Roll call for the former Pitino bashers.

This practice seems to be enjoyed by a lamentable number of posters here. I shake my head at the number of times I've seen old threads dug up just for the purpose of ridiculing people who turned out to be wrong. Petty, really, really petty.

CYA baby! ��
 

I don't blame anyone who questions the situation when your team has one of the worst seasons in program history and three guys are in trouble for misconduct. So I'm not going to call out any bashers.

The way I would put it is this, though: I think the question has been answered whether the school made a good hire at the time. This was a good hire. Certainly not a bust.

Well said!
 

Good post. The one thing that bothered me were the people who don't analyze the entire situation, where the program was at in terms of talent and the cycle that should have been expected. Anyone that thought year two was going to be good just because a coach's second year should progress from the first wasn't putting much thought into it.

Tubby handed Pitino a older but flawed roster that Pitino got a lot out of the first year. When things fell apart in year two with the young kids- the sky was falling and people wanted to fire him. Complaints about the scandal are understandable, but coach dealt with it swiftly and reacted well. Now given the chance to see a few recruiting classes come through we have a real idea what the coach is doing and what he can do when he has talent to work with. Better yet- he seems to have the knack for finding and luring good talent that fits his system pretty well. If the coach stays- we should be good for a long time to come.

It was year 3 when complaints were rampant. Year 2 was simply disappointing given the relatively small personnel losses from Year 1 (although Austin Hollins' departure turned out to be a pretty big loss). As far as Year 3, why would anyone be surprised by a lot of grumbling in an 8 win season?

The turnaround in Year 4 was remarkable. Of course Pitino deserved a great deal of credit for that. But, adding Reggie Lynch, Amir Coffey, Eric Curry, and Akeem Springs to the core of Murphy, Mason, and McBrayer turned out to have a bigger impact than almost anyone could have imagined. Kudos to Pitino for recruiting the right combination of guys. But, before that point, his recruiting record was far more mixed: there was Murphy, Mason, and McBreyer (who frankly was a bit slow in developing) but there was also Konate, Gas, McNeil, Josh Martin, Carlos Morris, Joey King (a capable rotation role player but not starting material in a major conference), Dorsey, and Gilbert.
 


I can admit that I questioned his coaching skills, but gave him the benefit of the doubt that he would learn on the job, but outside of that, after year 2, I never doubted him and was in here trying to point out to everyone how his recruiting was steadily improving, how the players were developing and improving, how they were only losing games by close margins, how they were easily one of the youngest teams in the country, and how all of those factors would improve the next year and the year after that and all the doubters and bashers would be proved wrong, and they were. It doesn't happen all of the time, but occasionally I make one of these calls, and I did that year. I didn't pay attention to how many losses they accumulated, I paid attention to how close the margins were, how young the team was, how improved the recruiting was, and predicted a major improvement in year 4 and again in year 5. Well, I could say, I told you so, but I won't, because we haven't won a Natl Title yet and that is the real goal here, right?

But to all of those Pitino bashers, I will say, HOW COULD YOU NOT SEE IT???

lol It's my right to ask that question, so now its your right to try to come up with some LAME ASS excuse why you didn't see what the rest of us saw, lol.

No excuse. We were coming off the NCAA tournament and had very good in state talent we were recruiting.

I was wrong. Not only is the program in a better place, I think the most notable improvement is they are SIGNIFICANTLY more fun to watch.


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I don't know if I'm one of the posters who is being cited as a Pitino basher and supposedly needs to apologize. I certainly have had questions about his job performance.

Just to spell things out - Gopher Records in the Pitino era:
25-13 / 8-10 B1G
18-15 / 6-12 B1G
8-23 / 2-16 B1G
23-8 / 11-7 B1G

You have to admit that the downward momentum of the 1st three seasons had to at least pose some questions and concerns. My biggest complaint/issue was that I didn't see growth within the course of the season. When a team is making the same mistakes at the end of the season that it was making at the start of the season, that's a cause for concern. I'm certainly not the only person who was disappointed about some of the high-profile in-state recruits who "got away" in recent years.

Now, obviously, the 4th season saw a huge turnaround, and the 5th Pitino season is off to a good start. Put me down as pleasantly surprised. I think Pitino has grown as a coach. we'll see what happens the rest of this season.

I will just offer this - the current team has a lot of talent, but it's not the deepest team in the world with Curry out. They need to stay healthy. one key injury could change the entire outlook for the season. So don't count your chickens and all of that. there's a lot of ball to be played yet.
 

I was doubting with that 8 win season, but Joey King prophesied better days and he was right. Obviously I wasn't in practices that year so I didn't see the ineligible talent waiting to shine. Kudos to the team for bringing me around.
 

On a side note: It was great to see Joey King sitting behind the bench today. He seemed like a great kid.
 

I don't know if I'm one of the posters who is being cited as a Pitino basher and supposedly needs to apologize.

Why should anyone feel remorse for complaining during an 8 win season? A coach, particularly of a power conference team who gets to play the majority of games on his home court, shouldn't have an 8 win season in his third year - period. Pitino deserved jeers for that season as much as he deserves cheers now.
 






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