Still have faith in Pitino?

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mplarson7 said:
Keep spinning your wheels buddy, the Tubby ship sailed a long time ago. Time for you to get over it.
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Tubby is doing awesome at Texas Tech; what is the record for number of 20+ point blowouts by a Power 5 conference team? Whatever Joe's role is with TT he should start doing it rather than posting drivel on GH as dopodollyDDDDs
 

Player evaluation and development is going to be paramount to improving the program, you can't continue to lose three players like Lofton, McNeil, and Martin and expect to improve. They all had potential and in time would have contributed, Pitino is starting over next year with very little depth and experience, if you think this year is pain full just wait until next year, hopefully the roster won't have changed much and we will see improvement in the 2016-2017 season.

I think Buggs is a good example, he is starting to contribute half way through his third year, many of the players recruited to Minnesota are going to be like that. Recycling a third of the roster every year just isn't going to work.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Gophers went into this season with: 2nd year coach (presumably knows players better and has had entire season + off-season to install his system)
4 Returning Starters
2 Senior Starters in the backcourt
a senior Center that some people on this board have called one of the better offensive big men in the B1G
A freshman guard I think we all like in Mason.
A Juco recruit that at least some people were excited about in Squirrel Morris.

And out of all that, we (the fans) get to watch a team that poops its pants in close games; cannot box out; and goes through the same 'dead zones' on offense that the Tubby-haters used to scream about.

I'm NOT saying that Pitino can't coach - I'm NOT calling for him to be fired - but I am pretty darn disappointed.
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Agreed; some factors appear to be:
-Lil Dre fatherhood
-loss of depth with Day Day arrest
-Mo Walker lazy as all hell
-loss of leadership from Austin, Oto and Mav
-Out of control Squirrel
-Not realizing that an unprepared D1 basketball player (Martin) was a headcase (I pin this one on Pitino)

I pin the biggest issues on Lil Dre (distractions) and Mo (unmotivated). Lil Dre was a surprise and difference maker last year in my eyes
 

sonnygarcia said:
His recruiting is brutal. He takes a couple risks on the pair of Africans, which might pan out in 3 years (sarcasm), he has no skilled forwards yet we see he is still chasing combo guards and 6'3" small forwards in the spring. We'll probably get another crappy JUCO, ala Carlos Morris who'll come in here and bore us to death at the four-spot for 2 years.

He takes a shot on that mental case transfer who takes up a scholly just long enough so we don't keep recruiting illikainen because we don't have any open tenders.

He's absolutely toast. Next year will be an absolute DISASTER! So bad there is no way he can survive. The roster has been so mismanaged and he's only brought in 1 (mason) player capable of competing in the big ten so far. Not a good ratio when taken over 2 years.
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We get your hate for Pitino and the negativity is understandable. But why do you have to be so ridiculous and make things up?

DeAndre has struggled but to say he isn't capable of competing in the Big Ten is over the top. Players (especially big men) do sometimes take longer to develop. Frank Kaminsky hardly played his first two years and looked like just an average player at best. You very well may be right about the "pair of Africans" but it is waaaaaaaay too early to tell for sure. Relax a little bit.

By the way, Malik Ellison is 6'5", Woodard is 6'4", Chris Boucher is 6'9" and Cullen Russo is 6'8". Last I checked those are all taller than 6'3".
 

It's a very fine line with this team. Losing McNeil and the miss-read of Josh Martin were two big blows. Lack of depth hurts the Gophers. I don't think this team has recovered from that. Those two losses of players has prevented this team from improving. For example, like Purdue has. Hell, Purdue now beat Indiana at Indiana and I'd put $ on them heading into the BT Tourney.. and probably in the NCAA. They have improved during the season and the Gophers haven't had a chance to do the same. Thankfully the Gophers had Nate - and Carlos - but it wasn't enough.
 


it is kind of a perfect storm. With the loss of the players and the new big guys coming in late, there just wasn't enough time to get the team to gel. It is a constant scramble each week trying to get guys to fit. It will be better in a few years, once coach is able to build up a bench with experience. The loss of Austin is proving to be major, he was the glue to this team and morris hasn't filled in that spot.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Nobody said any of those things. It's easy to win an argument when you make up the other person's statements for him.

