BleedGopher
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per the Owatonna's Peoples Press:
My goodness, what difference a year makes.
It was only about 365 days ago that Richard Pitino stood in front of an audience at the Owatonna Country Club and talked about what could be instead of what was. He was only a couple months removed from an 8-win season and admitted that he would have rather been anywhere else than crammed into a bus and patrolling the outer-reaches of the state trying to convince apathetic crowds of his team’s potential.
“It’s funny because last year I had to do this, and this was probably the last thing you wanted to do after a bad season is talk about it,” Pitino said Tuesday morning. “I was very excited about where we were headed, but I knew we needed to get to the season, and obviously we got there, and we let our play do the talking — and that was great.”
Pitino admitted there were some dark moments last offseason, but he never stopped believing in his players. At the time he probably felt like he was the only person in the entire world that knew how good his team could be and grew tired re-hashing a disastrous season.
“For me, I always found as a coach, you don’t want talk about where you are going,” Pitino said. “You’d like to be able to show what you have done and get people to understand and buy into that.”
After engineering the greatest turnaround in the entire country — improving the Gophers’ regular season record from 8-23 to 23-8 — Pitino can finally hit the road and speak about tangible results instead of projected glory.
Since the season ended in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament in late March, the fourth-year coach has already seen the dividends of his success.
“It’s been a big help [in recruiting],” he said. “Now we have a little bit of a blue print about where we are going and what we are able to do with a young team — so that’s exciting.”
http://www.southernminn.com/owatonn...cle_27080ffe-afa3-5f0c-bc5f-6118d7c25181.html
Go Gophers!!
My goodness, what difference a year makes.
It was only about 365 days ago that Richard Pitino stood in front of an audience at the Owatonna Country Club and talked about what could be instead of what was. He was only a couple months removed from an 8-win season and admitted that he would have rather been anywhere else than crammed into a bus and patrolling the outer-reaches of the state trying to convince apathetic crowds of his team’s potential.
“It’s funny because last year I had to do this, and this was probably the last thing you wanted to do after a bad season is talk about it,” Pitino said Tuesday morning. “I was very excited about where we were headed, but I knew we needed to get to the season, and obviously we got there, and we let our play do the talking — and that was great.”
Pitino admitted there were some dark moments last offseason, but he never stopped believing in his players. At the time he probably felt like he was the only person in the entire world that knew how good his team could be and grew tired re-hashing a disastrous season.
“For me, I always found as a coach, you don’t want talk about where you are going,” Pitino said. “You’d like to be able to show what you have done and get people to understand and buy into that.”
After engineering the greatest turnaround in the entire country — improving the Gophers’ regular season record from 8-23 to 23-8 — Pitino can finally hit the road and speak about tangible results instead of projected glory.
Since the season ended in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament in late March, the fourth-year coach has already seen the dividends of his success.
“It’s been a big help [in recruiting],” he said. “Now we have a little bit of a blue print about where we are going and what we are able to do with a young team — so that’s exciting.”
http://www.southernminn.com/owatonn...cle_27080ffe-afa3-5f0c-bc5f-6118d7c25181.html
Go Gophers!!