Doogie talks Pitino fate, interesting Matthew Hurt analysis, skeptical of 2020

Head coaches do the hiring but AD's approve the hires. Jimmy Williams had too many skeletons in the closet to be approved by the AD. From there, the coach chose who he wanted again and the AD approved him. Basically, the coaches hires are subject to background checks of all kinds by the school.
 

I like pitino I really do. But if he does some how tank and gets canned, they absolutely need to hire musselman he already tried to get this job when pitino was hired and he can flat out coach and recruit. Minnesota can field a final four caliber team every year with its own in state talent.
 

I like pitino I really do. But if he does some how tank and gets canned, they absolutely need to hire musselman he already tried to get this job when pitino was hired and he can flat out coach and recruit. Minnesota can field a final four caliber team every year with its own in state talent.

I like Pitino too. No AD is not going to say he isn't 100% behind all his coaches to start the season. Our AD even said Tracy was coming back near the end of the season... so depending what happens and ESPECIALLY if through the grapevine Coyle knows he can land Musselman and have his own guy....that scenario seems pretty plausible if we falter, Hurt goes elsewhere (not getting fired if Hurt signs) and Musselman does want to follow his dad and come here.

All the talk is Nevada is going undefeated into the NCAA Tournament, no matter what, he'll be lots of people's first choice as their next coach. And, Eric is the energy equal to PJ...non stop social media motivation posts.
 
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I wonder how likely it would be to get Musselman...I could see him using his success at Nevada to springboard back to the NBA. I know of another Minnesota basketball team that may be looking for a head coach too...
 

I like Pitino too. No AD is not going to say he isn't 100% behind all his coaches to start the season. Our AD even said Tracy was coming back near the end of the season... so depending what happens and ESPECIALLY if through the grapevine Coyle knows he can land Musselman and have his own guy....that scenario seems pretty plausible if we falter, Hurt goes elsewhere (not getting fired if Hurt signs) and Musselman does want to follow his dad and come here.

All the talk is Nevada is going undefeated into the NCAA Tournament, no matter what, he'll be lots of people's first choice as their next coach. And, Eric is the energy equal to PJ...non stop social media motivation posts.

I agree with this. What seems to be true, though, is that 1) some posters are pretty much to the point of cheering for Pitino's failure and, 2) as you wrote, there is no guarantee at all that we will get Musselman or someone of his ilk.

Why not hope for a great gopher season and for recruiting to pick up as well? How much fun can it be to watch games hoping we lose? Of course, if things go south then that would be the time to consider other options.
 


I wonder how likely it would be to get Musselman...I could see him using his success at Nevada to springboard back to the NBA. I know of another Minnesota basketball team that may be looking for a head coach too...

I think this would be the thing. What are the odds we are the #1 job next spring (if it was available)? Because I’d have to imagine he will be very near the top of a great many coaching search lists
 

I agree with this. What seems to be true, though, is that 1) some posters are pretty much to the point of cheering for Pitino's failure and, 2) as you wrote, there is no guarantee at all that we will get Musselman or someone of his ilk.

Why not hope for a great gopher season and for recruiting to pick up as well? How much fun can it be to watch games hoping we lose? Of course, if things go south then that would be the time to consider other options.

This.
 

I agree with this. What seems to be true, though, is that 1) some posters are pretty much to the point of cheering for Pitino's failure and, 2) as you wrote, there is no guarantee at all that we will get Musselman or someone of his ilk.

Why not hope for a great gopher season and for recruiting to pick up as well? How much fun can it be to watch games hoping we lose? Of course, if things go south then that would be the time to consider other options.

I don't think I have seen anyone cheering for Pitino's failure. I've seen plenty of people say that he has had a very bad first five years (this group includes me, and I think it is tough to argue with) and plenty of people who based on those first five years do not think this year or future years will go well (even though it seems like that is a reasonable prediction based on his first five years, this group actually does not include me). But I think all (or virtually all, there are always a few trolls on a message board) of the posters here would love to see us contend for a B1G title this year, play into the second weekend of the tourney, and begin a run of Bo Ryan or Tom Izzo level success at Minnesota under Pitino.
 

1) The reality is that top recruits will never come to Minnesota consistently. Never have, never will.

2) The other honest reality is that Minnesota has never had a consistently winning program while playing within the lanes of NCAA rules.

3) Sorry friends, MN is a hard place to win at. Pitino is our best hope to win and win in the right way, IMO.

