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bizzle22 said:
I don't think anyone (even those complaining) expects us to compete for even B1G championships every year anytime soon. I was very happy with last season, and am disappointed that we couldn't take advantage of a very down B1G this year -- which no doubt was partially due to injuries/suspensions. Once Lynch went down and Coffey became hobbled it was no longer reasonable to hope for a top 4 B1G finish, and I was fine with that. After that, my hope was that the season could still be salvaged to the point of maybe a NIT bid. That no longer appears to be possible.

The last two games have been good to see. The effort is much better than it was for a stretch there, and I would hope that we can at least pull off a few more victories to end the season. It's still only two games where we've looked like we have a pulse, and I would hope that continues for the rest of the year. You will find comments from me criticizing the effort of our guys prior to the last two games, and I think that criticism was fair. I am able to recognize effort when I see it, so you will not find any comments from me criticizing the effort after the last two games.

Your comment about posters who hate Pitino not wanting to acknowledge last year's 4th place finish could be turned around the other way in that it also appears some posters want to cling to that one season while ignoring the other four with Pitino at the helm.

I do not agree that we are a program on the rise simply because the numbers don't bear that out. I badly want us to be, but that simply isn't the case. If you can find a metric by which that is true please do not hesitate to share. But looking at every common measurement, including B1G record, NCAA tournament appearances, and number of weeks spent in the national rankings we are actually on the decline if anything. As a fan, that bothers me. It doesn't mean I don't support the guys on the team right now as well as the recruits who will be joining the team, but I'm also not going to deny the facts in front of me showing that the program I love is not performing at a very high level. I'm not asking for B1G championships every year, but I'd like to be able to hang my hat on more than one NCAA tournament appearance in five seasons.
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In response to the first bolded paragraph, I disagree. This is about recency. Why do people find it necessary to cling to the first three seasons, when they hold little bearing on the present? If his success was found in years one and two, that would be a problem. Considering that his success was found with HIS players in year four, it's a success worth noting when comparing it to all of his other years. He WOULD have had another successful season this year, and I will give him credit for what could have been. When I heard about the Curry injury, I knew definitively that we were in big trouble and remarkably thin in the front court. We have been thin for a long time. I agree with other posters about RP's bench depth needing to be better. And guess what? It will be next season. If Daniel Oturu, Matz Stockman, Eric Curry, and Jarvis Omersa, aren't an upgrade over Bakary and Gaston, I'm going to burn every piece of Gopher crap that I have.

As for the second bolded paragraph, fine stick to the W and L columns. So many people on here are married to the W and L columns. I mean, just look at all those L's! Jesus F'ing Christ could rise from the ashes with a coaching degree and the Gophers might eke out one additional win with this horrendously thin roster. Like you and everyone else I want better results, but it's WRONG to expect better under the circumstances. I'd LOVE to see what coach K would do with these players. And to those who say, then it's RP's fault that our players aren't good enough! They were, until they got hurt. And NO, other teams can't sustain these types of fallbacks and maintain success. No team in the Gophers league anyway.

For the record, I agree with most of what you wrote, and appreciate that most people are backing off of wanting to see RP fired. My biggest issue with GH has become how reactionary so many are. Pre injury we're awesome and show great promise, post injury RP sucks and is a con artist. what-evah
 

Go Gophs said:
Last few games has been much better. That's all most want to see. A team that has a little fight left in them and the younger players improving. It wasn't that way in the games before the last 2 and that left some frustrated.

Everyone knows this team isn't going to win much with Lynch and Coffee out with no depth behind them in the front court. However, effort and improvement say alot about a program and the direction it's heading.
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Agreed.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
It all comes down to expectations. Obviously, the expectations for this team changed with the loss of Lynch, the loss of Coffey, and now McBrayer being questionable.

But, that does not absolve Pitino of all responsibility. He is the head coach. he is responsible for the team that goes out on the court. and whether that team is made up of starters, subs, walk-ons or intermural players, the head coach is responsible for getting those players to hustle and show effort.

