Pitino

touchdownvikings

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I know there's a thread or two out there devoted to Pitino but my 30-second scan didn't turn them up. So forgive me for starting another. Here are the major factors that have influenced Pitino's tenure in my humble opinion:

(1) In his first two years, he was not trying to build a foundation of a team from the ground up. He was not pursuing his philosophy or his vision of what a successful program looks like. He came in, saw that Hollins and Hollins were talented players who were also "face" of the university kind of guys. And he felt it was wrong to tank their last years to pursue building from the ground up. So he did the best he could to plug holes with transfers and rearrange the existing parts into a logical structure. It's not as though he believed that Dre or Joey King (for example) were exactly the sorts of guys that he wanted to build a team from the ground up with - it's that they were the best immediately available transfer options to plug holes.

(2) It wasn't until year 3 (when no Hollins remained) that he had the "talk" with his AD and said "listen, I'm not going to plug holes that exist in a program that is constituted largely of players that I obtained to plug holes. I did the right thing by Hollins and Hollins, but that's over and I'm building from the ground up." So year 3 was ugly but necessary.

(3) Year 4 we began to see the fruits of building a program from the ground up according to Pitino's vision. The main issue plaguing the team was depth. Pitino could not both rebuild a program from the ground up and give it depth in one year during Year 3.

(4) Part of the depth problem was Pitino's "reach" with Konate and Diedhiou. These two soaked up scholarships and left Pitino with no ability to add depth behind Lynch or Murph. This is a problem that took a single decision to create, but 4 years to rectify. Pitino could have run them off and that would have benefitted the team from a win-loss perspective. But that would have been at the cost of his character. I'll take a high character coach every day of the week and twice on Sundays. It's not as though Pitino didn't definitely see the problem and didn't understand what many other coaches would do. He has character and I respect him for that.

(5) Year 5. Lynch legal problems. Amir and Curry injuries. Pree injured and playing but not practicing. The only good thing to come out of this year was that Konate and Diedhiou finally graduated. The scholarships are finally open to create depth.

(6) So here we are in Year 6. I think Pitino being a man of high character has created some of the "problems." Basically his high character prevented him from destroying the final seasons of Hollins and Hollins in the name of rebuilding. It also prevented him from running off Konate and Diedhiou.

The main failures I see are: (i) recruiting two projects like Konate and Diedhiou in the same year; (ii) taking too many risks on high ceiling/low character players; (iii) occasionally aiming to "high" on the recruiting trail - especially in the context of out of state kids with high ratings and no real ties to MN.

Bottom line: (i) I do not see Pitino repeating his failures - he has learned from them; (ii) he had "easy" ways out in a few instances and showed character in not taking the easy paths - this pays off in time and is simply the right thing in any event; (iii) he is a natural and gifted communicator who is unusually candid and this undoubtedly helps his players develop and understand his vision; (iv) it was not reasonable to say "it's Year 5 and look where the program is" because he did not start building the program until Year 3.

I do not support firing Pitino in the name of tit-for-tat with Tubby. Pitino as a man and coach is moving in the right direction and so is the team. I do however hereby BEG him to let IW play 30+ minutes per night for reasons I have articulated in other threads!
 

I like Richard. When he had available players he proved he is a capable coach...the Springs, Mason injuries ended that season. NIT title was a significant accomplishment under the circumstances. He was scouring parking lots to add players in May and June when he got the job. The Hollins are nice, but that's all there was.

His own roster management decisions are the cause of many of his woes. No alternative point guard this season is mind numbingly short sighted.

How well we play this month is going to tell a story. We need to win nearly all the January games. I think we have to beat Wisconsin or Michigan. Beat Illinois on the road and win all our home games.
 

Who is Tubby?
Pitino stands or falls based upon his own body of work. This is year 6. This season determines if he stands or falls.
Tubby is long, long gone.
 

I will tell you what, if he went into the AD's office to have the "talk" in year 3 he should have been fired on the spot. If true that needed to be discussed much earlier.

That said, I cut Pitino a lot of slack since he works for a university that chastised him for not filling up the rental car on a recruiting trip. It still blows my mind that happened.
 

It is amazing to me that some treat inheriting the two Hollins boys as upperclassmen like they were some kind of liability that Pitino had to overcome.
 


