Marcus: Gopher basketball early projected lineup

Interesting how people can look at the same thing and have such different interpretations. dpodoll maybe had it the most right in posting that his biggest fear is a middling record this next season. I had not really thought about that before, but maybe best if we are outstanding so everyone
can get on board and will lead to even better recruiting, or be awful so can move on to hopefully a transformative coach.

I know, I wear rose colored glasses, but I think Pitino will be that transformative coach.
It was the right time to replace Tubby, he couldn’t relate to the players. Players would come out of timeouts shrugging their shoulders because they didn’t know what he wanted they to do, and look at the mutiny at Memphis.
It was too early to hire Pitino, but it may have been the only chance for us to get him. We have to live with his learning mistakes that take time. Hopefully some of you will change your tone after we make the dance this year and for years to come.


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I think some posters may have wrongly interpreted optimism on this board with a general satisfaction with Pitino’s tenure thus far. I’m not satisfied, and I’m sure coach isn’t either. However, I think there is solid reasons to be optimistic for this year, and I’m pulling for him and the team to do well.


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I know, I wear rose colored glasses, but I think Pitino will be that transformative coach.
It was the right time to replace Tubby, he couldn’t relate to the players. Players would come out of timeouts shrugging their shoulders because they didn’t know what he wanted they to do, and look at the mutiny at Memphis.
It was too early to hire Pitino, but it may have been the only chance for us to get him. We have to live with his learning mistakes that take time. Hopefully some of you will change your tone after we make the dance this year and for years to come.


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Agree with you. Didn't mean to imply Pitino wouldn't be transformative.
 

If the Gophers went 18-0 in the conference next year there would be those still complaining about Pitino having a 49-59 conference record.

Those are just the facts.

First he has to do the 18-0 to find out ! There will be those that think he is a superstar coach and goes 9-9 in the conference with that all too frequent support of our mediocre basketball seasons. I think 13-5 is well within reach but what will you say if he goes 9-9, has 6 years of no Big Ten Titles of any kind and wins s single NCAA game ? Is that good enough for you ?
 

First he has to do the 18-0 to find out ! There will be those that think he is a superstar coach and goes 9-9 in the conference with that all too frequent support of our mediocre basketball seasons. I think 13-5 is well within reach but what will you say if he goes 9-9, has 6 years of no Big Ten Titles of any kind and wins s single NCAA game ? Is that good enough for you ?

builtbadgers -- I think you said a few pages back you expected the Gophers to be one of the best three conference teams this year. That would be uncharted waters for this program. If that were true, would it be because he is a far superior coach than some give him credit for, a far superior recruiter than some give him credit for, or despite the fact he is the coach?

I don't necessarily disagree with your assessment of the program. However, if we had this conversation 12 months ago following the NCAA season, big ten COY, pre-season top 10-15 team, etc. etc. it would have been ludicrous to suggest he should have been fired. I just get a little nervous when the seas shift so dramatically from season to season, game to game, or whatever.
 


builtbadgers -- I think you said a few pages back you expected the Gophers to be one of the best three conference teams this year. That would be uncharted waters for this program. If that were true, would it be because he is a far superior coach than some give him credit for, a far superior recruiter than some give him credit for, or despite the fact he is the coach?

I don't necessarily disagree with your assessment of the program. However, if we had this conversation 12 months ago following the NCAA season, big ten COY, pre-season top 10-15 team, etc. etc. it would have been ludicrous to suggest he should have been fired. I just get a little nervous when the seas shift so dramatically from season to season, game to game, or whatever.

That 1 season has given him a lot of leeway. He started off Big Ten play 3-6. I think moving on from Tubby was the right move, but Pitino just didn't seem like the right for to replace him. He had 1 season as a head coach where he finish 5th in a low major conference, and to me some of his Roster mismanagement has been due to taking risk that a low major might take (Konate & Gaston, taking on Lynch with red flags, taking Fitz after an ACL injury). Most of classes has been majority guards or wings since he took over.