There have been times this year when I saw a team on the court that did not hustle and show effort. that's on the players, but it's also on the coach.

to be clear, I am NOT saying Pitino should be fired. I am saying that I saw some things this year I did not like, and cause me some concern for the future.

so, I want to see things improve next year. Regardless of who is on the court, I want to see a Gopher team that hustles and shows constant effort. If that happens, the results will follow.

Again, NOT saying Pitino should be fired. But, I am saying that Pitino still has a lot to prove as a D1 head coach, and he does not get a pass on some of the issues this season, just because the team was missing a few players.
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See, this is the line that gets people irked. I agree with everything that you wrote, and I think that everybody else does too. But, it's absurd to write that line the way that you did. I agree, Pitino does have a lot to prove, and should never get "free passes". However, any evaluation of his performance NEEDS to be made with a firm understanding of what this season is/was.

I agree with you completely that regardless of who steps on the floor, we want to see EFFORT. There were games prior to the meltdown where I was left scratching my head in regards to the effort, so yes I'm also displeased with some of those issues. BUT, the effort has been better over the past couple games, and that's what this thread is about after all.
 

GopherHoopsFan said:
See, this is the line that gets people irked. I agree with everything that you wrote, and I think that everybody else does too. But, it's absurd to write that line the way that you did. I agree, Pitino does have a lot to prove, and should never get "free passes". However, any evaluation of his performance NEEDS to be made with a firm understanding of what this season is/was.

I agree with you completely that regardless of who steps on the floor, we want to see EFFORT. There were games prior to the meltdown where I was left scratching my head in regards to the effort, so yes I'm also displeased with some of those issues. BUT, the effort has been better over the past couple games, and that's what this thread is about after all.
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Good post



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Proud this gutsy squad will eke out a 4-15 B10 record with such adversity.
 


GopherHoopsFan said:
See, this is the line that gets people irked. I agree with everything that you wrote, and I think that everybody else does too. But, it's absurd to write that line the way that you did. I agree, Pitino does have a lot to prove, and should never get "free passes". However, any evaluation of his performance NEEDS to be made with a firm understanding of what this season is/was.

I agree with you completely that regardless of who steps on the floor, we want to see EFFORT. There were games prior to the meltdown where I was left scratching my head in regards to the effort, so yes I'm also displeased with some of those issues. BUT, the effort has been better over the past couple games, and that's what this thread is about after all.
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So this thread is about ignoring some of the previous effort issues and being proud of the effort over the last two games. What if they effort is not there Friday against IU are we then to ignore that because the effort was there the prior two games?
 

Zeppelin Gopher said:
Quoting your own posts and replying to yourself.

Congrats, you've moved from the bizarre to the purely insane.
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Yeah, I suppose I could have just gone up and edited the post. Who cares, honestly? I mean seriously, give me a break. The bizarre thing is how far down your hatred of Pitino will get you to stoop into the gutter.



Guess what GENIUS, not only do several of the posters here agree with me, but CBS sportsline did NOT include Pitino in their list of B1G Coaches on the Hot Seat. And it wasn't a short 1 person list, it had 3 coaches on the list.
 

bizzle22 said:
I know this may be so reasonable that it sounds nuts, but is it possible that it is some of both? Maybe it is partially the coach's fault and partially bad luck. I don't believe many here have said that it is 100% one or the other. It's quite reasonable for someone to acknowledge that bad luck has played a role while also thinking that Pitino isn't doing a very good job. When you are 3-10 in the B1G and not really even competitive in half of those 10 losses there is probably more than one factor behind it.
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I don't think ANY of Pitino's defenders are claiming he is a perfect coach or that he hasn't made some mistakes along the way. But guys like McBreyer are NOT going to be able to play great defense when they probably shouldn't even be allowed to play at all. Murphy is getting way more attention now, and Mason probably gets the other teams #1 defensive guard every game. This leaves the fate of our team, to a large degree, in the hands of 2 freshmen, a guy who didn't see the court for 2 years and Hurt. We, or I'll speak only for myself, I simply do not think the mistakes he's made or his flaws are reason enough for there to be talk about firing him.

