I see what you are saying, and agree that many on here seem to think they have a higher basketball IQ than they really do. But I do think it is silly to say Springs just decided not to assert himself on offense in the final 5 minutes. That's not who Springs is. We've all seen this year that Springs is the type of player who doesn't care if he is off or on, he's gonna pump up shots if he feels like it. I don't see why he would have just changed personalities all of a sudden in the last 5 minutes. There was something else going on there. Either Pitino wanted other guys taking the shots or the other players on the court were trying to take things over on their own. But Springs should have played a bigger role in that last 5 minutes, and I have a hard time believing that the reason he didn't was because he didn't feel like it. If I'm Pitino I would have been finding ways to get Springs the ball. He was shooting well, and was very effective off the dribble as well. He was by far our best player this game, especially on offense.
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I see what you are saying, and agree that many on here seem to think they have a higher basketball IQ than they really do. But I do think it is silly to say Springs just decided not to assert himself on offense in the final 5 minutes. That's not who Springs is. We've all seen this year that Springs is the type of player who doesn't care if he is off or on, he's gonna pump up shots if he feels like it. I don't see why he would have just changed personalities all of a sudden in the last 5 minutes. There was something else going on there. Either Pitino wanted other guys taking the shots or the other players on the court were trying to take things over on their own. But Springs should have played a bigger role in that last 5 minutes, and I have a hard time believing that the reason he didn't was because he didn't feel like it. If I'm Pitino I would have been finding ways to get Springs the ball. He was shooting well, and was very effective off the dribble as well. He was by far our best player this game, especially on offense.
Agree that defense was the bigger problem. Can't expect to win when you give up 59 points in the second half. Adjustments had to be made. Needed to do a better job shadowing the three point shooters and do something to stop Trimble on the penetrate and dish. Melo was pretty much able to do whatever he wanted going to the hoop. We gave up way too many open 3s and layups.
GophersInIowa
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The decision to drive to the hoop there wasn't the problem. The execution was.
Maryland defense might have had something to do with it.
It's possible. I didn't see them doing anything that looked much different, but it's possible I just wasn't seeing it. But there's no reason you can't answer their adjustment with an adjustment of our own. Run him off some double screens, have him post up, open up his side of the floor and hit them with some back cuts, or just have him bring the ball up and let him go to work. If the answer is "Well, they just made better adjustments than us" I would say that is a fancy way of saying out-coached.
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And again - odds for success are much better with Springs, Coffee, or Mason driving. Murph has not shown his ball handling skills are capable, at least not yet.
Another way to look at this 13th place squad: In the last four close losses- Nate Mason is 15 for 55 shooting-27%. If he makes 2 more shots per game and shoots an average of about 40% over that stretch we might have won all 4 games and be sitting at 7-2 -in first place (Maryland and Wisky would both have 2 losses). I'm not blaming the games on Nate but when your best player and a volume shooter is that cold, you probably won't win much.
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If.
GophersInIowa
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If all things are the same, I agree. But unless my memory is just bad, Murphy was really wide open.
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That is my point - right now, Murph doesn't have the skills, even wide open.
Thanks for the data, I know that took a bit of time to look up.. I tried another view. I am just going on my own feeling or intuition which is right only occasionally. But I want to view a team and the coach in a close game as measured within two possessions of each other at the 5 minute mark left in a game. That is at least to me a critical tactical point from there and for the rest of the game. This view also seems to adjust a bit for games that didn't end with a close score within two possessions but were close games (i.e. Purdue's OT victory this year). I couldn't get 5 minute mark score in all games under Pitino at least on the ESPN web site because some previous games didn't have play by play shown. Because my data is incomplete I don't want to say exactly what I found other than Pitino was a bit better/somewhat than your conclusion but I have to admit still noticeably under .500.
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Right on Winasota! For the most part, playing well until crunch. Coffey is not quite strong enough to be closer. Remember, his Dad didn't quit improving until he was 24. Lynch has to avoid could trouble; his presence in the game makes team D and major for e. Without him, the whole thing breaks down.
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They have shown they can compete with pretty much everyone they have played just haven't been able to close out close games. I think next year is probably more of a target year for this team when guys like Curry and Coffey have a little more experience but the talent is there for this team to still do something this year in the conference at least. This is the kind of team I could see getting on a run in the Big Ten Tournament and winning it.
