I just can't believe you are doubling and tripling down on the "lower expectations for Pitino" thing.
I don't even know where to begin so I'm not even going to try.
It's just a reality that some coaches are or would be or are expected to be home runs hires, immediate impact hires. Examples would be Tubby Smith at Mn bb, Herb Brooks at SCSU, Lou Holtz at Mn fb, Allister at Mn Softball, the Gophers VB coach, and those are just examples from Gopher sports, or of a Gopher elsewhere. Most of those home run hires panned out or had at least a short term immediate impact while they were here/there. SCSU even renamed their Arena after Brooks, despite his being there just one year. Holtz's impact was less noticeable because he took several of the players that would have otherwise kept playing for Minnesota with him to Notre Dame, with some of those actually being part of why ND went on to win the Natl Title.
Edit - I forgot to include the 2nd part. Other coaches ARE NOT home run hires, and their expectations are lower, and its hoped that given time and patience, they can build something and become successful. Jerry Kill was one of these hires, like Mason before him, he was known to turn programs around and until he left, he had our fb program on a steady upward trajectory, and I think we were more patient with him than for instance, Michigan was with Harbaugh, he was a home run hire and much more was expected of him and despite much greater success than we've had at Minnesota, there is talk of firing him, we'd pee our pants to have what Michigan has had under Harbaugh. J Robinson was possibly one of those hires, he didn't immediately turn the Minnesota Wrestling program around, it took him close to a decade to turn them into perennial contenders. If as many people cared about wrestling back in the early 90s like they care about cbb, Robinson may have been fired the year they got to #1 in the rankings and ended up finishing like #12 or something in the NCAAs? He suffered some serious bad luck as well as 2 of his best wrestlers got injured between the end of the season and the start of the NCAA tourney. But maybe because it was just wrestling? But he was shown patience and that patience paid off. I don't think hiring Brad Frost was a home run hire, at least it didn't look like it at the time of the hire, turns out it was, he was the frog that turned into the Prince maybe? Or maybe ANYONE could coach those gals to titles??? I don't think so. I don't think Mason was a home run hire, although some may have hoped he'd turn out to be, but he was known for turning dumpster fires into competitive programs and that is what he did, but he reached his ceiling and plateaued. A guy outside of Minnesota that I can think of is Gary Pinkel at Missouri, he was given lots of time and patience to build that program up and until all the trouble they had with racism that one season, they were on a steady upward progression. Had it taken that long for Saban to turn Bama into a decent team, he would have gotten fired in 1/5th the time it took for Pinkel to get let go.
And we all know our drunken letch of an AD couldn't find a home run hire, or didn't want the one he could have gotten in Flip, so he went with one whose success, if he had it, he could take tons of credit for.
So we all knew he wasn't a home run hire, from the start. Not sure why this is not understood and acknowledged???
Home run hires have and ALWAYS WILL HAVE, higher expectations of them, at least in their first 2-3 seasons.
Tubby Smith, in comparison to the very FAIR high expectations of his impact here, was basically a bust. Did he put together a good team or two in his time here? Sure, I sure in the frigging heck hope so??? And maybe he also suffered some bad luck, too, that may have lessened the end results that particular season. Sure. But it ended up being pretty apparent that he was let go from UK for good reason.
I've mentioned here before, as have others, that his recruiting was trending downward, and THAT was why he was rightfully let go. And that is definitely true, he was basically putting less and less energy and time into recruiting out of state players. He was basically mailing it in.
But, the more I think about it, that was NOT the only issue I had with Tubby. Some of his coaching decisions were unbelievably BAFFLING. Wasn't it Tubby that would do some sort of hockey line change kind of thing? Taking out whole lineups at the same time or close to it, and it always seemed that he did this when we had momentum and far more often than not, it seemed to allow the other team to stop our momentum and to build their own and to make comebacks. And maybe he felt that once he put the lineup/starters back into the game, they could stop the other teams comeback, and that may have happened a few times, as I guess it should, but I know that I am not the only person who noticed it, because it was other fans complaining about it that helped me to recognize it and to watch for it in future games.
So for his being a supposed future Hall of Famer and his having led a team to a Natl Championship and having led several different teams to the NCAA tourney, and maybe even deep into the tourney, he just DID NOT DELIVER on the promise, the potential, the hope, that most of us seemed to have or see in him when he first got hired.
And the year he had all that bad luck??? I remember him being, for the most part, forgiven for that, and not blamed for the team's BARELY getting into the tourney that year, needing to make a run to the Conf Tourney Title game just to get an #11 seed in the tourney. Were their exceptions to that? Sure, there were Tubby haters who ragged on him and blamed him for the bad luck, just like Pitino haters blame him for this year's bad luck or at least his not being able to overcome it. Yet we still have the B1G tourney to redeem this season, so you never know? But Tubby gets credit for taking that team to the NCAA tourney, despite their BARELY getting in and then not coming close to winning their 1st round game.
And yes, at the time I wanted to believe our win over UCLA was a great win and something to be proud of, and maybe their missing JUST ONE PLAYER shouldn't detract from our beating them, but at the same time there are plenty of Gopher fans that feel our missing JUST ONE PLAYER was why we lost to Michigan and then MTSU last year. So is it fair or right or intelligent to point to our missing player when we lose and then not allow our opposition to do the same???
Is it significant that our ONLY WIN in NCAA tournament play since 1990, came while the other team was down a player???
If I was NOT a Gopher fan, I'd be all over that, and would in fact make a point of pointing that out.
UMn is one of the worst ranked cbb programs in modern college basketball history, and they'd be MUCH WORSE if not for Clem's first crew.
What was Clem's 4 year B1G conf record???
What was Clem's first 3 year conf record??? OMG, that would almost make Pitino's look incredibly good!!!!!
Yet what did those TWO HORRIBLE teams, the 1987 and 1988 teams have, other than possibly the worst 2 year conf record in ALL OF UMN BB HISTORY??????????????
HOPE.
Hope for a much brighter future. And 1989 and 1990 delivered exactly that.
Oh, and it wasn't incredibly amazing conf win/loss records in 89 and 90 that made those years special.
And I point that out because of how OBSESSED some of you seem to be with this whole 5 year conf record BS.
Monson never made me feel true hope like I felt Clem gave us.
Tubby, only made me feel that kind of hope for a year or two, then he felt like just a slight improvement over Monson.
Pitino, in year 3, made me feel like I was experiencing what I had in 1988 again. Young team struggling, mightily, but showing signs of a promising future.
Pitino in year 4, made me feel like I was experiencing what I had in 1989 again. Had Springs not gone down, I could have easily seen them making the Sweet 16.
Pitino in year 5, BEFORE the Curry injury, I felt we were going to have a year similar to 1990, except playing in a weaker B1G than the 1990 version, I thought we'd finish Top 3 in Conf for sure, unlike the 1990 team that finished in 5th I believe? Or was that the 89 team?
But then the ceiling started collapsing in on this year's squad and well, I just don't see how that can be blamed on Pitino directly. Maybe in some degree indirectly, seeing as he did bring in Gaston and Bakary and under the circumstances some of his moves didn't work out too well, but its not as if coaches should know that 3 and a half players are not going to be available to them each year. Who does that? Who passes on bringing in a transfer that has to sit a year assuming 3 and a half players are going to become unavailable to play??? Why aren't all of you geniuses who think its so easy to predict such things out there in the world making big money coaching college basketball???
lol
Maybe because you are not actually cbb coaching geniuses, but in reality are just a bunch of armchair QBs who think WAY TOO highly of their own opinions?