When he has a fully healthy roster of scholarship players, like he had last year and like he hopefully will have next year, then it will be fair to hold negative results against him.


But a few of you point to last year as the fluke? What if next year the defensive stats go back to close to what they were last year? Will all of you who were so critical of him this year, who are claiming last year had to be the fluke, will you all come in here and admit that you were wrong?



I did a comparison of UMn's conf schedule to that of Indiana's earlier in the season, and I also looked up Nebraska's schedule as well for an unrelated reason, and UMn's schedule was much tougher than IU's, at least up to that point. UMn finishes off with Iowa and Wisconsin as 2 of their last 3, so the Strength of our Conf schedule weakens some by the end, but up to now, its way tougher than IU's or Nebraska's has been. THAT is another factor.

And no, the game in MSG was technically not a road game, but being as it was played just 2 days after our road game vs Maryland and 5 days after our road game vs PSU, and just 7 days after our home game with Purdue, which was just 3 days after our road game vs NW, all of which started less than a week after finding out Lynch and Coffey would be out for awhile, oh, and then was followed by a home game vs NW just 3 days after our MSG game, probably made it far more like a road game than a neutral site game. It didn't help that our opponent in that game is easily the 2nd best team in the B1G. So if you count the MSG game as a road game, that give UMn 10 road games and only 8 home games.


So if playing LOTS OF GAMES, in a short amount of time, mostly on the road, with a MASSIVELY DEPLETED roster doesn't earn a coach a break? What would? I mean seriously?
 

GopherPlaya said:
That was a terrible analogy. A marathon is an individual event this is a team. The Eagles lost their QB & starting left tackle but they built up enough depth & schemed to their current talent to make it work. Everybody is stuck on losing 4 of our top 6 but it's not like we are young with the rest of our depth. We only have 2 Freshmen I don't understand how we overlook that aspect.
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A Marathon runner may not be the best analogy, but comparing a sport with 85, is it, players on the roster, losing 2 starters, to a sport with a max of 13 scholarship players losing 3.5 of its top 6, is even more ridiculous.

4 of the Top 6, is fully 1/3 of the roster, and that's taking away that 1/3rd of the roster from the Top half of the roster.


In football terms, that would be equivalent to losing FOURTEEN starters, not two, oh, and a couple of the first guys off the bench, too.
 



GopherHoopsFan said:
+1. Not even to mention that the parity in the NFL is a far cry from where the Gophers have stood and continue to stand in college hoops. For as much as GopherHole posters continue to lament Pitino's 5-year conference record, they refuse to fully acknowledge and accept the fact that we finished in the top 4 of the conference last year. When was the last time our team finished in the top 4 of the conference? I'm too lazy to check, but I'm pretty sure it's not since 1997 (or do we acknowledge that season?). We would have been a top 4 conference team if we remained intact this season. BUT, we've had enough, we won't accept moral victories, this is serious college hoops people!! The Gophers are a legendary program full of outstanding seasons and incredible coaches and players!! One measly "best season in forever" isn't good enough to stay hired at our incredible university, we demand outstanding achievements regardless of the adversity our coaches face. Can't get your 8 remaining players to "gel" and outperform healthier, more talented, and complete teams? Get out of here!! We'll just call up coach K and get him on the next chartered plane to MPLS!! After all, we're the Gophers, and the rest of the country knows of our high standards and expectations.

If you're a poster who refuses to acknowledge the progress that our team has made over the past two games, you need to seriously ask yourself why you're a fan in the first place. Are you actually a Gophers fan? Or are you somebody who looks forward to being contrary?

I was at the Michigan game with my friend who's a Wolverines fan. I told him about all of the posters on GH calling for Pitino's head and he laughed out loud. I've spoken with fans of other teams, and they have a much different perception than those who's heads are clouded by the past 20 years of Gophers hoops failure. They see a team on the rise. As do I. When I walked into Crisler Center I expected to witness a 25 point drubbing. Yet, they nearly pulled it out, and likely would have had Murphy not picked up his 4th foul with 10 minutes to play. Pitino created a lineup that could and would compete, and found a way to make the game close. Proving that it wasn't an anomaly, they hung close with a far more capable Nebraska team. If that isn't progress, then I don't know what is.
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Very good post. The non-Gopher fans I communicate with think firing Pitino would be a huge mistake. They too see us as a team on the rise.
 