With that being said, I do like the current assistants because they have had head coaching experience & can hopefully fix our defensive issues. I think that will be the key to the season. Reggie was an eraser. He saved our guards, who are bad defensively. Hopefully Daniel can replicate that. I also think Nate Mason, as good as he was, affected our ball movement offensively. He averaged 4 or 5 assists a game but they were similar to how NBA guards like Harden or Westbrook gets them. They get majority of their assist from going 1 on 1 and dropping off a post player. They don't let other players get into a rhythm because they miss open guys or wait to late to get them the ball.
 

First he has to do the 18-0 to find out ! There will be those that think he is a superstar coach and goes 9-9 in the conference with that all too frequent support of our mediocre basketball seasons. I think 13-5 is well within reach but what will you say if he goes 9-9, has 6 years of no Big Ten Titles of any kind and wins s single NCAA game ? Is that good enough for you ?

Considering how bad the gophers has been in non-cheating years since 81-82... I don’t know maybe. If every 2 to 3 years we get into the top 4 I’d be happy. Preferably getting a championship at some point but knowing that’s not likely in the next 2 years.

Also GopherPlaya, we finished 4th that year.

Edit: builtbadger, would you consider Mark Turgeon a good coach? He hasn’t won a championship in any of his last 3 conferences, Texas a&m, Maryland in acc and Maryland in big ten . (Yes his record is better). Championships are too high a standard alone to say you have to get one to be a good coach.
 

Considering how bad the gophers has been in non-cheating years since 81-82... I don’t know maybe. If every 2 to 3 years we get into the top 4 I’d be happy. Preferably getting a championship at some point but knowing that’s not likely in the next 2 years.

Also GopherPlaya, we finished 4th that year.

Edit: builtbadger, would you consider Mark Turgeon a good coach? He hasn’t won a championship in any of his last 3 conferences, Texas a&m, Maryland in acc and Maryland in big ten . (Yes his record is better). Championships are too high a standard alone to say you have to get one to be a good coach.

Just a good coach , strong recruiter, mediocre development. Way way more winning than Pitino. It is hard to win conference titles but that is what great coaches do. Pitino has a ton of work to do to be in the good category. Averaging 10th place conference finishes is less than mediocre. .500 in the conference is average and he is way below that.
 

Just a good coach , strong recruiter, mediocre development. Way way more winning than Pitino. It is hard to win conference titles but that is what great coaches do. Pitino has a ton of work to do to be in the good category. Averaging 10th place conference finishes is less than mediocre. .500 in the conference is average and he is way below that.


So by that standard even if pitino is 12-6 in the big ten for the next 4 years he would still be a below average coach. Tim miles would need 3 years like that to get over .500. Chris Collins needs 4. Tom crean, while winning the big ten 2 times, ended 20 games below 0.500 in the big ten. It’s really hard to bounce back from a few really really bad seasons. On the other hand maybe a good coach (notice I’m not asking for great) doesn’t have a bad year like Tom Creans 1-17 first season?
 



I think Pitino himself expects to consistently be in the upper tier of the B1G. Ideally he would want to become another MSU. He would be the first to admit that it has not started out as he had hoped. He first has to get good enough players in order to compete at that level. And then even better players to consistently be at the top level. He has finally assembled a roster that is good enough and hopefully deep enough to compete against the better teams in the B1G. Now we will see if he can coach them to that upper tier level. I think he can and that is why I am confident that they will make the tournament.


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Considering how bad the gophers has been in non-cheating years since 81-82... I don’t know maybe. If every 2 to 3 years we get into the top 4 I’d be happy. Preferably getting a championship at some point but knowing that’s not likely in the next 2 years.

Also GopherPlaya, we finished 4th that year.

Edit: builtbadger, would you consider Mark Turgeon a good coach? He hasn’t won a championship in any of his last 3 conferences, Texas a&m, Maryland in acc and Maryland in big ten . (Yes his record is better). Championships are too high a standard alone to say you have to get one to be a good coach.

He's won 64% of his B1G games while Pitino has won 34%. Averages 11.5 B1G wins per year vs 6.2 for Pitino. I'd say "his record is better" is an understatement.
 