I also enjoy where you think the "being a top 10 team" part is somehow an indictment. Remind me again when Pitino has had any of his teams in the top 10.



Barely scraped = still got in. I'd rather barely scrape than not get there at all.



That's what the Tournament committee is there for, to select the participants in the NCAA Tournament. The Gophers earned their bid and draw as much as anyone else. I thank a combination of coaching and playing for their appearance.



False.



Pitino also needs to make 3 NCAA Tournament appearances in the next 4 years (and win at least one game) to match that level of success. Want to place a wager as to whether that happens?



Great, you'd rather be entertained and lose than be bored and win. I'll take the latter, 100 times out of 100. I'd rather win than lose, regardless of the entertainment value, but I guess that's just me.



False. Also, 3 Tournament appearances in 6 years had never before been done in the history of Minnesota basketball. Ever. It is certainly mediocre by national standards, but unprecedented success by Minnesota standards.



Unprovable speculation and conjecture. What is provable up to this point is that our current coach's results are inferior to his predecessor's.



What happened is that Teague fancies himself a basketball genius and wanted to hire his own coach. The decision to fire Tubby was made long before the end of the season. It was a risk, but only at the potential expense of Teague's ego and reputation.



My thinking is far broader and more multi-dimensional than your brain is even capable of fathoming. I understand it perfectly. You'd rather all be entertained and lose than be bored and win. It's not surprising - most of this fan base has a loser's mentality in several sports, particularly so in men's basketball.



"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt."
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This guy makes me lol
 

jovs said:
Player evaluation and development is going to be paramount to improving the program, you can't continue to lose three players like Lofton, McNeil, and Martin and expect to improve. They all had potential and in time would have contributed, Pitino is starting over next year with very little depth and experience, if you think this year is pain full just wait until next year, hopefully the roster won't have changed much and we will see improvement in the 2016-2017 season.

I think Buggs is a good example, he is starting to contribute half way through his third year, many of the players recruited to Minnesota are going to be like that. Recycling a third of the roster every year just isn't going to work.
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Bingo. As much as I like having Pitino that's a big valid criticism. Whatever the case--arrogance, inexperience, incompetence, etc.--he has taken 6 available scholarships and gotten one guy out of them we can really count on for next year. Morris, Konate, and Gaston all have potential but not sure things. As noted before, bad season next year and then the recruiting gets that much more difficult and the vultures really start circling.
 





jamalo said:
Tubby is doing awesome at Texas Tech; what is the record for number of 20+ point blowouts by a Power 5 conference team? Whatever Joe's role is with TT he should start doing it rather than posting drivel on GH as dopodollyDDDDs
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I see that you are back. When the Gophers are doing well, there is no sign of you or Tiny. When they are not doing too well, you show up and still bash Tubby. As one less than intelligent OSU fan once said, these coaches are under-achieving. He forgot to include Richard and TM to that list. If Tubby had the players that TM has in OSU every year, he would win NC every year. By the way, if dopo is Joe, who are you?
 

The-Real-Truth said:
I see that you are back. When the Gophers are doing well, there is no sign of you or Tiny. When they are not doing too well, you show up and still bash Tubby. As one less than intelligent OSU fan once said, these coaches are under-achieving. He forgot to include Richard and TM to that list. If Tubby had the players that TM has in OSU every year, he would win NC every year. By the way, if dopo is Joe, who are you?
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Not sure what is more laughable? That you posted this or that you actually believe it.

No doubt Tubby is a good coach but this is nonsense.
 

The-Real-Truth said:
I see that you are back. When the Gophers are doing well, there is no sign of you or Tiny.
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Says the guy who didn't have a single post during the three game win streak and waits until a loss at Northwestern to start chiming in again. Geez.