KillmeNow said:
I don't think ANY of Pitino's defenders are claiming he is a perfect coach or that he hasn't made some mistakes along the way. But guys like McBreyer are NOT going to be able to play great defense when they probably shouldn't even be allowed to play at all. Murphy is getting way more attention now, and Mason probably gets the other teams #1 defensive guard every game. This leaves the fate of our team, to a large degree, in the hands of 2 freshmen, a guy who didn't see the court for 2 years and Hurt. We, or I'll speak only for myself, I simply do not think the mistakes he's made or his flaws are reason enough for there to be talk about firing him.

When he has a fully healthy roster of scholarship players, like he had last year and like he hopefully will have next year, then it will be fair to hold negative results against him.


But a few of you point to last year as the fluke? What if next year the defensive stats go back to close to what they were last year? Will all of you who were so critical of him this year, who are claiming last year had to be the fluke, will you all come in here and admit that you were wrong?



I did a comparison of UMn's conf schedule to that of Indiana's earlier in the season, and I also looked up Nebraska's schedule as well for an unrelated reason, and UMn's schedule was much tougher than IU's, at least up to that point. UMn finishes off with Iowa and Wisconsin as 2 of their last 3, so the Strength of our Conf schedule weakens some by the end, but up to now, its way tougher than IU's or Nebraska's has been. THAT is another factor.

And no, the game in MSG was technically not a road game, but being as it was played just 2 days after our road game vs Maryland and 5 days after our road game vs PSU, and just 7 days after our home game with Purdue, which was just 3 days after our road game vs NW, all of which started less than a week after finding out Lynch and Coffey would be out for awhile, oh, and then was followed by a home game vs NW just 3 days after our MSG game, probably made it far more like a road game than a neutral site game. It didn't help that our opponent in that game is easily the 2nd best team in the B1G. So if you count the MSG game as a road game, that give UMn 10 road games and only 8 home games.


So if playing LOTS OF GAMES, in a short amount of time, mostly on the road, with a MASSIVELY DEPLETED roster doesn't earn a coach a break? What would? I mean seriously?
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You could probably save a lot of time by just copy and pasting the excuses. I think we are all well aware of them.
 

GopherPlaya said:
I never said we needed to be a good team but we haven't had any effort or come up with a scheme to make us more competitive before the last 2 games. You keep saying that we lost 4 out of our top 6. We got 13 players on scholarship we should at least have enough depth to pick up a little slack if one or 2 go down. So if we had Lynch & Curry, we should expect blowouts every time both of them get in foul trouble. You can shake it however you want but lack of effort is unacceptable & even in the first half of last game I didn't see anyone playing with effort. We gave up 94 damn points.
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They played FOUR road games out of the 5 games they played starting with the game @ NW and they did it in just 11 days.

They went home for ONE game and then proceeded to play TWO MORE road games. And did all of that in just 25 days. 6 road games out of 8 games.


And the 2 home games were not back to back, so as far as traveling is concerned, they did not garner much relief from playing at home those 2 games.
It's one of the most unfavorably structured schedules that I've ever seen in all of my years. ESPECIALLY for a team with a severely depleted roster.


And we don't have 13 players on scholarship that CAN play. Stockman had to sit his first year. Which may have been fine, had Curry then not gone down. That right there, before the season even started, got us down to 11. Tack on the fact that Gaston and Bakary were using 2 of those 11 scholarships, and that gets us down to nine. NOW take away Coffey and Lynch, and that gets us down to 7, oh, and McBreyer can't even practice and is obviously slower in games, and in pain. So essentially 6.5 for the games we opt to exclude B & G.


So THEY GOT TIRED Dude, or Dudes. How can't you see this?


They had leads at half time in 3 of those first 4 games they lost during that 11 game stretch to start it all off.