(1) In his first two years, he was not trying to build a foundation of a team from the ground up. He was not pursuing his philosophy or his vision of what a successful program looks like. He came in, saw that Hollins and Hollins were talented players who were also "face" of the university kind of guys. And he felt it was wrong to tank their last years to pursue building from the ground up.
(2) It wasn't until year 3 (when no Hollins remained) that he had the "talk" with his AD and said "listen, I'm not going to plug holes that exist in a program that is constituted largely of players that I obtained to plug holes. I did the right thing by Hollins and Hollins.....
(4) Part of the depth problem was Pitino's "reach" with Konate and Diedhiou. These two soaked up scholarships and left Pitino with no ability to add depth behind Lynch or Murph. This is a problem that took a single decision to create, but 4 years to rectify. Pitino could have run them off and that would have benefitted the team from a win-loss perspective. But that would have been at the cost of his character. I'll take a high character coach every day of .......
I agree with a lot of your view. Sure he wanted to keep part of the existing face of the Hollies on the team. That was a mistake by a young coach. Agreed a class move but an older coach wouldn’t have done what he did. Did he go have a talk with the AD? I doubt that happened. Your assessment on Konate and Diedhiou: My take, he just recruited poorly and I agree that he has learned from that. Overall I think he has grown a lot as a coach and now his best years are right in front of him starting this year.
 

I will tell you what, if he went into the AD's office to have the "talk" in year 3 he should have been fired on the spot. If true that needed to be discussed much earlier.

That said, I cut Pitino a lot of slack since he works for a university that chastised him for not filling up the rental car on a recruiting trip. It still blows my mind that happened.
the gas tank issue was the biggest joke of that year. Pitino should have started a ‘Go Fund Me campaign’ labeled “Please fund my rental car gas tank.”
 

the gas tank issue was the biggest joke of that year. Pitino should have started a ‘Go Fund Me campaign’ labeled “Please fund my rental car gas tank.”

And all for the investigation cost of what, $900,000 or so? With the money going to some law firm the U is in bed with. What a disgrace that was.
 

Pitino has the rest of this season to accomplish something. Why start making excuses for him with 18 games left in the Big Ten?
 



What I'm hearing throughout this thread and others is a strong desire to spin the Pitino tenure into some sort of success. The reason is clearly his likability, which I don't dispute. He is a likable guy, and we all identify with a young parent who likes living here and wouldn't want to have to upend their life if they were to lose their job. But the truth is that, if you judge performance on conference winning percentage and NCAA tournament wins, he's underperforming what should be possible at Minnesota, and he's been no better than previous coaches who were fired based on those metrics.
 

But the truth is that, if you judge performance on conference winning percentage and NCAA tournament wins, he's underperforming what should be possible at Minnesota, and he's been no better than previous coaches who were fired based on those metrics.

And firing those coaches helped us how?

You have to go back to the mid-'90s to find Minnesota posting back-to-back winning seasons in the B1G. And those seasons come complete with an asterisk and a note that says "unofficial record -- academic fraud."

From there you have to go back 40 years to find consecutive winning seasons. Those seasons have their own asterisk. "Records unofficial due to NCAA sanctions; team barred from post-season."

Let's look back a little further. Here we go: 1971-72 and 1972-73 we were a combined 21-7 in the B1G. And no sanctions!

If winning at Minnesota was easy, someone would have done it by now. So I'll ride with Pitino for a while, as long as the off-court scandals are a thing of the past.

JTG
 

And firing those coaches helped us how?

You have to go back to the mid-'90s to find Minnesota posting back-to-back winning seasons in the B1G. And those seasons come complete with an asterisk and a note that says "unofficial record -- academic fraud."

From there you have to go back 40 years to find consecutive winning seasons. Those seasons have their own asterisk. "Records unofficial due to NCAA sanctions; team barred from post-season."

Let's look back a little further. Here we go: 1971-72 and 1972-73 we were a combined 21-7 in the B1G. And no sanctions!

If winning at Minnesota was easy, someone would have done it by now. So I'll ride with Pitino for a while, as long as the off-court scandals are a thing of the past.

JTG

People keep talking as if program success is tied to how often you fire coaches. Why would that have anything to do with anything? That's completely illogical and irrational. The key is whether or not you HIRE the RIGHT person rather than how often you FIRE the WRONG person. Similarly, keeping the wrong person in order to avoid firing a coach for the sake of not firing coaches does nothing to help your program. I don't see how people don't get that.
 