The Nebraska- Purdue game yesterday was another case in point that the guys on the floor have to step up to win close games. There is often very little the coach can do about it. Purdue looks like they have Nebraska on the ropes, then Nebraska starts hitting everything and the game is tight but Purdue still has Swanigen so it appears they will get it done, because Nebraska's big fouled out and Morrow is out for the season so all Nebraska has is a 6-8 200 pound kid with a lion's heart named Jacobson. Jacobson proceeds to stop Swanigen cold on about three straight possessions and Nebraska pulls it out. No coaching there- the kids on the floor got it done on both ends. Our guys just have not been able to do that.
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Gophers would be the #12 seed if BTT were held today. Last season we were the 13.
I just keep thinking back to Clem Haskins first 4 seasons.
His 87 team only won TWO games in conference.
His 88 team only won FOUR games in conference, but some of them were close games.
His 89 team won half their conf games, going 9-9. I believe they were 8-1 at home, maybe 7-2? and I remember the dig on Haskins and the team was how their big flaw was their inability to win on the road, and lots of people were saying you had to be able to win on the road order to win in the NCAA tourney. But they did just that, getting to the Sweet 16.
His 90 team then went 11-7, and only finished 5th in the conf standings, and I had a lot of interaction with fans of other teams both in the Big Ten and outside of the Big Ten as I was in the Army, over in Germany for the 89 season and in Louisiana for the 90 season and this was during the Bush military cut back years, so we didn't have a ton of things to do, so we all sat around and talked a lot of sports. And at that time, not a lot of people believed that finishing 5th in the Big Ten was all that impressive and indicated much at all. And I think they went 9-0 at home and just 2-7 on the road, so again, losing on the road as much as they did inspired very little in the way of NCAA expectations for this team among many Gopher fans and almost ALL non-Gopher fans. But we all know how well that team performed in the NCAA tourney and they were practically considered underdogs in each and every matchup. The opening round game was vs Temple and their hall of famer coach, round 2 was vs Clemson I think or was it UCLA? I was so pissed because I was stationed in Louisiana and had plans to go down to the Sweet 16 game with some friends, we were splitting the cost of the rental car and the hotel, etc., and they all bailed out on me, so I missed the game, a win over Syracuse, but I paid for it all by myself and went to the Elite 8 game vs Georgia Tech and have never experienced such thrills and excitement and then disappointment ever before in my life and haven't since. We ended up one missed 3 pointer at the buzzer away from going to the Final 4, legitimately. It was the greatest season in modern Gopher BB history, that is still on the books.
And...
The team won JUST FOUR GAMES IN CONFERENCE a mere 2 seasons earlier!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Should we have fired Clem Haskins after going 6-26 in conference over two whole seasons? Or maybe after going 1-8 on the road in conference in his 3rd season and just barely making it into the NCAA tourney??? Heck, going into the NCAA tourney, his conference record was only 15-35, including what, maybe 2 or 3 road wins in THREE YEARS?
So, after 3 full conference seasons, Clem Haskins resume was not very impressive at all. My guess is that there was talk about how we should fire him at that time. Gopher fans were probably getting impatient and saying he wasn't making good enough progress. I was over in Germany and remembered that no one was thinking that the Gophers had a chance of doing much of anything in the post season.
And even after the conference season in 90, again, EVERYONE outside of the Gopher program thought that the Gophers were not a very good team. Even after going 11-7 in the conf season, they still only had maybe 4 or 5 road wins over 4 years in conference. The word around about the Gophers was that they could only win at home in The Barn and that they only made the Sweet 16 the year before because they got lucky and got to play, was it Siena, in the 2nd round?
And in 1990, a 5th place finish in the Big Ten didn't mean what it means now or even what it meant in 1999.
But that team, that was too young and inexperienced to win at all in 87 and 88, and who couldn't win road games in 89 or 90, ended up with Sweet 16 and Elite 8 runs and a couple of those guys went on to play in the NBA. Before Bobby Jackson, everyone's favorite was Willie Burton.
Now I wrote this post without looking anything up, its all from memory, so I might have got a thing or two wrong, I may have mixed up 89 and 90 opponents or something? But now I'll go look up the scores and see how many close games Haskins won and lost. My guess is his record in close games was very similar to Pitino's, just as all of the things people said about those squads sound very similar to what they are saying about Pitino and his present and past squads.