But they got tired. Gassed out. The other teams, with healthy fuller rosters simply outlasted them. How hard is that to understand?
 

KillmeNow said:
Very good post. The non-Gopher fans I communicate with think firing Pitino would be a huge mistake. They too see us as a team on the rise.
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Could you please describe what "on the rise" means to you?

Maybe I'm dense, but I have a hard time believing there are sane people who see a team at 3-10 in conference the year after going 11-7 in conference as "on the rise."

And if you are going to list all the excuses again that's not really going to cut it. People might say "a team fighting through a lot of adversity" or something like that, and it would be reasonable, but they wouldn't say we are "on the rise" because we aren't winning or even looking competitive at times. That wouldn't make sense. Or if you are going to cite the recruiting class for next year which is currently at a solid #33 in the country and #7 in the B1G on 247 then I might agree that there is potential for a turnaround, but I definitely wouldn't say "on the rise" without actually seeing those players participate in a college basketball game.
 



Heracles said:
I'm guessing there a quite a few teams there were in the top 15 to start the year that could withstand a suspension and 2 injuries. Depth is also something that a coach should be expected to achieve.
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By next year, hopefully we'll have that depth. You may be one of the guys who feel we should have sacrificed principle and academic standing and kicked B & G off the roster, but most Gopher fans do not feel that way. Maybe you were ONE OF THE FEW Gopher fans that posted publicly that you felt the recruitment of B & G were big mistakes, but I don't remember anyone stating that publicly.

Then he took a gamble and brought in a transfer that would have to sit a year. LOTS of coaches do that.


Then Curry went down.

So it wasn't just a suspension and 2 injuries.

It was ONE player sitting out the season. Stockman. Down to 12.
ANOTHER player injured and out for the season. Curry (Top 6). Down to 11.
THEN another player has to sit out the rest of the season. Lynch (Top 6). Down to 10
Then a 4th player having to sit out either a large portion or the rest of the season. Coffey (Top 6). Down to 9
THEN ANOTHER player having to sit out practices and wear a foot boot and play in pain. McBreyer (Top 6). Down to 8.5 maybe?

With G & B being two of those 8.5. Gaston missed 6 of the first 11 Conf games, for what reason I do not know? Has he played in either of the last 2???


So you can dwell on a recruiting gamble he made 5 years ago that didn't pan out and has caused more problems since, and you can hate him for it and continue to look for ways to make him look worse than he is, in some vain effort to convince enough fans to also hate him, so what? Each of us can thrown 20 bucks into a hate and raise 10% of what would be needed to buy out his contract? LMMFGDAO!!!!!! Not going to happen.


OR, you can move on, get over it, focus instead on all of the great players he's brought into the fold, and how bright the future looks like.
 

GopherHoopsFan said:
[/B]

In response to the first bolded paragraph, I disagree. This is about recency. Why do people find it necessary to cling to the first three seasons, when they hold little bearing on the present? If his success was found in years one and two, that would be a problem. Considering that his success was found with HIS players in year four, it's a success worth noting when comparing it to all of his other years. He WOULD have had another successful season this year, and I will give him credit for what could have been. When I heard about the Curry injury, I knew definitively that we were in big trouble and remarkably thin in the front court. We have been thin for a long time. I agree with other posters about RP's bench depth needing to be better. And guess what? It will be next season. If Daniel Oturu, Matz Stockman, Eric Curry, and Jarvis Omersa, aren't an upgrade over Bakary and Gaston, I'm going to burn every piece of Gopher crap that I have.

As for the second bolded paragraph, fine stick to the W and L columns. So many people on here are married to the W and L columns. I mean, just look at all those L's! Jesus F'ing Christ could rise from the ashes with a coaching degree and the Gophers might eke out one additional win with this horrendously thin roster. Like you and everyone else I want better results, but it's WRONG to expect better under the circumstances. I'd LOVE to see what coach K would do with these players. And to those who say, then it's RP's fault that our players aren't good enough! They were, until they got hurt. And NO, other teams can't sustain these types of fallbacks and maintain success. No team in the Gophers league anyway.

