Time to start looking fora new head coach

Donate To GopherHole
tikited said:
Question: What current coach could get this group to win enough to keep fans happy?
Click to expand...

I don't think it is about the amount of wins as it is about the quality of the team/wins. Pitino is well on his way to having severe decline in each of his first 3 seasons. From winning NIT, to not being invited to NIT, to now having 15 wins be a lofty goal for the season. That is not what makes fans happy. No one expects Pitino to take us to top 4 in the B1G, but we sure as heck don't want to see a severe decline each season.
 

The makeup of this team falls squarely on Richard Pitino.

I think he should probably get until next season, but year 3 in college basketball is past the point where you can blame the previous regime. I think we will have a much improved roster next season and he should get a chance to coach that team (IMO), but his inability to structure the scholarships and players in a way to build a competent team this season is entirely his fault. At the U, we can expect peaks and valleys, but the valleys should not be this low.
 

I'm not on board to fire Pitino yet. We all knew this year would be a bad year...losing to both South Dakota teams is a different kind of bad but I'm still not ready to jump ship.

What really interests me is this...when Pitino came here his press/turnover mentality had me really excited. I love that kind of basketball. It got to the point where last year we were a top 10 team nationally in turnovers forced. However, so far this year we are 211th out of 351 teams. And this is against some sub par competition. These are his guys now playing the system he wants. Where are those forced turnovers?
 

I enjoyed watching him after SDSU buckets last night. He always gives the "hurry up" hand motion followed by the "come this way". So they run the ball past half court, set some screens, then stand around for 20 seconds. Same offense as tubby. Let's trade for the SDSU coach.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
The Gophers can't fire and rehire a basketball coach without an AD in place. If they did Kimani Young would have to be promoted and given a 3 year contract. :rolleyes:

Edit: someone beat me to it. At least mine was full of sarcasm.
Click to expand...

Kill wasn't fired, he was stepped down for medical reasons. Pitino would be fired.
Kill and staff made a dumpster fire program respectable, Richard turned a respectable program into a dumpster fire.

Other than it being a completely opposite scenario, I see your analogy. :rolleyes:
 


DLguy said:
Most coaches in year three have upper class man from the previous coach to help round out the team. Pitino didn't get anything from Tibby's recruiting and basically had to assemble a team from scratch. Taking anyone just to fill a roster. His first true class was last year's. Wait until Mason and Co. are upperclassmen to see if Pitino can really coach.
Click to expand...

Great point.

Joey King is their best player upperclassmen. I like King because he's a hard worker and has turned himself into a big ten player. But he should be a big ten role player. You have problems when your best upperclassmen is Joey King.

This team is young, but full of solid young players. However, these guys weren't top 50 players. Top 50 players can make huge contributions the first year. Most players below that need a bit of seasoning.

You have to give him next year. Unless there is mass transfer exodus, they are going to be pretty stacked talent wise with Lynch, Fitzgerald, Coffey, Curry, and Hurt joining.

That being said, the one thing you have to look out for is improvement this season. You can usually judge coaching if a team gets better during the season. (That was a complaint about Tubby, his teams seemed to get worse).

P.S. - I'm thinking Richard is probably regretting giving Gaston, and perhaps Konate scholarships. But he was desperate for big men.
 

JimmyJamesMD said:
Great point.

Joey King is their best player upperclassmen. I like King because he's a hard worker and has turned himself into a big ten player. But he should be a big ten role player. You have problems when your best upperclassmen is Joey King.

This team is young, but full of solid young players. However, these guys weren't top 50 players. Top 50 players can make huge contributions the first year. Most players below that need a bit of seasoning.

You have to give him next year. Unless there is mass transfer exodus, they are going to be pretty stacked talent wise with Lynch, Fitzgerald, Coffey, Curry, and Hurt joining.

That being said, the one thing you have to look out for is improvement this season. You can usually judge coaching if a team gets better during the season. (That was a complaint about Tubby, his teams seemed to get worse).

P.S. - I'm thinking Richard is probably regretting giving Gaston, and perhaps Konate scholarships. But he was desperate for big men.
Click to expand...

Why aren't there any juniors on this team?
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Why aren't there any juniors on this team?
Click to expand...