I mean, this team had its WORST SEASON EVER last year. And its like people now expect the team to go from worst to first or something? That is just a little too much to expect, isn't it? People are complaining about losing by 2 pts to TOP 25 ranked Wisconsin? And about losing to Maryland, one of the best teams in the B1G the past few years. And the close loss to MSU? Izzo is considered one of the best coaches in cbb for the past 20 some years for a reason. And the win on the road vs Purdue has to make up for a lot.
And one last thing I want to mention, not sure the season, but a very young Illinois team finished in the cellar of the Big conf standings, but then went on a big run to the Big Conf tourney Title game. The next season they had a great season.
This Gopher squad could very well make a run in the 2nd half of the conf season, or they could make a run in the Conf tourney. I wouldn't be surprised if this team had run very similar to the 89 team in the tourney, if they get in. And then next year's squad, much like the 90 team improved over the 89 squad because of the whole team gaining another year of experience, much like this year's squad will do, minus losing Springs.
His 87 team only won TWO games in conference.
His 88 team only won FOUR games in conference, but some of them were close games.
His 89 team won half their conf games, going 9-9. I believe they were 8-1 at home, maybe 7-2? and I remember the dig on Haskins and the team was how their big flaw was their inability to win on the road, and lots of people were saying you had to be able to win on the road order to win in the NCAA tourney. But they did just that, getting to the Sweet 16.
His 90 team then went 11-7, and only finished 5th in the conf standings, and I had a lot of interaction with fans of other teams both in the Big Ten and outside of the Big Ten as I was in the Army, over in Germany for the 89 season and in Louisiana for the 90 season and this was during the Bush military cut back years, so we didn't have a ton of things to do, so we all sat around and talked a lot of sports. And at that time, not a lot of people believed that finishing 5th in the Big Ten was all that impressive and indicated much at all. And I think they went 9-0 at home and just 2-7 on the road, so again, losing on the road as much as they did inspired very little in the way of NCAA expectations for this team among many Gopher fans and almost ALL non-Gopher fans. But we all know how well that team performed in the NCAA tourney and they were practically considered underdogs in each and every matchup. The opening round game was vs Temple and their hall of famer coach, round 2 was vs Clemson I think or was it UCLA? I was so pissed because I was stationed in Louisiana and had plans to go down to the Sweet 16 game with some friends, we were splitting the cost of the rental car and the hotel, etc., and they all bailed out on me, so I missed the game, a win over Syracuse, but I paid for it all by myself and went to the Elite 8 game vs Georgia Tech and have never experienced such thrills and excitement and then disappointment ever before in my life and haven't since. We ended up one missed 3 pointer at the buzzer away from going to the Final 4, legitimately. It was the greatest season in modern Gopher BB history, that is still on the books.
And...
The team won JUST FOUR GAMES IN CONFERENCE a mere 2 seasons earlier!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Should we have fired Clem Haskins after going 6-26 in conference over two whole seasons? Or maybe after going 1-8 on the road in conference in his 3rd season and just barely making it into the NCAA tourney??? Heck, going into the NCAA tourney, his conference record was only 15-35, including what, maybe 2 or 3 road wins in THREE YEARS?
So, after 3 full conference seasons, Clem Haskins resume was not very impressive at all. My guess is that there was talk about how we should fire him at that time. Gopher fans were probably getting impatient and saying he wasn't making good enough progress. I was over in Germany and remembered that no one was thinking that the Gophers had a chance of doing much of anything in the post season.
And even after the conference season in 90, again, EVERYONE outside of the Gopher program thought that the Gophers were not a very good team. Even after going 11-7 in the conf season, they still only had maybe 4 or 5 road wins over 4 years in conference. The word around about the Gophers was that they could only win at home in The Barn and that they only made the Sweet 16 the year before because they got lucky and got to play, was it Siena, in the 2nd round?
And in 1990, a 5th place finish in the Big Ten didn't mean what it means now or even what it meant in 1999.
But that team, that was too young and inexperienced to win at all in 87 and 88, and who couldn't win road games in 89 or 90, ended up with Sweet 16 and Elite 8 runs and a couple of those guys went on to play in the NBA. Before Bobby Jackson, everyone's favorite was Willie Burton.