Go Gophers!!
 



scools12 said:
Not sure what is more laughable? That you posted this or that you actually believe it.

No doubt Tubby is a good coach but this is nonsense.
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+1

I think Tubby sometimes gets unfairly piled on here and his performance, while not impressive, was not the unmitigated disaster that some people think it was, but TRT's assertion was absurd. Tubby has won one national championship. He did it at Kentucky, in his first year, with a roster assembled by Rick Pitino. Then, in the next 9 years at Kentucky, with all of Kentucky's tradition and recruiting advantages, never once advanced to another Final Four. His predecessor at the same school was in the Final Four 3 times in 8 tries, despite the fact that 2 of those 8 years he was ineligible due to sanctions from prior coaches (so he did in in 3 of the 6 years he was eligible. His successor has made the Final Four 3 times in 5 tries and is heavily favored to make it 4 of 6 this year. The long and the short of it is that Tubby grossly underperformed relative to the two coaches who preceded him and succeeded him despite having all of the same advantages.
 

GophersInIowa said:
We get your hate for Pitino and the negativity is understandable. But why do you have to be so ridiculous and make things up?

DeAndre has struggled but to say he isn't capable of competing in the Big Ten is over the top. Players (especially big men) do sometimes take longer to develop. Frank Kaminsky hardly played his first two years and looked like just an average player at best. You very well may be right about the "pair of Africans" but it is waaaaaaaay too early to tell for sure. Relax a little bit.

By the way, Malik Ellison is 6'5", Woodard is 6'4", Chris Boucher is 6'9" and Cullen Russo is 6'8". Last I checked those are all taller than 6'3".
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Only by inches!
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
+1

I think Tubby sometimes gets unfairly piled on here and his performance, while not impressive, was not the unmitigated disaster that some people think it was, but TRT's assertion was absurd. Tubby has won one national championship. He did it at Kentucky, in his first year, with a roster assembled by Rick Pitino. Then, in the next 9 years at Kentucky, with all of Kentucky's tradition and recruiting advantages, never once advanced to another Final Four. His predecessor at the same school was in the Final Four 3 times in 8 tries, despite the fact that 2 of those 8 years he was ineligible due to sanctions from prior coaches (so he did in in 3 of the 6 years he was eligible. His successor has made the Final Four 3 times in 5 tries and is heavily favored to make it 4 of 6 this year. The long and the short of it is that Tubby grossly underperformed relative to the two coaches who preceded him and succeeded him despite having all of the same advantages.
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Get what you're saying but Cal didn't succeed Tubby Billie G did
 

Pitino has a lot to show me in order to persuade me he is a good coach. A couple of things I have noticed:

-He seems to complain and yell at the players a lot. This may work in football but I continue to see our players make mistakes and immediately glance nervously at Pitino as if to see what his reaction is. The players just seem on edge all the time.
-This behavior may be why some recent recruits have been dropping like flies, which could be a major issue.
-This yelling/complaining behavior might also be why NO ONE seems to want to take a shot or be a playmaker in the final, say, 5 minutes of a close B1G game.
-Speaking of not wanting to take a shot in final minutes, I believe this is an area where Pitino's coaching needs to improve dramatically. Sometimes (OSU, Michigan and Indiana come to mind) the players look scared and lost at the end of close games. This leads me to believe that they either do not have a plan or the players do not understand the plan. Either way - that is Pitino's fault.
-Pitino's snarky pressers. He comes off as someone who thinks his poop doesn't stink when in actuality no one here cares one bit about his last name, we care about wins. In losses he says things like "well, it's the B1G" or "they were a better team tonight". Why can't he explain what is going on so that we think he actually has a plan to fix things? Seems like he dismisses others as not possibly being able to comprehend his coaching philosophies.