Cause Richard took some gambles that failed his first year of recruiting trying to win a couple games his first couple years. He had half a summer to assemble a "junior class" and he gambled with some JUCOs and some transfers as well as a hold over from FIU. Shame on him for not assembling a Big 10 class in a couple months, especially considering he wasn't a well established coach (which many of you have pointed out). I understand why he did it then, and admittadly it looked like a great move in year one. But then the bottom fell out with McNeil and Lofton not contributing, Deandre having a sup par year and losing Josh Martin who we had high hopes for.

Is he guilty of making some mistakes? Absolutely, and I think he would admit to those, that they didn't pan out and he's paying dearly for them right now. I think it would be unfair to continuously bash him for some mistakes he made in his first 6 months on the job.

Like I said higher up in this thread. We should base his "coaching ability" on how these youngsters progress this year. Tough to argue one way or the other about their progress this early in the season.

He should be criticized for his early mistakes for sure, and that should give us reason to keep an eye on it. But it shouldn't be the end of his tenure here. We have to understand that he made the mistakes and hope to god he doesn't repeat them. (we have 2 more Juco's that if they don't pan out will put us in a similar spot in 3 years with very little senior contribution to a team in year 6)
 

frannyjunk said:
I wanted to like Pitino. Seems like a good coach .... but you can't argue with the lack of results. Last year's team was chalk full with experience yet did not even make the NIT. This year losing to 2 South Dakota teams. Time for a new HC.

Comparing little Pitino to Tubby who had a bare cupboard at Tech, at year 3, Tech is way ahead compared to Gophers.
Click to expand...
Your plan has one fatal flaw Teague won't hire Pitino's new boss until July 1st and they won't can him three months before the season starts. If he gets canned now it also impacts the new AD search as they're not going to want to be hamstrung by a new head coach's contract hired by someone else. Plus you can say good bye to our in coming recruiting class and than were even worse off next year than this year. Every coach deserves four years, will see where were at after next season.
 



Because Pitino's first class didn't have any real prospects locked down from Tubby, and due to Tubby's poor recruiting his last few years and turnover, Pitino was forced to recruit JUCOs and grander players to fill a roster. His order real recruiting class is Mason's class, which still wasn't enough time to develop solid relationships with good recruits. That is what we saw with next year's class. High quality recruits because relationships were established
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Why aren't there any juniors on this team?
Click to expand...

Because they ran off Alvin Ellis and Alex Foster (neither a loss) when Tubby was fired. The best Pitino could do was bring in Daquan McNeill and some late upperclassman.

Pitino also sacrificed this year to bring in Lynch and Fitzgerald to try and balance things out for next year. How else could he have structured the classes better? He inherited a team filled with upperclassman and little to no young talent. Did you want him to run off more players earlier?
 

FarmerClone said:
Iowa State fell for that line of thinking when we hired Wayne Morgan to replace Larry Eustachy in part to keep the stable of recruits Wayne helped land. Maybe it will pay off for the Gophers, but it did not work for ISU. To be successful you have to have talent but you also have to be able to coach. If you have talent, but no coaching, you will still struggle.
Click to expand...
Not really the same. These are Pitino's recruits he deserves to coach them, plus he doesn't have a boss that can fire him anyways.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Why aren't there any juniors on this team?
Click to expand...

Two players were released from their LOI after Tubby was fired. Foster followed Tubby to TT but has since transferred. Ellis is at Michigan St. but hardly plays.
 



cjbfbp said:
And for another Iowa reference, there were Hawkeye fans who argued that firing Todd Lickliter after three years would be damaging to the program. Fortunately for them, their AD was willing to recognize his mistake and make the change. It should also be mentioned that 2 of Lickliter's 4 recruits for that last season came to Iowa anyway and played for the new coach, McCafferey. The best of the four, Devan Marble, was, like Coffey, a legacy player.
Click to expand...
We don't have an Athletic Director with the authority to do this, unless the Interim label is removed. Surprised the fire Pitino camp is too stupid to see this
 

Pitino has done a terrible job putting this team together, it falls squarely on him, it is obviously lacking, with that said you don't make a change now, a start like this in the fall of 2017 and he might not see the start of the B1G season but for the next year and a half his job is pretty safe. It's going to be tough to sit through this season that is for sure.
 