For the record, I agree with most of what you wrote, and appreciate that most people are backing off of wanting to see RP fired. My biggest issue with GH has become how reactionary so many are. Pre injury we're awesome and show great promise, post injury RP sucks and is a con artist. what-evah
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Just a suggestion to avoid the “Jesus F’ing Christ” reference as it is quite offensive to many people. Plenty of other exclamations available out there. Thanks!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Bordergopher said:
Just a suggestion to avoid the “Jesus F’ing Christ” reference as it is quite offensive to many people. Plenty of other exclamations available out there. Thanks!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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+1. Very offensive. Knock it off, GHF.
 

KillmeNow said:
I don't think ANY of Pitino's defenders are claiming he is a perfect coach or that he hasn't made some mistakes along the way. But guys like McBreyer are NOT going to be able to play great defense when they probably shouldn't even be allowed to play at all. Murphy is getting way more attention now, and Mason probably gets the other teams #1 defensive guard every game. This leaves the fate of our team, to a large degree, in the hands of 2 freshmen, a guy who didn't see the court for 2 years and Hurt. We, or I'll speak only for myself, I simply do not think the mistakes he's made or his flaws are reason enough for there to be talk about firing him.

When he has a fully healthy roster of scholarship players, like he had last year and like he hopefully will have next year, then it will be fair to hold negative results against him.


But a few of you point to last year as the fluke? What if next year the defensive stats go back to close to what they were last year? Will all of you who were so critical of him this year, who are claiming last year had to be the fluke, will you all come in here and admit that you were wrong?



I did a comparison of UMn's conf schedule to that of Indiana's earlier in the season, and I also looked up Nebraska's schedule as well for an unrelated reason, and UMn's schedule was much tougher than IU's, at least up to that point. UMn finishes off with Iowa and Wisconsin as 2 of their last 3, so the Strength of our Conf schedule weakens some by the end, but up to now, its way tougher than IU's or Nebraska's has been. THAT is another factor.

And no, the game in MSG was technically not a road game, but being as it was played just 2 days after our road game vs Maryland and 5 days after our road game vs PSU, and just 7 days after our home game with Purdue, which was just 3 days after our road game vs NW, all of which started less than a week after finding out Lynch and Coffey would be out for awhile, oh, and then was followed by a home game vs NW just 3 days after our MSG game, probably made it far more like a road game than a neutral site game. It didn't help that our opponent in that game is easily the 2nd best team in the B1G. So if you count the MSG game as a road game, that give UMn 10 road games and only 8 home games.


So if playing LOTS OF GAMES, in a short amount of time, mostly on the road, with a MASSIVELY DEPLETED roster doesn't earn a coach a break? What would? I mean seriously?
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I do not think last year was a fluke but it also did not include a lot of marquee national wins. What gets him a break would be every player always playing great defense. Back to that culture thing. You act like he is established as a top 25 coach and that simply is not the case.
 

The basketball people i talk to meet every couple of weeks in Bel Air and they are all retired successful coaches and Athletic directors and at best they are cautious, at worst they believe he is not getting it done. nNot one thinks he is a national star coach and not even regional. That won loss record and record against ranked teams leaves most people totally indifferent about this program. You could name 25 programs that have not broken through that are further along. Be impressed if you want, i am not in the least but want him one more year before i finally cut out the annual donation.
 

KillmeNow said:
But a few of you point to last year as the fluke? What if next year the defensive stats go back to close to what they were last year? Will all of you who were so critical of him this year, who are claiming last year had to be the fluke, will you all come in here and admit that you were wrong?
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No one should have to come back to admit they’re wrong if the defense stats go back close to last year.

It’s going to take multiple years in a row of solid defense to prove it’s not a fluke.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 


If you think the effort in the first half against Nebraska was acceptable, much less worthy of praise, I just can't respect your opinion on basketball. Someone started a thread during the week without a game asking what the they hoped the Gophers would work on/improve during that break. The majority of the responses had to do with improving the defense. Since that point, we've given up 90 plus points to Iowa and Nebraska in 2 of the 3 games played (not exactly MSU and Purdue).