4) As for identity--who cares? Just win!


Responses:

1) That's probably true but we are not unique in that respect. If Wisconsin didn't have the Ryan years, what would Wisconsin have over Minnesota? What does Iowa have over Minnesota? What does Iowa State have over Minnesota? All three of those programs have been more successful than us during the Pitino years. The University of Utah had three consecutive first round draft picks from 2016-2018. I don't think it was the quality of skiing or strength of Mormonism that attracted them. What all of those programs had were men who were some combination of better coaches, player developers, or recruiters. As far as recruiting, Pitino has multiple handicaps that are personal rather than institutional: he doesn't have much of a record of success (or a very long record period), he doesn't have a record of developing players to the extent that they are getting pro attention, and he never played the game at a high level himself.

2) Well, I don't think cheating is the answer although Minnesota because of its prior high profile scandal may enforce higher standards than most.

4) "Identity" isn't the most descriptive word. The questions are "What are your strengths?" or "What characteristics do you want to focus on and develop?" If you don't know that, then you have a difficult time focusing on anything in particular. It's better to do a smaller set of things very well than a larger set of things not-so-well and that isn't just true in sports.

3) Really? Of all the coaches in the nation Pitino is our only hope? You can't possibly believe that.
 



Why not hope for a great gopher season and for recruiting to pick up as well? How much fun can it be to watch games hoping we lose? Of course, if things go south then that would be the time to consider other options.

Did you ever see the movie Major League II? Randy Quaid played a loud-mouthed and die-hard but pessimistic fan. As the team was heating up and seemingly emerging from its losing ways, he kept saying "They'll blow it. They always do."

Having a bit of that attitude about Pitino's teams is understandable. His teams took a dive in three of his previous five years. Even if this year's teams turns out OK, it's natural to have a nagging suspicion that next year will be another dive year. Maybe the year after that will be pretty good and the year after that will be another disappointing year. He has yet to have two good, or even satisfactory, years in a row.
 

If that's true, why wouldn't you pull the trigger and move on after this year? If you can see that we're on the decline in recruiting, why wait for the inevitable ? It's the same reason we moved on from Tubby when we did. It's not that getting to the 2nd round of the NCAA's is unacceptable. It's that it was pretty clear that was the peak and it was going to go downhill from there.

Agreed. I have said on multiple occasions that I don't think Pitino has to make the NCAA tournament this year but he really should make at least the NIT and make some noise in that tournament. If the team squeaks into the NIT with an 18-15 record and only wins a game or so, then ----

1) the body of work after 6 years isn't enough to continue his tenure; AND

2) the excuse of a very promising set of new recruits coming in next year isn't there to overcome the presumption of #1 above.

If we don't do well enough this year, this is likely the optimal time to move on.
 

Did you ever see the movie Major League II? Randy Quaid played a loud-mouthed and die-hard but pessimistic fan. As the team was heating up and seemingly emerging from its losing ways, he kept saying "They'll blow it. They always do."

Having a bit of that attitude about Pitino's teams is understandable. His teams took a dive in three of his previous five years. Even if this year's teams turns out OK, it's natural to have a nagging suspicion that next year will be another dive year. Maybe the year after that will be pretty good and the year after that will be another disappointing year. He has yet to have two good, or even satisfactory, years in a row.

Have no issues with having and expressing concerns. Have them myself. Just have to wonder when somehow Pitino is not given credit for 2016-2017, for example. Another example, the tenor of anger expressed during the first part of the Nebraska game by some posters compared to their reaction to the comeback.

To me, evidence of posts indicates that cetain posters are cheering for Pitino's failure. To be honest, I actually dont have a great problem with this if they are convinced Pitino wont succeed long term, would just ask that they would be fair minded enuf to acknowledge his successes and open minded enuf to allow for the chance that he might succeed.
 

Have no issues with having and expressing concerns. Have them myself. Just have to wonder when somehow Pitino is not given credit for 2016-2017, for example. Another example, the tenor of anger expressed during the first part of the Nebraska game by some posters compared to their reaction to the comeback.

I don't know why anyone wouldn't acknowledge that 2016-17 was a very good (even a bit remarkable) year for the team and coach. I see more of the opposite tendency: those who look at that year, overweight it considerably, and say that year is the measure of this coach's ability. That's like calling a student with semester grades of A, B, C, D, and D an "A" student.

The relative quiet during the second half of the Nebraska game was indicative of the game getting interesting and, consequently, much more of an attraction to watch than write about. I don't know why so many forget Occam's razor: the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.
 



I don't know why anyone wouldn't acknowledge that 2016-17 was a very good (even a bit remarkable) year for the team and coach. I see more of the opposite tendency: those who look at that year, overweight it considerably, and say that year is the measure of this coach's ability. That's like calling a student with semester grades of A, B, C, D, and D an "A" student.

The relative quiet during the second half of the Nebraska game was indicative of the game getting interesting and, consequently, much more of an attraction to watch than write about. I don't know why so many forget Occam's razor: the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.

Not sure I can agree with your thoughts regarding the Nebraska game.

Also, we will no doubt disagree as I give Pitino credit for having last season poised for success until all the player games lost. I see this as potentially being the third year of an upward trajectory. Think that is fair. Now I think it is up to Pitino to maintain that trajectory and that is where the story will be told.
 

I've been clear and consistent on this, but I'm happy to repeat. If you're going to stick with him this long, this is the least logical year to cut bait with him in my opinion. You just lost one of the most productive guards in program history, and you're relying heavily on freshmen. Growing pains this year should not be a firing offense. I'd have gone a different way prior to this based on Pitino not having lived up to the hopes the previous administration had when they brought him in. No 5-star recruits in the most productive talent-producing era in state history, a 35% conference winning percentage, and only one NCAA appearance in 5 years. Norwood hired him hoping he'd either be a recruiting whiz or the next Shaka Smart or both. He has been neither. In contrast, although it's too early to project Lindsay Whalen as a hall-of-fame coach, she's immediately got that team 1) playing great defense, 2) exhibiting a consistent identity on both sides of the ball, and 3) understanding their roles and playing to their strengths. Those are the hallmarks of a great coach.
Relying heavily on freshman? You sound like he is desperate. I happen to like the two freshman starters and want to believe he is relying on them because they are good and not because of his view of the rest of his talent pool. He doesn’t need to start them because he has a ‘weak’ roster but he needs to start them because they deserve to start. This is my tell that he is advancing forward as a coach. Perhaps Hurt sees it this way as well.
 


I would take Mussleman over Pitino every day of the week.

That translates to I'm cheering against the gophers?

This board is unreal. LMAO

Why are you wasting your time fantasizing about a coach who is employed elsewhere when we have a coach who wants to be here and has a good team this year? You don't see how that's toxic?
 

Why are you wasting your time fantasizing about a coach who is employed elsewhere when we have a coach who wants to be here and has a good team this year? You don't see how that's toxic?

Because I believe in year 6, we will finish bottom half of the big 10 yet again and miss the tournament yet again.

Oh, and why am I wasting my time on it.............I have too much free time I guess.

In spite of that, I just may cheer for the gophers to win. LMAO
 

Thank God Pitino hasn't turned
out to be shaka smart. What has that guy done?
 

Because I believe in year 6, we will finish bottom half of the big 10 yet again and miss the tournament yet again.

Oh, and why am I wasting my time on it.............I have too much free time I guess.

In spite of that, I just may cheer for the gophers to win. LMAO

I cant wait to see you suddenly appear during every Gophers loss and tell us about it.
 

I am obviously very skeptical of anything Doogie says, but the segment was interesting because it wasn't intended to a go in a Gopher direction. All of Doogie's comments were made kind of matter of factly as opposed to his usual more dramatic style when he has "scoops". If even one of the recruiting things is true (The Hurts have eliminated Pitino, the 2020 class is shaping up to be another big miss) then you really could make an argument for moving on even with a NCAA tournament berth and immediate exit as Doogie speculated (I don't think I would personally be in favor of making a change under such a hypothetical scenario unless Coyle already knew "his guy" was a done deal).