If he doesn't start giving heavy minutes to the Sophmores and Freshmen then he should be fired.

He should start:
Mason
McBrayer/Dorsey
Buggs
King
Murphy

Morris is not effective and Gilbert isn't learning anything with no pt. Dorsey needs to be the 6th man.

I may even prefer starting Dorsey at PG and putting Nate at SG.
 

Bad losses were bound to happen and they will happen again. this is a YOUNG team!!! The bball IQ on this team is also very low.

Way to early......I will give him until next year before I even think about a firing.

Remember this is really only his second year of recruiting. first year he only reacted to what he had
 

bemidjigopher said:
We don't have an Athletic Director with the authority to do this, unless the Interim label is removed. Surprised the fire Pitino camp is too stupid to see this
Click to expand...

Oh, come on now, you're a veteran on GH. Never be surprised.
 

The other thing is this.

Pitino is likely fine this year with next year being the make or break season. We will be one of the worst teams in the Big Ten this year. How much do we improve and what keeps his job safe next year? NIT? squeaking into the tourney? What are everyone's thoughts?
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Because they ran off Alvin Ellis and Alex Foster (neither a loss) when Tubby was fired. The best Pitino could do was bring in Daquan McNeill and some late upperclassman.

Pitino also sacrificed this year to bring in Lynch and Fitzgerald to try and balance things out for next year. How else could he have structured the classes better? He inherited a team filled with upperclassman and little to no young talent. Did you want him to run off more players earlier?
Click to expand...

Coaches balance out their classes all of the time.

Are you really arguing that with all of the moving and shaking of scholarships over the last couple years there wasn't another opportunity even things out a bit?
 

tmvander said:
The other thing is this.

Pitino is likely fine this year with next year being the make or break season. We will be one of the worst teams in the Big Ten this year. How much do we improve and what keeps his job safe next year? NIT? squeaking into the tourney? What are everyone's thoughts?
Click to expand...

I think he's safe if he makes the tournament (or gets close).
 

tmvander said:
The other thing is this.

Pitino is likely fine this year with next year being the make or break season. We will be one of the worst teams in the Big Ten this year. How much do we improve and what keeps his job safe next year? NIT? squeaking into the tourney? What are everyone's thoughts?
Click to expand...
With these losses will need to go 9-9 in conference just to be eligible for the NIT this year. As for next year I think it's NCAA or bust, but it's hard to say will have a new AD and even a strong NIT showing with 8-9 conference wins will look a lot better than this season
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I think he's safe if he makes the tournament (or gets close).
Click to expand...

I re-read my post and it sucks so let me rephrase in 2 questions...what will be a successful season next year? What is the minimum level of achievement needed for him to stay put?
 

bemidjigopher said:
Plus you can say good bye to our in coming recruiting class and than were even worse off next year than this year. Every coach deserves four years, will see where were at after next season.
Click to expand...

I disagree on both points. You don't know what the response will be among the recruits. The program I have the longest association with is the U of Iowa. When Alford left, one roster player left and one of three recruits did not come. When Todd Lickliter was fired (after 3 years), no roster players left and two of his four recruits, including Devan Marble, came to play for the new coach. Furthermore, the newly hired coach still has the opportunity to bring in some players (like Pitino did his first year) and like the two coaches mentioned above did. Good players clearly are still available in the Spring especially with all of the grad transfers these days.

I don't know yet whether Pitino deserves to be fired after year 3, but Todd Lickliter definitely deserved to be fired after his third year. If Pitino's team wins something like 9 games, I think the administration should give the idea serious consideration. Firing Lickliter after three years did not hurt the Iowa program at all. They replaced him with a very experienced coach who has produced at a level that must be considered at least acceptable for that program.
 

So we should fire a guy whose best two recruiting classes have (a) played a total of six or seven college games or (b) haven't even gotten on campus yet? It makes absolutely no sense to me. The best three players on the court last night for the Gophers (admittedly a low bar) were McBrayer, Mason, and Dorsey on the heels of a freshman of the week award for Murphy. All of the talent right now in the pipeline is extremely young or hasn't even gotten here yet.