All in all I would say I am optimistic about the opportunities Richard has been given because of his father and I hope that they can translate in his own head coaching role. I am picking up some arrogant signs that I hope can be humbled by the vicious B1G. The good news is he is plenty young enough to learn each year and potentially create his own legacy here.
 

'13Gopher said:
I am picking up some arrogant signs that I hope can be humbled by the vicious B1G.
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Well, if he hasn't been humbled by the conference season this year, he never will be.

Good post, by the way. I've sensed some of those things myself.
 

bemidjigopher said:
Get what you're saying but Cal didn't succeed Tubby Billie G did
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Good catch. Those were two very forgettable years for Kentucky basketball, and apparently I forgot them. Doesn't affect my overall point (that two coaches in very close proximity to Tubby had much greater success at the same school), but I shouldn't be so lax on my research. Apologies for the oversight.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
Doesn't affect my overall point (that two coaches in very close proximity to Tubby had much greater success at the same school)...
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OK, but Rick Pitino preceded him and now Calipari is there. Those are two no-brainer first ballot Hall of Fame coaches. Gillespie was worse than Tubby. Clearly neither Tubby nor Gillespie were good enough for Kentucky's expectations (although Tubby did last 10 years there, won 76% of his games, had two seasons with more than 30 wins, and never failed to make the NCAA tournament), but there are probably only about half a dozen coaches across the nation in any given year who would be good enough for that job. Tubby may not have much left in the tank, but he's had a great career and has a good probability of ending up in the Hall of Fame himself one day.
 

The-Real-Truth said:
It is obvious that you don't know much about UK basketball. He did it in a right way. He had an undefeated season at SEC when it actually was a strong conference. Those who selected him as the coach of the year must have known nothing about basketball. It is so sad that you even compare Cal to anybody. My late grandmother could have made the FF 6 times in 6 years with the players that Cal gets. You get more laugh out of your posts than I do.
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But Cal is the one getting those players. It is not like the basketball Gods rain down star players like manna from heaven and Cal just happens to be where they are landing. He is the one recruiting them.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
But Cal is the one getting those players. It is not like the basketball Gods rain down star players like manna from heaven and Cal just happens to be where they are landing. He is the one recruiting them.
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I just wonder how many of the Kentucky players will have to take a pay cut when they sign their first NBA contract?
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
But Cal is the one getting those players. It is not like the basketball Gods rain down star players like manna from heaven and Cal just happens to be where they are landing. He is the one recruiting them.
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Agreed. The previous post is pretty ridiculous. As one of the most respected coaches in the history of the game, Dean Smith, once said about his career: "I call a time out and diagram a play. Now, whether the ball goes in or not, well, that's where recruiting comes in."
 

BleedGopher said:
Says the guy who didn't have a single post during the three game win streak and waits until a loss at Northwestern to start chiming in again. Geez.

Go Gophers!!
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Bleed, I have always had so much respect for you, SS and many others on this board. You tell me realistically, what has changed. Tubby had to go for his or MN good for sure. However, what he was getting killed here was for :

1. Losing to NW when it had a 1-3-1 zone
2. Players leaving the program (as they did this year)
3. Being at the bottom of the B1G
4. Players standing around
5. Throwing players under the bus (players don't have hearts just was said by Richard)

You tell me as a diehard fan, what is the difference between the two coaches. It won't be long before Richard will start using Tubby's excuse of Practice Facility. There needs to be some changes with the MN program. The current AD is not able to do it.
 

The-Real-Truth said:
Bleed, I have always had so much respect for you, SS and many others on this board. You tell me realistically, what has changed. Tubby had to go for his or MN good for sure. However, what he was getting killed here was for :

1. Losing to NW when it had a 1-3-1 zone
2. Players leaving the program (as they did this year)
3. Being at the bottom of the B1G
4. Players standing around
5. Throwing players under the bus (players don't have hearts just was said by Richard)

You tell me as a diehard fan, what is the difference between the two coaches. It won't be long before Richard will start using Tubby's excuse of Practice Facility. There needs to be some changes with the MN program. The current AD is not able to do it.
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To date, there is little difference between the outcomes of the items you listed. If the issues persist as they did for Tubby, Pitino will have the same fate as Tubby.