I am not going to take my time to go back and provide links to disprove the notion that "Minnesota never gets the top in state kids" and that this is somehow a "tough job" that a poster in this thread was so confidently espousing. It's simply not true. A completely off the top of my list of top Minnesota kids that chose to go to Minnesota: Sam Jacobson, Kyle Sanden, Kevin Loge, Joel Pryzbilla, Michael Bauer, Shane Schilling, Rick Rickert, Jerry Holman, Kris Humphries, Spencer Tollackson, Moe Hargrow, Blake Hoffarber, Royce White, Rodney Williams, , Joe Coleman, Jarvis Johnson, Amir Coffey, Daniel Oturu. Every one of these kids was on top 100 or top 150 lists at the time of their commitment (or an elite juco recruit like Holman, you could count Trevor too coming out of Juco). If anything Clem Haskins didn't offer enough Minnesota kids...(Troy Bell stands out) he never offered Nick Horvath who ended up accepting an offer to Duke. Dan Monson started off strong in state but lost steam when he lost Mckenzie to Oklahoma and his plan B Kam Taylor had committed to Wisconsin. Tubby absolutely owned in state recruiting for a while landing just about every one he wanted...problem was the state went through a drought where Joe Coleman was his only target over a 3 year period. At the end of his tenure his inability to make connections with any of the "big 3" was a certainly a factor in his dismissal. Pitino has been up and down in state, but he's had more misses on priority in state kids to non blue bloods than the other 3 (maybe more than the other 3 combined). Losing Theo John to Marquette or a legacy kid like Jericho Sims to Texas stand out. You can make a strong argument that recruiting is different in the era that Pitino is coaching in even compared to what things were like for Tubby and maybe expectations should be altered somewhat. That's a different argument for a different time though.

I am rooting for Pitino. I hope he makes the NCAA's and finally gets a victory there. I can think of fewer than 5 posters who are so fed up with him that they are actively rooting for him to fail. When you look at the entirety of his tenure from his record to his recruiting to the off the court stuff, it's pretty remarkable that the vast majority are willing to give him this year (and some even longer than that).
 

If not for injury and suspension catastrophe, the Gophers were about to get back-to-back top 6 seeds in the NCAA tournament. Crazy uncharted territory.

Pitino is by no means on the hot seat this year. If they can at least be a bubble team this year, I think it's a solid coaching job for this season. I think there is potential here to be a top-6 seed again if luck falls kindly. That'd be THREE years in a row as a top-25, top-6 seed caliber team. Pretty remarkable when it comes to Gopher basketball.

We need to keep working on getting to a sustained success point that allows us to be competitive for Minnesota 5-star recruits. Same story in both football and basketball - there's almost no chance to keeping any of them at home right now. We NEED to stop with the delusional expectation that we are supposed to consistently get out-of-state 4 star and hometown 5 star players at this stage.. Leads to all this stupid talk of "awwww 2019 is a miss, now 2020 is a miss" because they aren't raking in 4 and 5 star classes. It all comes down to how you do with the regular diet of 3-stars with the occasional 4-star sprinkled in. Wisconsin has been a model basketball program for this class of recruits, and Minnesota is starting to show signs of doing just the same. I think Minnesota has the potential to be a much more attractive draw than Wisconsin if they an get to that level of consistency.

It's guys like Tre Williams that will be the key. 3-star guy that everyone pushes into the recruiting dust bin, then all of the sudden they turn out to be a Kalscheur type that out-performs many high 4-star talents.
 
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- Doogie started talking about recruiting, said lot of swing and misses, and said that in 2016 Minnesota got "lucky with Amir" and reiterated a point that Doogie has probably said at least 20 times that if Hoiberg had stayed at ISU that Amir was going there. "You got lucky but you still got Amir Coffey."

- Doogie gave credit to the 2018 class of Oturu/Omersa/Klascheuer, but he has "swung and missed on a ton of 2019 kids and he will swing and miss on Matthew Hurt."


- Doogie said you look at some of the 2020 kids, "Walton from Hopkins, Suggs, Dainja, Carlson, Garcia, do I like Pitino's chances to get 2 of those guys? No, maybe 1, but I don't like his chances to get 2. You gotta get some of these local kids, you really do."

http://www.1500espn.com/mackey-judd-ondemand/

Go Gophers!!

Pretty lazy speculation, not to be surprised, from Doogie (not a fan at all). Its the typical syndrome from a reporter to selectively cite facts to help your argument and for a guy that is supposed to be tuned into sports all the time, he doesn't really seem to understand hoops IMO. Recruiting is only an issue when we miss on a few kids and then all of a sudden its a huge issue. Pitino has struggled with the Fall 2019 signing period, but the signing for this class is not over. More and more, the spring is becoming a HUGE part of recruiting. He has plenty of time to land a nice class and has shown an ability to land nice players in the spring (M.Carr, Springs, Murphy, Lynch and pretty much his first class ever was filling a roster in spring Post Tubby). That said, you need to land some nice players in the Fall so its not panic time. Last year we did that.. this year not so much. If Pitino doesn't land a few this spring, then the pressure will be on. That said, if we have a good year (looking promising), and land a couple nice players (or transfers) this spring, our roster again looks promising with key returning players and bench strength via recruits. A winning season makes recruiting in Fall easier.