I do think Pitino changed his recruiting strategy beginning with the current Dorsey/Johnson/Murphy/McBrayer/Gilbert class. Prior to that, it appeared he was looking at top fifty Louisville/Florida type recruits. We made a ton of "final five" lists but never closed the deal on any of those guys (as DPO enjoyed pointing out). When the Whitehead's of the world spurned us, we were then relegated to Option C and D players. Perhaps we should have been targeting Option B players all along. The Mason/Martin/Konate/Diedhiou class has set us back a little bit so far. (even Mason was about their fourth or fifth point guard target that year) I like the strategy of the last two years, targeting players in the 75 to 200 range -- solid talented four year players. I would be very surprised if we don't start to see an uptick in results over the next two years due to the players he has signed from these last two classes.

Last night was brutal, no doubt. Reminded me of a Clem Haskins game against Texas Southern years ago they were blown out by 20 on our home court. We could come up with a million examples of games like this on other teams too. They looked lost on defense for most of the game. However, the knee jerk reaction to blow the whole thing up is just ridiculous, in my opinion.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Coaches balance out their classes all of the time.

Are you really arguing that with all of the moving and shaking of scholarships over the last couple years there wasn't another opportunity even things out a bit?
Click to expand...

He's only had 2 full recruiting classes. This was always going to be a rebuilding year due to what Tubby left behind (nothing). Would you have rather had him recruit two more freshman this year instead of two juniors who have to sit out?
 

cjbfbp said:
I disagree on both points. You don't know what the response will be among the recruits. The program I have the longest association with is the U of Iowa. When Alford left, one roster player left and one of three recruits did not come. When Todd Lickliter was fired (after 3 years), no roster players left and two of his four recruits, including Devan Marble, came to play for the new coach. Furthermore, the newly hired coach still has the opportunity to bring in some players (like Pitino did his first year) and like the two coaches mentioned above did. Good players clearly are still available in the Spring especially with all of the grad transfers these days.

I don't know yet whether Pitino deserves to be fired after year 3, but Todd Lickliter definitely deserved to be fired after his third year. If Pitino's team wins something like 9 games, I think the administration should give the idea serious consideration. Firing Lickliter after three years did not hurt the Iowa program at all. They replaced him with a very experienced coach who has produced at a level that must be considered at least acceptable for that program.
Click to expand...

Well if the U repeats the same protocol they'll release the scholarship players before the hiring like they did with Tubby. I am sure the new coach will re recruit them, all three are very good and two are home grown. But reading between the lines these kids talk about how much they like Pitino and his style, they don't really talk about the school. The relationship just won't be there with a new coach and guys like Coffey and Curry who were heavily recruited by other schools have strong relationships with other staffs. Everyone wanted Coffey and now that he's healthy and a possible McDonalds All American, I wouldn't rule out the blue bloods swooping in. Curry if I had to guess after missing out on Monk his home state and ISU would love another crack at him. Hurt was picking up interest from schools like Northwestern and Nebraska when he committed.
not to mention you seem gloss over the fact that we don't have an AD who can fire him and we won't until this summer when it'll be too late. Iowa had a boss who could fire Licksnuts, Pitino doesn't
 

GopherOhana said:
The AD doesn't have the balls to fire him this year
Click to expand...

I see what you did there.

He's not getting fired until a permanent AD is in place. That could be after the season, but most likely he gets next year. I'm OK with that. I thought his in-game coaching was pretty good in year 1. I can't understand what has happened. The defense we 'play' is as bad as I've ever seen. I can't help but wonder how much better we'd be with someone like Coach Mo on the staff instead of all young guys.
 

tmvander said:
I re-read my post and it sucks so let me rephrase in 2 questions...what will be a successful season next year? What is the minimum level of achievement needed for him to stay put?
Click to expand...

Barring major injuries, an NCAA bid or bust in 2016/17, IMO. Four years with no NCAA bids does not get you a 5th year. We don't have the highest standards but we're not Northwestern.
 

howeda7 said:
He's not getting fired until a permanent AD is in place. That could be after the season, but most likely he gets next year. I'm OK with that.
Click to expand...

This the most probable scenario. If the new AD is in place by July 1st they will have all of next season to evaluate the basketball program and where it is at under Pitino.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom