What should be our expectations for Gopher Men's basketball?

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Otis

Otis

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We sure like to talk about coaches and their effectiveness a lot on this website, and it seems most of it is pretty negative. But what are we basing that on? We sure as heck aren't Kentucky or even Purdue for that matter.

Prior to 1969 (50 years ago) the Gophers won6 B1G championships in Men's basketball. Most back when Peach baskets may have still been in use.

Since 1969, We have won the B1G THREE times, that's right 3! Of those 3, one has been vacated due to academic fraud and the one with Coach Musselman you can be pretty sure he cheated.

So, The nadir of Gopher basketball occurred under Jim Dutcher in 1982 with a recruiting class ranked #1 in the nation and a 7'4" home state player. Since then, here is the breakdown of our finishes in B1G play:

13th place: 1
11th place: 1
10th place: 4
9th place: 7
8th place: 3
7th place: 2
6th place: 6
5th place: 2
4th place: 3

vacated: 6

6 of those 8th and 9th place finishes occurred when there were only 10 teams. So don't get all excited about not having many double digit places simply because there weren't enough teams to put us in a lower spot.

In the past 35 years, 3 coaches have finished at the recent high spot of 4th place without cheating. Clem Haskins, Dan Monson and Richard Pitino. Tubby never finished higher than 6th.

Clem had some pretty bad year in his first 7 including 3 9th place finishes in his first 5! I guess we should have ran him out of town at that point! Anyway, he fixed that by cheating.

Yes, Pitino has the 2 worst finishes in Gopher history and tied the previous worst finish before he was hired, but he also has the best finish in the past 35 years and most certainly would have come close to that last year with no injuries and legal disputes.

So, what should we be happy with?

Anything above 6th place is higher than our historical expectations.
 

Achieve what Clem did his last 11 years (89-99) without cheating:
-Make the NCAA's ~2/3 of the time (Clem didn't quite make this, he was 6/11 but in a 68-team era he would have made 7 or 8).
-Once every 5 years or so make a Sweet 16.
-Once a decade contend for a conference title/Final Four.
 
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Otis said:
We sure like to talk about coaches and their effectiveness a lot on this website, and it seems most of it is pretty negative. But what are we basing that on? We sure as heck aren't Kentucky or even Purdue for that matter.

Prior to 1969 (50 years ago) the Gophers won6 B1G championships in Men's basketball. Most back when Peach baskets may have still been in use.

Since 1969, We have won the B1G THREE times, that's right 3! Of those 3, one has been vacated due to academic fraud and the one with Coach Musselman you can be pretty sure he cheated.

So, The nadir of Gopher basketball occurred under Jim Dutcher in 1982 with a recruiting class ranked #1 in the nation and a 7'4" home state player. Since then, here is the breakdown of our finishes in B1G play:

13th place: 1
11th place: 1
10th place: 4
9th place: 7
8th place: 3
7th place: 2
6th place: 6
5th place: 2
4th place: 3

vacated: 6

6 of those 8th and 9th place finishes occurred when there were only 10 teams. So don't get all excited about not having many double digit places simply because there weren't enough teams to put us in a lower spot.

In the past 35 years, 3 coaches have finished at the recent high spot of 4th place without cheating. Clem Haskins, Dan Monson and Richard Pitino. Tubby never finished higher than 6th.

Clem had some pretty bad year in his first 7 including 3 9th place finishes in his first 5! I guess we should have ran him out of town at that point! Anyway, he fixed that by cheating.

Yes, Pitino has the 2 worst finishes in Gopher history and tied the previous worst finish before he was hired, but he also has the best finish in the past 35 years and most certainly would have come close to that last year with no injuries and legal disputes.

So, what should we be happy with?

Anything above 6th place is higher than our historical expectations.
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In your comments, you cite the best finish in the last 35 years of Gophers basketball and acknowledge last year would have been the same absent historically bad luck. However, you initiated the "Time to Fire Pitino" thread after the Illinois game. I'd ask you the same question. "What would you be happy with?"
 

howeda7 said:
Achieve what Clem did his last 11 years without cheating. Make the NCAA's ~2/3 of the time (Clem didn't quite make this, but in a 68-team era he probably would have been close). Once every 5 years or so make a Sweet 16. Once a decade contend for a conference title/Final Four.
Click to expand...

We have made the NCAAs 13 times in the past 50 years. 5 times in the past 20. Some of those were thrown out.

Expecting more than 1 trip every 4 years is historically not accurate.
 

golfing18now said:
In your comments, you cite the best finish in the last 35 years of Gophers basketball and acknowledge last year would have been the same absent historically bad luck. However, you initiated the "Time to Fire Pitino" thread after the Illinois game. I'd ask you the same question. "What would you be happy with?"
Click to expand...