Now picking nits. Saying he swung and missed on a ton of kids AND will swing and miss on Hurt. Same thing, but makes it more dramatic to say it twice? We landed really good local kids just last year, for Fu%k sake, we are starting 3 local players on a Big Ten team. What do people want? Also, I think folks forget Marcus Carr is on the team, hes a nice player and essentially is now a 2019 recruit.

It all comes down to winning. Two bad seasons in a row will kill recruiting, so the pressure is on for a nice season. If we have a nice season, recruits will come. If we don't, thats two seasons in a row and recruiting sags and Richard is on hot seat.
 

Because I believe in year 6, we will finish bottom half of the big 10 yet again and miss the tournament yet again.

Oh, and why am I wasting my time on it.............I have too much free time I guess.

In spite of that, I just may cheer for the gophers to win. LMAO

If not for injury and suspension catastrophe, we were pretty much guaranteed of a SECOND CONSECUTIVE top-6 NCAA tournament seed. That is crazy good and definitely a sign that this program is heading in the right direction. Pitino has very little blame for last year. Let's see how this year plays out.
 

If not for injury and suspension catastrophe, we were pretty much guaranteed of a SECOND CONSECUTIVE top-6 NCAA tournament seed. That is crazy good and definitely a sign that this program is heading in the right direction. Pitino has very little blame for last year. Let's see how this year plays out.

I can think of a previous coach who would love it if the standard were "how good do we think we might have been if we never faced any adversity?" This is big time sports, you do t get credit for games you think you could have won under other circumstances.
 

Any of you who blame recruiting on the two new assistant coaches. Could you please point out to me just who the "old" assistants swayed to come to the Gophers?

Then I will provide a list of who they failed to get.

The sad fact is, it's hard to recruit at Minnesota. Over fifty years of Die Hard commercials and movies showing brutal cold doesn't help at all.
 

If not for injury and suspension catastrophe, we were pretty much guaranteed of a SECOND CONSECUTIVE top-6 NCAA tournament seed. That is crazy good and definitely a sign that this program is heading in the right direction. Pitino has very little blame for last year. Let's see how this year plays out.

So we should make assumptions about how last year would have turned out, but we should wait and see how this year turns out? Got it.
 

If not for injury and suspension catastrophe, we were pretty much guaranteed of a SECOND CONSECUTIVE top-6 NCAA tournament seed. That is crazy good and definitely a sign that this program is heading in the right direction. Pitino has very little blame for last year. Let's see how this year plays out.

You keep saying this over and over but it's untrue and impossible to prove. There were some very alarming performances last season before the Lynch suspension came down.

I'm guessing we would've made the tourney as an 8 or 9 seed had Lynch been available and the other injuries not happened, but it is far from a certainty.
 

Relying heavily on freshman? You sound like he is desperate. I happen to like the two freshman starters and want to believe he is relying on them because they are good and not because of his view of the rest of his talent pool. He doesn’t need to start them because he has a ‘weak’ roster but he needs to start them because they deserve to start. This is my tell that he is advancing forward as a coach. Perhaps Hurt sees it this way as well.

How can you not understand what I wrote? I thought it was pretty clear. Any time you rely heavily on freshmen, you're accepting there's going to be a learning curve, which means some good days and some bad days. Hard to be consistent as a team when 40% of your starters are learning on the job.
 

I don't know why anyone wouldn't acknowledge that 2016-17 was a very good (even a bit remarkable) year for the team and coach. I see more of the opposite tendency: those who look at that year, overweight it considerably, and say that year is the measure of this coach's ability. That's like calling a student with semester grades of A, B, C, D, and D an "A" student.

The relative quiet during the second half of the Nebraska game was indicative of the game getting interesting and, consequently, much more of an attraction to watch than write about. I don't know why so many forget Occam's razor: the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.

That team was good, but it was over-seeded in the Tournament as a #5. Based on computer ratings they were a top 35 team and should have been slotted in around 8 or 9. Even had they been healthy going in, a match-up with Middle Tennessee would have been a close to 50/50 game in Vegas. So, a good year, a top-4 finish in a down year in the league. But it must be said, finishing the season as a top-40 team is something that Tubby Smith accomplished multiple times, and he was still fired for plateauing at that level of success. That level of success represents Richard's best season so far.
 




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