Now I wrote this post without looking anything up, its all from memory, so I might have got a thing or two wrong, I may have mixed up 89 and 90 opponents or something? But now I'll go look up the scores and see how many close games Haskins won and lost. My guess is his record in close games was very similar to Pitino's, just as all of the things people said about those squads sound very similar to what they are saying about Pitino and his present and past squads.
I mean, this team had its WORST SEASON EVER last year. And its like people now expect the team to go from worst to first or something? That is just a little too much to expect, isn't it? People are complaining about losing by 2 pts to TOP 25 ranked Wisconsin? And about losing to Maryland, one of the best teams in the B1G the past few years. And the close loss to MSU? Izzo is considered one of the best coaches in cbb for the past 20 some years for a reason. And the win on the road vs Purdue has to make up for a lot.
And one last thing I want to mention, not sure the season, but a very young Illinois team finished in the cellar of the Big conf standings, but then went on a big run to the Big Conf tourney Title game. The next season they had a great season.
This Gopher squad could very well make a run in the 2nd half of the conf season, or they could make a run in the Conf tourney. I wouldn't be surprised if this team had run very similar to the 89 team in the tourney, if they get in. And then next year's squad, much like the 90 team improved over the 89 squad because of the whole team gaining another year of experience, much like this year's squad will do, minus losing Springs.
dpodoll68
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Good post, but for proper context it's important to remember that Haskins walked into a program with exactly one non-vacated NCAA Tournament appearance in its entire history (1982) and Pitino walked into a program that had 3 NCAA Tournament appearances in the previous 5 years alone.
Moreover, there appears to be an upward trajectory this season, but each of his first three seasons was worse than the one before it - not a good trend. The worst ever season was on him, and the expectations coming out of that are part of the resume he has put together. We shouldn't have lowered expectations for season 4 just because he put together a monumentally awful third season.
SelectionSunday
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First roster with all Pitino guys
I would add, not to defend Pitino for last season (shouldn't happen in Year 3), but this is the first roster that is entirely Pitino's guys. Buggs transferring to USC made that the case a year earlier than expected.
I would add, not to defend Pitino for last season (shouldn't happen in Year 3), but this is the first roster that is entirely Pitino's guys. Buggs transferring to USC made that the case a year earlier than expected.
Some good and valid points, and I was going to say this in the post but it was getting long, so I opted not to, but now I'll mention it, the decline the first 3 seasons reminds me of Musselman's tenure as the Timberwolves coach. He opted to bring in experience and to try to make an immediate impact and win games, and the Timberwolves were the most successful 1st and 2nd year expansion team, while I think it was Orlando was the worst because they opted to go with youth and inexperienced players. A few years later, after Orlando got at least one #1 draft pick, and the T-Pups had to work with #5 picks than never panned out the way we hoped, Orlando was kicking butt in the playoffs and the T-Pups regressed.
In my very non expert opinion, Pitino did sort of the same thing, brought in some transfers instead of doing what Haskins did, he brought in all new guys who were then together for the whole 4 year ride going into the 90 season. And with the guys Pitino brought in, he did prevent an immediate dropoff, but the combination of who he brought in, who he inherited and his own youth and inexperience and going up against the experienced coaches in the B1G, he just didn't have the tools to do much more. And also his needing to figure out how to recruit the better recruits, as the older guys he brought in and the older guys he inherited left the program, came the drop off that the Timberwolves suffered 3-4 years in before going with youth like Orlando did right away, and later developing into a playoff regular that eventually won the Western Conf regular season title.
Now one way to look at it is that maybe he could have brought in tons of young guys his first season and gotten the really bad seasons out of the way early on, and then climbing up as the players grew in age and experience. But in Pitino's first season, do you really think he could have brought in a group of players that could have eventually done that? And how would struggling his first 2 seasons have helped him with landing better recruits?
See I think the other way to look at it is that Pitino was young and inexperienced and unestablished, by coming out with a decent season right away, he may have been in a better place to develop some relationships with some up and coming young players like Amir Coffey, for example, enough so that even with having such a bad 3rd season, he had already gotten a good group of young players into the program, good players that Amir wanted to play with, and now that quickly recovered from last season and now he's in a position to continue improving on his recruiting classes each year, and probably for many years to come. This group is going to be the group that makes or breaks him here at Minnesota, much like Haskins first group made him. Pitino just needed more time to figure out how to get such a group to come here.