As an eternal optimist, I firmly believe Pitino's better coaching days and successes are ahead of him, and by mid-way through the Tubby era at Minnesota, I felt Tubby's better days and successes were behind him. I could still be wrong on both, as Pitino could have hit his pinnacle last year in NYC, and Tubby could win another national title.

But yes, the five items you point out there is little difference between the two, although Richard hasn't done nearly as much "throwing players under the bus" as Tubby did.

Go Gophers!!
 

The-Real-Truth said:
Bleed, I have always had so much respect for you, SS and many others on this board. You tell me realistically, what has changed. Tubby had to go for his or MN good for sure. However, what he was getting killed here was for :

1. Losing to NW when it had a 1-3-1 zone
2. Players leaving the program (as they did this year)
3. Being at the bottom of the B1G
4. Players standing around
5. Throwing players under the bus (players don't have hearts just was said by Richard)

You tell me as a diehard fan, what is the difference between the two coaches. It won't be long before Richard will start using Tubby's excuse of Practice Facility. There needs to be some changes with the MN program. The current AD is not able to do it.
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TRT, I think I'm the wrong guy to ask. I got tore a new one pretty good by a select few people here simply for suggesting Pitino mishandled the Gaston Diedhiou situation, hinting at his tad too much arrogance (his "This is high-level competitive stuff" quote), thus suggesting he should take his father's (indirect) advice to be more humble as a young man. By & large I like what I've seen in terms of Pitino's potential to lead a big-time program (all that goes with it), but I'm cetainly not in the kool-aid drinking camp. He's a young coach and unquestionably, yes, it's been a hugely disappointing season, but it's unrealistic to think there weren't going to be a few bumps early on. Just turns out the bumps this season were much bigger than I thought they'd be.

I tend to be a person that deals in facts, not rely on nebulous terms like "direction of the program", etc. What I do know is both Tubby and Pitino had solid first seasons (in my opinion), with Pitino getting the edge in Year 1 because his team was a legitimate bubble team that went on to win the NIT title. I also know in Year 2 there's a clear edge for Tubby, as he followed up a NIT bid with an appearance in the NCAA tourney. Then he followed with another NCAA bid in his 3rd season before things started going south in the program.

In the end, that's how I'll judge Gopher basketball coaches. ... how often do they get us above us .500 in the Big Ten, and more importantly, how often do they get us into the NCAA tourney? The answers right now are (using their first two seasons only) are Tubby 0 & 1, Pitino 0 & 0. Ironically, the Gopher coach I was/have been the most critical of (Monson) is the only one since Clem to finish above .500 in the Big Ten, and he did it twice!
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
+1

I think Tubby sometimes gets unfairly piled on here and his performance, while not impressive, was not the unmitigated disaster that some people think it was, but TRT's assertion was absurd. Tubby has won one national championship. He did it at Kentucky, in his first year, with a roster assembled by Rick Pitino. Then, in the next 9 years at Kentucky, with all of Kentucky's tradition and recruiting advantages, never once advanced to another Final Four. His predecessor at the same school was in the Final Four 3 times in 8 tries, despite the fact that 2 of those 8 years he was ineligible due to sanctions from prior coaches (so he did in in 3 of the 6 years he was eligible. His successor has made the Final Four 3 times in 5 tries and is heavily favored to make it 4 of 6 this year. The long and the short of it is that Tubby grossly underperformed relative to the two coaches who preceded him and succeeded him despite having all of the same advantages.
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Thanks for pointing out the bold. It sometimes gets forgotten. I think Tubby was always vastly over-rated.

Coach P is in only his third year as a head coach. He will be improving.

Tubby was in his what, 30th yr as a HC? I would expect more from the beginning with him. Didn't happen.

I also agree with this comment from Bleed:
To date, there is little difference between the outcomes of the items you listed. If the issues persist as they did for Tubby, Pitino will have the same fate as Tubby.

As an eternal optimist, I firmly believe Pitino's better coaching days and successes are ahead of him, and by mid-way through the Tubby era at Minnesota, I felt Tubby's better days and successes were behind him.
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bleedsmaroonandgold said:
+1

I think Tubby sometimes gets unfairly piled on here and his performance, while not impressive, was not the unmitigated disaster that some people think it was, but TRT's assertion was absurd. Tubby has won one national championship. He did it at Kentucky, in his first year, with a roster assembled by Rick Pitino. Then, in the next 9 years at Kentucky, with all of Kentucky's tradition and recruiting advantages, never once advanced to another Final Four. His predecessor at the same school was in the Final Four 3 times in 8 tries, despite the fact that 2 of those 8 years he was ineligible due to sanctions from prior coaches (so he did in in 3 of the 6 years he was eligible. His successor has made the Final Four 3 times in 5 tries and is heavily favored to make it 4 of 6 this year. The long and the short of it is that Tubby grossly underperformed relative to the two coaches who preceded him and succeeded him despite having all of the same advantages.
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Yes, he didn't make the Final Four again, but his team's made it to three Elite Eights (losing each time to the eventual NC I think) and two more Sweet 16's. If they would have given Tubby one more year here, I'd understand it. The guy can coach. Dean Smith only won two NC's and it took him nearly 20 years for his first. Let's move on from Tubby and let's hope RP gets things going next year. He can hopefully find a PF or another big who can rebound late in the recruiting this spring.

I have some reservations about RP after attending the NW game, they didn't adjust much at all in the 2nd half. The full court press was not very difficult to break, I was shocked when one of the NW bigs got the ball in the backcourt and EE fled down court and nobody tried to defend him as he dribbled up court. Seemed like a perfect time to double team him and get an easy steal. This game seemed a lot like the Furman game, except they never woke up and realized they were in a dog fight and needed to compete and overcome an inferior team.
 

gregbrady said:
This game seemed a lot like the Furman game, except they never woke up and realized they were in a dog fight and needed to compete and overcome an inferior team.
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I agree with your reservations about Pitino but I don't agree with any comparisons of Northwestern to Furman. Alex Olah is one of the better centers in the Big Ten. Tre Demps is one tough customer. Bryant McIntosh is one of the better freshman in the Big Ten. In fact, they had three freshmen (McIntosh, Law, and Lindsey) playing significant roles in that win and soph Taphorn was no slouch either. As they say, at this point of the year those freshmen are no longer freshmen.

You shouldn't look at the jersey and make up your mind about who is inferior. I bet if you went to Purdue and Iowa message boards you would have been reading lots of gripes about losing to an "inferior" Minnesota team.
 

cjbfbp said:
I agree with your reservations about Pitino but I don't agree with any comparisons of Northwestern to Furman. Alex Olah is one of the better centers in the Big Ten. Tre Demps is one tough customer. Bryant McIntosh is one of the better freshman in the Big Ten. In fact, they had three freshmen (McIntosh, Law, and Lindsey) playing significant roles in that win and soph Taphorn was no slouch either. As they say, at this point of the year those freshmen are no longer freshmen.

You shouldn't look at the jersey and make up your mind about who is inferior. I bet if you went to Purdue and Iowa message boards you would have been reading lots of gripes about losing to an "inferior" Minnesota team.
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I was basing the 'inferior team' on their record. They had only won 2 B1G games at that point and before they beat Iowa, had lost 3 straight games by an average of about 18 points. I feel like we made their guys look a lot better than they are by our porous defense and poor rebounding (but I guess that's been our M.O. in most of our losses). I like Collins and he has his team playing very scrappy bball, they did lose a lot of early B1G games by close margins, so maybe his freshmen are getting better, Hmmmm...
 

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