco against Michigan could be interpreted as "passing the blame." As soon as the wheels fell off, what does Pitino do? Hey lays into an assistant coach.
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Some would, but then they would have to say that Pitino is passing the blame whenever he chews his players out in a time out. Which he does a ton. I know you aren't saying this, but merely being a devils advocate.

It just doesn't make sense.
 

woozee said:
Some would, but then they would have to say that Pitino is passing the blame whenever he chews his players out in a time out. Which he does a ton. I know you aren't saying this, but merely being a devils advocate.

It just doesn't make sense.
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The difference is that most coaches will chew out a player from time-to-time. What happened last Saturday isn't as common. I can't recall a Gophers head coach yelling at an assistant like that. I think that's why some casual fans questioned that situation. If it was a common occurrence, Amelia, the AP, and the rest of media wouldn't of even mentioned it. Personally, I don't think it's a big deal, but the casual fan might look at the situation differently.
 



savagerube said:
The difference is that most coaches will chew out a player from time-to-time. What happened last Saturday isn't as common. I can't recall a Gophers head coach yelling at an assistant like that. I think that's why some casual fans questioned that situation. If it was a common occurrence, Amelia, the AP, and the rest of media wouldn't of even mentioned it. Personally, I don't think it's a big deal, but the casual fan might look at the situation differently.
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Yeah I get what you're saying.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 



I wonder how long ago he wrote this and was just keeping it in his back pocket.
 

A coach should get ripped when his team is 0-5. That said, I could not care less about him reportedly being "petulant" at a press conference or yelling at Ben Johnson on the sidelines. This has ZERO to do with what I care about: W's and L's. It seems like Souhan is more upset about optics than performance. Who cares if he's likeable (according to Souhan), a lot of a-holes are great coaches. It seems like their is now pressure on Pitino to not only win, but act in a way that is "Minnesota nice", that's ridiculous. He shouldn't have to apologize for being short with the media, but it's nice that he did. The expectation should be for Pitino to win games, not to be Mr. Happyface.
 

It was OK to rip and fire Tubby after he got a NCAA win. The honeymoon should be over for Richard.
 

The Brain Trust said:
It was OK to rip and fire Tubby after he got a NCAA win. The honeymoon should be over for Richard.
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Correct. We have an inexperienced coach, who has fewer than 100 games under his belt and it is beginning to show in the win/loss column. Yes, his Dad is great. We didn't hire Rick. We hired a guy that needed to grow into a top 5 conference coaching job, not start his second year in coaching in one of the hardest conferences with kids who played under a very experienced coach. I thought it was a risky hire at the time and was willing to accept it. Now? I think the AD needs to review his decision and see if it is still worth the long term risk.

Not time to fire anybody. Just time to evaluate the direction of the program from an outside perspective.
 

Dean S said:
Correct. We have an inexperienced coach, who has fewer than 100 games under his belt and it is beginning to show in the win/loss column. Yes, his Dad is great. We didn't hire Rick. We hired a guy that needed to grow into a top 5 conference coaching job, not start his second year in coaching in one of the hardest conferences with kids who played under a very experienced coach. I thought it was a risky hire at the time and was willing to accept it. Now? I think the AD needs to review his decision and see if it is still worth the long term risk.

Not time to fire anybody. Just time to evaluate the direction of the program from an outside perspective.
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Usually that happens after 3 years. But we can start it after 1.5 that's fine too.

Also you should have finished by saying "Very different system" I'm not sure Tubby will do well at Texas Tech now he's 0-4 in the Big12

Also without improved facilities this is probably the 10th best job in the big ten. (MSU, WISC, IND, NEB, IOWA, MICH, OSU, MD, ILL are all for sure better and others can be argued)
 

Not to beat a dead horse.
but I don't agree with Pitino's actions towards Coach Johnson.

I believe coaching staffs have to present a united front, for the players and the public.

Players are a reflection of their coaches, if the head coach doesn't respect his staff, how can we expect the kids to?
If the head coach uses assistants as a punching bag on a public stage, I'm sure it happens behind closed doors or in practice.
I'm on a high school coaching staff, I need the same respect as the head coach from my players, even though we all know who the boss is.
 

Jigga said:
Not to beat a dead horse.
but I don't agree with Pitino's actions towards Coach Johnson.

I believe coaching staffs have to present a united front, for the players and the public.

Players are a reflection of their coaches, if the head coach doesn't respect his staff, how can we expect the kids to?
If the head coach uses assistants as a punching bag on a public stage, I'm sure it happens behind closed doors or in practice.
I'm on a high school coaching staff, I need the same respect as the head coach from my players, even though we all know who the boss is.
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Forgot to mention that I am a pitino fan so far.. I just didn't agree with that display.
 

Jigga said:
Forgot to mention that I am a pitino fan so far.. I just didn't agree with that display.
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We also don't know what was said, why it was said, the context behind the discussion, the working relationship between the two coaches, etc etc etc.

Passing judgement on something we know nothing about isn't appropriate.
 

mplarson7 said:
We also don't know what was said, why it was said, the context behind the discussion, the working relationship between the two coaches, etc etc etc.

Passing judgement on something we know nothing about isn't appropriate.
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I think this is a very important and easily overlooked point. Pitino could have been throwing a tantrum because his team was throwing a game away they should have won and wanted to yell at the closest person for no reason. Another possibility is that Ben Johnson said something like "you guys are pathetic losers and choke artists" to the players and Pitino was furious that he said something like that to his players (I want to be very clear about this point, I have absolutely no idea what was said, I am just pointing out that unless someone else has inside info, it could be anything).
 

Tim1406 said:
Also without improved facilities this is probably the 10th best job in the big ten. (MSU, WISC, IND, NEB, IOWA, MICH, OSU, MD, ILL are all for sure better and others can be argued)
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You might be right about that (10th or lower), but that still makes it a better job than most 31 year old coaches with one year of head coaching experience can be expected to get. One could argue that the Northwestern job is the toughest for a basketball coach since they have no history of success. Chris Collins hadn't been a head coach prior to coming there but he's a 40 year old who had been an assistance coach since the late nineties, spent over a decade at Duke, and played the game at a high level as a player.
 

Personally, I don't think a complete evaluation of Pitino can be done until we see HIS team, play with HIS players. I guarantee neither EE or Mo would have been recruited by Pitino for this system.
 

2015-16 a fair starting point in terms of total evaluation

So assuming Charles Buggs sticks around through his senior year, it will be Year 5? I understand where you're coming from, but I think Year 3 (next season) is probably the safest place to fully start evaluating Pitino. Even if Buggs is around in Year 3, Pitino has had more than enough time to replace him, if indeed (as a few have surmised) his preference is to use that roster spot on someone else?

Certainly that doesn't mean this season is a throw-away season. Still plenty of time (13 games + Big Ten tourney) to salvage something out of this season.
 

SelectionSunday said:
So assuming Charles Buggs sticks around through his senior year, it will be Year 5? I understand where you're coming from, but I think Year 3 (next season) is probably the safest place to fully start evaluating Pitino. Even if Buggs is around in Year 3, Pitino has had more than enough time to replace him, if indeed (as a few have surmised) his preference is to use that roster spot on someone else?

Certainly that doesn't mean this season is a throw-away season. Still plenty of time (13 games + Big Ten tourney) to salvage something out of this season.
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I think it's a safe assumption Buggs is sticking around. He has no years to give to transfer; right? I definitely agree that this is not a throw away season. Plenty of games to create success and plenty for us to watch to learn and follow.
 

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