Once again, in the 10 games since Lynch was suspended the Gophers are 1-9. They are 2-8 against the spread in that time and have lost as favorites (at HOME) according to Vegas and Ken Pom 3 times during that stretch. How can you rationally claim this team is doing something worthy of praise when presented with these facts? If they were merely doing what the current roster was expected to do, they would be a minimum of 4-6 during these past 10 games. Exactly how could the past 10 games have gone worse? The team is underachieving by virtually every tangible metric you could look at. I don't see how it's helpful to the program to accept, much less praise, what we've seen on the court the last 10 games or really all season when you consider some of the uninspired performances during December.
 

GopherHoopsFan said:
[/B]

In response to the first bolded paragraph, I disagree. This is about recency. Why do people find it necessary to cling to the first three seasons, when they hold little bearing on the present? If his success was found in years one and two, that would be a problem. Considering that his success was found with HIS players in year four, it's a success worth noting when comparing it to all of his other years. He WOULD have had another successful season this year, and I will give him credit for what could have been. When I heard about the Curry injury, I knew definitively that we were in big trouble and remarkably thin in the front court. We have been thin for a long time. I agree with other posters about RP's bench depth needing to be better. And guess what? It will be next season. If Daniel Oturu, Matz Stockman, Eric Curry, and Jarvis Omersa, aren't an upgrade over Bakary and Gaston, I'm going to burn every piece of Gopher crap that I have.

As for the second bolded paragraph, fine stick to the W and L columns. So many people on here are married to the W and L columns. I mean, just look at all those L's! Jesus F'ing Christ could rise from the ashes with a coaching degree and the Gophers might eke out one additional win with this horrendously thin roster. Like you and everyone else I want better results, but it's WRONG to expect better under the circumstances. I'd LOVE to see what coach K would do with these players. And to those who say, then it's RP's fault that our players aren't good enough! They were, until they got hurt. And NO, other teams can't sustain these types of fallbacks and maintain success. No team in the Gophers league anyway.

For the record, I agree with most of what you wrote, and appreciate that most people are backing off of wanting to see RP fired. My biggest issue with GH has become how reactionary so many are. Pre injury we're awesome and show great promise, post injury RP sucks and is a con artist. what-evah
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Keep fighting the good fight man!!! You get it. You really do.

Although personally I'd bet that JC could have eeked out TWO more wins from this squad compared to RP. Coach K, only 1.

But we didn't hire Coach K, nor would Coach K EVER stoop to coaching at UMn. As for JC? Well, in his incredibly merciful and forgiving nature, he may have simply pitied us so much he may have taken the job.
 

bizzle22 said:
Could you please describe what "on the rise" means to you?

Maybe I'm dense, but I have a hard time believing there are sane people who see a team at 3-10 in conference the year after going 11-7 in conference as "on the rise."

And if you are going to list all the excuses again that's not really going to cut it. People might say "a team fighting through a lot of adversity" or something like that, and it would be reasonable, but they wouldn't say we are "on the rise" because we aren't winning or even looking competitive at times. That wouldn't make sense. Or if you are going to cite the recruiting class for next year which is currently at a solid #33 in the country and #7 in the B1G on 247 then I might agree that there is potential for a turnaround, but I definitely wouldn't say "on the rise" without actually seeing those players participate in a college basketball game.
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Maybe you don't fully comprehend with what level of disdain outsiders used to view the Gophers???


Our program was A JOKE!!!! Never, since 97, have outsiders considered UMn a legit contender for a Top 4 finish in Conf, or getting beyond the 2nd round of the NCAA tourney.













































Until last year.

And definitely going into this season. Even after the Curry injury.
 

EG#9 said:
If you think the effort in the first half against Nebraska was acceptable, much less worthy of praise, I just can't respect your opinion on basketball. Someone started a thread during the week without a game asking what the they hoped the Gophers would work on/improve during that break. The majority of the responses had to do with improving the defense. Since that point, we've given up 90 plus points to Iowa and Nebraska in 2 of the 3 games played (not exactly MSU and Purdue).