Lol!

Forgive me, I was weak. But come-on 25+ points to a winless team!
 


Otis said:
We have made the NCAAs 13 times in the past 50 years. 5 times in the past 20. Some of those were thrown out.

Expecting more than 1 trip every 4 years is historically not accurate.
Click to expand...

We're talking about expectations. What we did from 89-99 is not that remarkable and can certainly be replicated. Making the NCAA's before 1985 was very difficult, so saying 13 in 50 years is misleading/irrelevant. Clem made it 6 times in an 11 year stretch. Tubby made it 3/6. It's not that hard to do.
 

We should not be happy with the last 50 years. That's for sure. Dutcher used to say that he expected to have a team that competed for the Big Ten title at least once every four years. I would agree with that. At some point, we are going to need to find a coach that does things right, develops players and has us competing at the level Dutcher discussed above. We are going to need to stick with such a coach through thick and thin in order to build long term program consistency. Is it Pitino or is it the next guy or the guy after that? I don't know.

We have the advantage here of being the one D1 school in the state for buckets and we are now starting to produce more D1 players.

The disadvantage seems to be that the press and the local coaches don't love the Gopher program and don't back it. The fans have a ton of other pro sports choices and have become a little tepid over the years after being one of the most rabid fan bases in the Big Ten. All of that said- the players don't think it's cool to choose the U of M- so the best tend to choose Duke or Kansas or Arizona if the can get those offers.

Further disadvantage is that players from outside the state seem to have this crazy notion that it is cold up here.

Finally, there is the last 50 years and opposing coaches no how to recruit against that...I'm just guessing.

At some point a coach has to do something special to make a break with history. There are two times I thought that it would happen:

1. When Clem took us to the Final Four I thought we were going to be good for 10 years going forward. I figured that Clem with that performance in his pocket and his ability to develop players we were going to be a great program. Then Ganglehoff....

2. When Pitino had the turnaround year 11-7 with a fairly young team - I was sure we were headed for a nice run that would erase the stains of the past.
Sure enough we started the next season on the roll and were in the Top Ten and being discussed as potential conference champs and final four contenders. Then Lynch, Curry, Coffey, McBrayer, Mason.......
 
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When hearing about Clem among people from time to time. I'm always dismayed that people get mad at Gangleholff (especially Sid). She did us a favor and more importantly the student athletics a favor. What were the players learning as to their major in accomplishing skills? Absolutely nothing and clearly sent the wrong message to each one of them involved.
 




#2Gopher said:
When hearing about Clem among people from time to time. I'm always dismayed that people get mad at Gangleholff (especially Sid). She did us a favor and more importantly the student athletics a favor. What were the players learning as to their major in accomplishing skills? Absolutely nothing and clearly sent the wrong message to each one of them involved.
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You are right about that, I didn't mean it that way- but it did happen. At the same time- that doesn't happen to certain other schools. As Burner says- the playing field is not level on the cheating issue and we are a lone D1 school in a fairly big town. The newspaper guys are digging for this stuff. Not so much in Ann Arbor or Iowa City or Bloomington, Ind., Madison, Columbus, where I have a feeling that the programs are better protected.
 

Otis said:
We have made the NCAAs 13 times in the past 50 years. 5 times in the past 20. Some of those were thrown out.

Expecting more than 1 trip every 4 years is historically not accurate.
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You make a good point but I would say that making the tournament 50% of the time is not an unreasonable expectation.

Making it 2/3rds of the time is actually pretty difficult and if someone had the time to go through the top 60 teams or so for the last 6 years, I suspect he would find that fewer teams than he thought made the NCAA tournament in 4 of those years. In the Big Ten, the following teams have done that:

Michigan
Michigan State
Purdue
Wisconsin
Ohio State

So, only 5 of 14 Big Ten teams have met that standard.
 

We fired Tubby after winning an NCAA tourney game....it's very difficult to make the MN fan base happy.