Not everyone can show up at a new school, instantly sign 5 star super stars and start winning right away, especially in a conference like the B1G, especially when they are as young as Pitino was.
We should be happy that he's figuring out how to get better and better recruits to come here, and that he's young enough that he's got more room to improve, and also that he's young enough that he could end up being here at Minnesota for decades. He may still be learning on the job as far as coaching games goes, but just like young players learn hard lessons during losing seasons that do not destroy their spirits, hopefully Pitino continues to learn more and more each season, including learning hard lessons from losing all his games last year, and so many heart breakers this year. And maybe he's not the greatest coach out there right now, but as long as his recruiting classes continue to improve, and the talent continues to improve, it will become easier and easier to coach them to victories.
And this season specifically, we are through the tough part of the season, things will get easier now just from playing less talented opponents.
It's been a long time since the 1990 season. Since then we won big, but had to cheat to keep the players eligible and while other programs always get away with the same kinds of sh1t, here in Minnesota that's simply never going to happen over long periods of time. And since the 99 season when the scandal broke, we've been struggling to get over the hump, so I've developed some patience, because I want to experience what I did in 89 and 90 and 97, again, and its not going to happen if we are impatient. I'm willing to wait for Pitino to learn on the job, and I'm willing to wait for the talent to gain experience and for the future recruiting classes to improve, because I truly believe that maybe this year, and for sure next year, and then for lots of years in the future, I see Pitino winning us some games and maybe even a Big Ten Title, and getting us to the Sweet 16 and the Elite 8 and maybe even to the Final Four in the future.
Having patience is not the same as having low standards or settling. It's knowing you might have a coach with the potential to make this program great and taking a chance on him. Realistically there are few here who would need more than 14 months from now, to know whether or not they want to continue to stick with our young Mr Pitino. That's basically only 1 more full season, if he continues to bring in better and better recruiting classes, I may be one of those few who would be willing to give him more than 14 months, but that would only be if he continued to bring in better and better recruiting classes.
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Now 8th place.
Only 4 teams with few overall losses and us.
Only 4 teams with few overall losses and us.
Ewert86PC
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I thought all Pitino needed to win in the Big Ten was more talent. That's what the mantra was last year. He's not winning in the Big Ten. He is on track to be lucky to break even in the Big Ten this season. Even if he does break even this season, he is still below a .300 win percentage in the Big Ten for his career.
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I'm pretty sure we were never even 13th to begin with, but in a tie for 11th. The worst of the schedule is mostly behind us. Now for some home games against middling teams and a roadie at Rutgers.
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I had to join the discussion to tell you that you are the worst troll on this forum. You have absolutely no perspective for where this team was and where they currently are...
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Funny you should mention talent, because on the One and Done hoops podcast today with Ryan James and Marcus before today's game, they mentioned that, save for Northwestern and Penn State, most of the Big Ten teams we've played have more talent than us, at least when just looking at recruiting stars. Maryland, Michigan State, Purdue, Ohio State all have a 5-star stud or two to turn to.
GophersInIowa
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I know being negative even after a win is your thing, but this is false. Gophers would have to go 1-7 the rest of the way for this to be true.
I am not sure I saw the same posts you claim but it depends on how much talent doesn't it? Had he added some of Giles, Jackson, Bridges, Fox or Ball I'm sure he'd be right up there at the top of the big ten.
Anyway, if we go 9-9 in the Big Ten we'll make the tournament and nobody will be complaining with nearly a full team back next year... That being said 9-9 is about as likely as 7-11 at this point. There are a lot of equal teams in the Big Ten this year.
principalguy
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They could also go 10-8 even w several close losses. They could be a 5-6 seed too w a SOS of 10 and RPI of 23 right NOW
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Great post. One thing to add- when Haskins came in Dutcher left him an incoming class that would yield two bonafide All Big Ten players in Newbern and Burton. Haskins inherited a very, very bad team but with young building blocks. Pitino inherited a team with older players who were good but not all Big Ten types and no good younger players. Starting strong and losing momentum was nearly locked in for Pitino. Pitino has it going the right direction.
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...sort of like Tubby...