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So we've hired what, four WRONG coaches in a row? Or do you include Clem in the WRONG bunch, too, since there were those pesky infraction thingies? If so, I guess that means you have to go back to 1975 since we hired the RIGHT coach: Jim Dutcher.

Yeah, hiring the RIGHT coach is easy. I don't know why everyone doesn't do it.

JTG
 



So we've hired what, four WRONG coaches in a row? Or do you include Clem in the WRONG bunch, too, since there were those pesky infraction thingies? If so, I guess that means you have to go back to 1975 since we hired the RIGHT coach: Jim Dutcher.

Yeah, hiring the RIGHT coach is easy. I don't know why everyone doesn't do it.

JTG

Tubby was a stupid hire. He underperformed at the premier program in CBB and was burnt out from the pressure. Should have gone with a young hungry coach.
I wonder how the program would have been if Dutcher hadn’t quit due to the forced forfeit.
 

And firing those coaches helped us how?

You have to go back to the mid-'90s to find Minnesota posting back-to-back winning seasons in the B1G. And those seasons come complete with an asterisk and a note that says "unofficial record -- academic fraud."

From there you have to go back 40 years to find consecutive winning seasons. Those seasons have their own asterisk. "Records unofficial due to NCAA sanctions; team barred from post-season."

Let's look back a little further. Here we go: 1971-72 and 1972-73 we were a combined 21-7 in the B1G. And no sanctions!

If winning at Minnesota was easy, someone would have done it by now. So I'll ride with Pitino for a while, as long as the off-court scandals are a thing of the past.

JTG
The question is not how long you will ride with Pitino, but how long King Coil [emoji216], the Snake Coyle, will ride with Pitino.
So far, we have been a mid tier/low-tier basketball program for nearly 20 years.
 

The question is not how long you will ride with Pitino, but how long King Coil [emoji216], the Snake Coyle, will ride with Pitino.
So far, we have been a mid tier/low-tier basketball program for nearly 20 years.

Yeah, I doubt he'll solicit my opinion. :D

But unless it's situation like the football team, where Coyle had the replacement picked out and was fairly sure of getting him, I don't think he'll be in a big hurry to cut Pitino. If you look back at the last 40 years, you have to acknowledge this ain't an easy place to win. And if the off-court distractions are over, Pitino is going to have some slack.

Just my opinion. But I think it's more defensible than the contrary.

JTG
 

Yeah, I doubt he'll solicit my opinion. :D

But unless it's situation like the football team, where Coyle had the replacement picked out and was fairly sure of getting him, I don't think he'll be in a big hurry to cut Pitino. If you look back at the last 40 years, you have to acknowledge this ain't an easy place to win. And if the off-court distractions are over, Pitino is going to have some slack.

Just my opinion. But I think it's more defensible than the contrary.

JTG

We have Pitino now, this year but it as though people think he is a coaching super star or star in the making based on what. Because they want him to be. There are coaches who would have won the conference by now or gone to a final 4 or at least a elite 8 or conference tourney championship. The problem is those guys are really hard to find and even more difficult to hire. It was as least as difficult to win at UW BUT THEY DID IT. It was really hard at UVA but they did it, they are doing it now at Virginia Tech. They did it at Rhode Island. It got done at UCONN. Howland is doing it now. Bryce Drew will get it done at Vandy. It is extremely difficult to do and that is what your paid the big dollars to do. Mediocre and worse is not acceptable. Pitino still has time. I expect a huge year now, this year. That still does not make you a super star, you have to build it first and then win for a long time. The mistake was made in not building a culture that is your identity. Play lockdown defense everyday. No one has built anything anywhere outside of the blue bloods that was sustainable by not being great on defense. The research is simple. This team is equipped to be incredible on defense but it must be taught everyday, every possession and those that do not do it sit ! Go Gophers.
 

Remember Ray Meyer at DePaul? Remember how great a coach his son Joey was?
Point is...just cause the old man was great...it doesn't mean the son will be great.
So far, son Pitino has been more like Joey Meyer. I like the kid, but he hasn't produced anything great over his 6 years at Minnesota.
 

I’ll start another Pitino thread tomorrow. This topic has not been discussed nearly enough. As far as I can tell, no knew opinions in here. We won’t know anything until the season progresses. Just stick to the threads that already exist.
 

We have Pitino now, this year but it as though people think he is a coaching super star or star in the making based on what. Because they want him to be. There are coaches who would have won the conference by now or gone to a final 4 or at least a elite 8 or conference tourney championship. The problem is those guys are really hard to find and even more difficult to hire. It was as least as difficult to win at UW BUT THEY DID IT. It was really hard at UVA but they did it, they are doing it now at Virginia Tech. They did it at Rhode Island. It got done at UCONN. Howland is doing it now. Bryce Drew will get it done at Vandy. It is extremely difficult to do and that is what your paid the big dollars to do. Mediocre and worse is not acceptable. Pitino still has time. I expect a huge year now, this year. That still does not make you a super star, you have to build it first and then win for a long time. The mistake was made in not building a culture that is your identity. Play lockdown defense everyday. No one has built anything anywhere outside of the blue bloods that was sustainable by not being great on defense. The research is simple. This team is equipped to be incredible on defense but it must be taught everyday, every possession and those that do not do it sit ! Go Gophers.

UCONN??????

And you were the one preaching about no cheating?????

Slick Jim!!!!!

You sir are a fraud.
 

UCONN??????

And you were the one preaching about no cheating?????

Slick Jim!!!!!

You sir are a fraud.

More name calling, give me proof of UCONN cheating when he built it. No forfeited final 4's.
 

Don’t you guys ever get sick of this crap?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

Richard Pitino seems like a decent guy. The question is over his coaching and recruiting ability.

Granted, his tenure has been marked by off-court issues and injuries. so, one could make the argument that Pitino is unlucky - or make the argument that a better coach would have handled those issues more effectively.

And, to be sure, unless you're Duke or Kentucky, and can sign a class of 4* and 5* Mc Donald's All-Americans every year, most coaches will have a few misses on recruiting. You just don't want to have multiple misses in the same class.

But, back to my starting point - Pitino seems like a decent guy. I'd like to see him do well at MN. But, the clock is ticking. He needs to have a good season this year, and follow it up with some solid recruiting. I agree that changing coaches just for the sake of changing coaches is not necessarily a formula for success - but at some point, you have to see results.
 

It is amazing to me that some treat inheriting the two Hollins boys as upperclassmen like they were some kind of liability that Pitino had to overcome.

Most coaches following a guy who got fired take over bad teams. Pitino took over an NCAA tournament team. I guess it put him at a huge disadvantage. :confused:
 

More name calling, give me proof of UCONN cheating when he built it. No forfeited final 4's.

Go Tar Heels!!!!!!! No forfeited final 4's!!!

Slick Jim was a cheater. Anyone who is honest will admit it. Anyone dishonest will not.
 

Richard Pitino seems like a decent guy. The question is over his coaching and recruiting ability.

Granted, his tenure has been marked by off-court issues and injuries. so, one could make the argument that Pitino is unlucky - or make the argument that a better coach would have handled those issues more effectively.

And, to be sure, unless you're Duke or Kentucky, and can sign a class of 4* and 5* Mc Donald's All-Americans every year, most coaches will have a few misses on recruiting. You just don't want to have multiple misses in the same class.

But, back to my starting point - Pitino seems like a decent guy. I'd like to see him do well at MN. But, the clock is ticking. He needs to have a good season this year, and follow it up with some solid recruiting. I agree that changing coaches just for the sake of changing coaches is not necessarily a formula for success - but at some point, you have to see results.
This^^^^
 

Go Tar Heels!!!!!!! No forfeited final 4's!!!

Slick Jim was a cheater. Anyone who is honest will admit it. Anyone dishonest will not.

Are you ignoring all those that have won without cheating, all those other examples ? That is less than honest.
 

Patino needs to get to the big dance or a big recruiting year... if you want to be an apologist for him continue on
 

Tubby was a stupid hire. He underperformed at the premier program in CBB and was burnt out from the pressure. Should have gone with a young hungry coach.
I wonder how the program would have been if Dutcher hadn’t quit due to the forced forfeit.

Hind sight is always 20/20.

it was a great hire at the time....kidding yourself you think otherwise
 

Are you ignoring all those that have won without cheating, all those other examples ? That is less than honest.

Slick Jim badger built. Slick Jim. Dirty as they come. And you cited him and his program as a standard to work towards.

You ignore all those that cheat and maintain competitive advantages year after year, and at the same time claim the others should win. Big.

Yabut.
 




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