Once again, in the 10 games since Lynch was suspended the Gophers are 1-9. They are 2-8 against the spread in that time and have lost as favorites (at HOME) according to Vegas and Ken Pom 3 times during that stretch. How can you rationally claim this team is doing something worthy of praise when presented with these facts? If they were merely doing what the current roster was expected to do, they would be a minimum of 4-6 during these past 10 games. Exactly how could the past 10 games have gone worse? The team is underachieving by virtually every tangible metric you could look at. I don't see how it's helpful to the program to accept, much less praise, what we've seen on the court the last 10 games or really all season when you consider some of the uninspired performances during December.
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You do realize that Ken-Pom's ratings are based on ALL OF THEIR GAMES??? He didn't clear the slate and start over once Lynch and Coffey went out. Man, are you that thick skulled???
 

scools12 said:
No one should have to come back to admit they’re wrong if the defense stats go back close to last year.

It’s going to take multiple years in a row of solid defense to prove it’s not a fluke.


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So his 1st 3 years he was sort of winging it while waiting for HIS guys to take a dominant role on the team, and IF 2 of his last 3 seasons, are rated great defensively with the one year they were not being the year with 3.5 of the Top 7 players being out for whatever reason, you would feel the need for several more seasons before seeing it for what it is???


lol. Only a hater.
 

I can see it exactly for what it is. Terrible defense 4 out of 5 years.


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scools12 said:
I can see it exactly for what it is. Terrible defense 4 out of 5 years.


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Fans are sometimes, well, simply EVIL.

First of all, if your players are too good they claim the credit belongs to the players and not the coach.

If the players simply suck, then all the blame lands on the coach.


Well, that is only if they HATE the coach. Of course.



Btw, NONE of the players you seem to expect so much of, would be here if not for Pitino recruiting them and bringing them here.
 

KillmeNow said:
Fans are sometimes, well, simply EVIL.
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That's just the thing to say to people who want to support your program. Sheesh, even I'm not THAT tone deaf.

First of all, if your players are too good they claim the credit belongs to the players and not the coach.

If the players simply suck, then all the blame lands on the coach.

Well, that is only if they HATE the coach. Of course.
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Where in your mind does recruiting become differentiated from the act of game preparation?

If your players are "Too good" isn't that an endorsement of a coach's ability to recruit?

If the players "suck" isn't that a reflection of a coach's ability to prepare them for a game?

If the players "hate" the coach, shouldn't the coach be fired?

If the fans "hate" the doesn't the coach need to up his coaching game and show some knowledge of strategy of the game?
Btw, NONE of the players you seem to expect so much of, would be here if not for Pitino recruiting them and bringing them here.
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How does this help the players? They could have gone to a school where a coach could have gotten more out of them. It is not school specific, but coach specific.

You come off as a guy fighting for his pal's career using a limited capacity to debate and hope to win by steamrolling everyone.


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KillmeNow said:
You do realize that Ken-Pom's ratings are based on ALL OF THEIR GAMES??? He didn't clear the slate and start over once Lynch and Coffey went out. Man, are you that thick skulled???
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I have really held back in addressing you directly, but you should really evaluate your contributions to this board and decide whether they are all "post worthy". You've got to be averaging over 10 posts a day and they all basically say the same thing. It's Dupree McBrAyer, not McBreyer. There has never been a Gopher recruit or player named "Cashman". We all understand that you think this team has "NEVER QUIT" under Pitino.

As for Ken Pom specifically, the predictions are based on the entire season so for the Nebraska game they included 9 games of (mostly) terrible play for the Gophers and still came out with a prediction of a Gopher win. Vegas on the other hand, does not go by the entire season and the Gophers are 2-8 against the spread since the Lynch suspension and have lost 3 times as favorites. This will be my one response to you in this thread, as I skip over most of your posts. I admire your passion for your positions, I just don't find them to be well researched or reasoned.
 

goldenboy said:
I agree. Maybe Vegas doesn't know how dinged up we are (Coffey & McBrayer are complete guesses if they could play right now).
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It's Vegas's job to know. It is Gopherholers to pretend it is worse than it is.
 

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