So by that standard even if pitino is 12-6 in the big ten for the next 4 years he would still be a below average coach. Tim miles would need 3 years like that to get over .500. Chris Collins needs 4. Tom crean, while winning the big ten 2 times, ended 20 games below 0.500 in the big ten. It’s really hard to bounce back from a few really really bad seasons. On the other hand maybe a good coach (notice I’m not asking for great) doesn’t have a bad year like Tom Creans 1-17 first season?

You make a great point of how hard it is to climb out of a terrible start but he was 8-10 after one year which is about the programs historical conference average. Additionally, if it was easy lots of people would do it and thus not be mediocre. The coaches you use i do not think are very good except for Collins who has by far the toughest conference job. Compare Pitino to the coaches who have got it done ! Look at the programs that have the top 25 number of total wins over the last 5 or 10 years, look at their coaches and see how they were standing after after the 1st 5 years of their careers. I do not think it is acceptable to get the program in the top half of the conference as i expect more.
 

He's won 64% of his B1G games while Pitino has won 34%. Averages 11.5 B1G wins per year vs 6.2 for Pitino. I'd say "his record is better" is an understatement.

Wasn't trying to say Pitino is Turgeon just trying to get builtbager to articulate his stance better as i thought it was a little bit extreme.

I'd be really happy with Turgeon or even Crean's performance in the BIG at this point. Either version one being consistently near the top (except last year) yet not winning or decently wild swings where we win every now and then but are below 0.500 in between.

And Builtbager, I'm not yet sure what to make of Pitino. I think he is still growing into being a coach. I'm not sure he'll be a top coach(he might become one?) but I think he will be in coaching for quite some time. I'm just not sure where it will be.

I actually do think that typically great coaches can get to 6-8 wins in the BIG even with a really bad team so I'm very skeptical of Pitino ever becoming great. I'm just not sure where we as a program go to get a great coach to come here without dealing with some growing pains. Kinda have to get lucky and get an Archie Miller type to start out here.
 



Highly likely ? The team two years ago did not come close to winning the conference, beat 2 good teams all year, won a single conference tourney game, played a mediocre schedule. Not likely for me. Oh well, you have your take.

Can we keep things somewhat factual in here? That team won at (ranked) Purdue, at Northwestern, at (ranked) Maryland, beat MSU on a neutral court, and beat Michigan. It's ridiculous to say we only won one conference tournament game - that's because we earned a double bye lol. We made it to day 4 (aka the semis) and then lost with ~24 hours to prep for no longer having our starting SG. Mediocre schedule is an interesting comment since the conference teams we had to play 2x included ranked Maryland, ranked Wisconsin, and a really good MSU team, and the NCAA committee thought we had a great schedule as evidenced by our seed.

Also, I'm not sure what your definition of close to winning the conference is (I get 3 games doesn't look that close at the end), but we were not eliminated from the conference race until February 28th.

Pitino's results from a total body of work perspective have certainly disappointing, but to handwave the 16-17 season in an attempt to support that broader point is ridiculous.
 

Can we keep things somewhat factual in here? That team won at (ranked) Purdue, at Northwestern, at (ranked) Maryland, beat MSU on a neutral court, and beat Michigan. It's ridiculous to say we only won one conference tournament game - that's because we earned a double bye lol. We made it to day 4 (aka the semis) and then lost with ~24 hours to prep for no longer having our starting SG. Mediocre schedule is an interesting comment since the conference teams we had to play 2x included ranked Maryland, ranked Wisconsin, and a really good MSU team, and the NCAA committee thought we had a great schedule as evidenced by our seed.

Also, I'm not sure what your definition of close to winning the conference is (I get 3 games doesn't look that close at the end), but we were not eliminated from the conference race until February 28th.

Pitino's results from a total body of work perspective have certainly disappointing, but to handwave the 16-17 season in an attempt to support that broader point is ridiculous.

Did not mean to hand wave it off, it was a good season but not great. Believe me i am all in on having a great year this year and in fact in year 6 i expect that. Just have never been one to think that Jerry Kill did a great job or that Pitino has done a good job. This year is different to me. Hiring Jeter will result in far better defense. We have seen one decent defense in 5 years.
 

Thanks for clarifying. Nothing wrong with high standards.
 




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