Last year should have been a tourney team...this year will be....and that would be a 50% make for Pitino, which is what I expect from a coach



and yes, I know....shoulda woulda coulda
 

Having a mediocre past for me is zero reason to expect to meet our average. I expect to contend for the top of the conference half the time, WIN 30 games once every 6, get into the tourney at least half the time. I expect to strike gold with a coach for once and change from thinking .500 is good. I expect to be one of the four best programs in the conference. I expect 13-7,12-8 or better. Will not even go into the NCAA expectations as the tourney is a crap shoot at one and done and if you go many times you will have years you advance. I expect to have a clean program. It is a lie that all winners cheat. Every city has one writer worth their salt to check and track the campus police blotter and the local police blotter. Excuses really are for a loser mentality. All energy has to be focused on building a winner without cheating. Super difficult or everyone would do it, everyone would be a special coach. I tracked coaches and programs for 40 years to see how the non blue bloods did it, who gained blue blood status , how they did it and who lost it and how. I took out UNC for rampant cheating academically. In some cases i had inside information either by professional association, having a friendship, or having a relative play for a coach. I removed the bias based on the results of winning. In every single case it was was coaching driven, your special at it or your not. It is the same in every profession. Set the goals high. Leadership from the top, hire great people That is the most difficult part. Know what kind of program you want to be, know who you are. Never settle for average defense. It is a simple exercise to see how teams emerged from decades of losing in a power 6 conference and then emerged to be a top 4 program year after year. They did it with those rare coaches that are special by tremendous due diligence on who they were. They had a plan on who to talk too and those were the people with the best basketball minds alive. Then they implemented a well thought out plan on how to get the right guy. They talked to Knight, Coach K, Jerry West, Keady (basketball savant by the way) going back further they talked to Wooden. They talked to coaches who had coached against them or been to their clinics to learn something innovative that was time tested. It is a rare occurance but in each conference you will find schools that did it. It has never happened here. We have had terrible AD's with terrible connections and worse plans.
 



Gopherbbdude said:
We fired Tubby after winning an NCAA tourney game....it's very difficult to make the MN fan base happy.

Last year should have been a tourney team...this year will be....and that would be a 50% make for Pitino, which is what I expect from a coach



and yes, I know....shoulda woulda coulda
Click to expand...

Iam still on board with Pitino and this team but there is no way to overlook a historically bad conference record, miserable road ranked victories and a near zero for tourney victories in pre season tourneys, conference tourneys, NCAA tourneys. Throw away the NIT trophies those truly are for losers. Never make excuses. The teams i have seen that had their season ruined from injuries is longer than these posts. Every single coach has them. I do not want to change coaches, i want to win now, next year and 4 out of 5 years and i am not talking 9-9 counting as winning. If we make a change i do not want Tim Miles. Hell, i would hire Dave Thorson over him as he will install absolute rules and hard as nails defense. Coyle is in a far better position to make a great hire than any AD here ever. People can laugh at Fleck but it was a great hire of someone football people loved and knew about and other programs craved. He had more recommendations from coaching legends than anyone else on the list. Plus, that job is ten fold tougher than basketball but by he installed a culture day one and will not tolerate bad character. Whalen came with as many referrals as Fleck. Coyle knows the landscape and has way better contacts than that moron Teague. Considering that Pitino was way down the list i will take him but how we went down that list was a joke.
 

No matter the history, if your expectation isn’t to win at the highest levels then you’ve guaranteed you won’t.
 

bga1 said:
You are right about that, I didn't mean it that way- but it did happen. At the same time- that doesn't happen to certain other schools. As Burner says- the playing field is not level on the cheating issue and we are a lone D1 school in a fairly big town. The newspaper guys are digging for this stuff. Not so much in Ann Arbor or Iowa City or Bloomington, Ind., Madison, Columbus, where I have a feeling that the programs are better protected.
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And lets not forget East Lansing.
 

A legitimate expectation is somewhere between 6 and 10 in the B1G every season.
We are capable of getting flawed basketball players who are not rounded out in all aspects of the game. Every once in awhile we get a kid that has all the skills, but that's one out of ten at best.
I would love to get players at the level of blue blood programs, but there is nothing here in Minnesota that naturally invites them or makes a person want to spend 12 months here. Heck, most Minnesotans look up plane tickets and trips to leave Minnesota in winter. What would naturally draw a kid here above other places? It's a tough sell. 6-10 in the B1G is a realistic expectation.
 

Some guy said:
No matter the history, if your expectation isn’t to win at the highest levels then you’ve guaranteed you won’t.
Click to expand...

Well said. You said what i tried saying but you did it in less than 20 words.
 

With the high level of HS talent in Minnesota, I expect the Gophers to make the NCAA, be in the top 5 BIG teams and make a serious for the BIG title once every 5 years. There are very good players right in the shadow of the Barn.

In football, the MN HS talent isn't nearly as good thus the need to recruit far and wide and Fleck seems to be on the right path. Pitino has to step it up or find someone who can get the best to stay home.
 


MennoSota said:
A legitimate expectation is somewhere between 6 and 10 in the B1G every season.
We are capable of getting flawed basketball players who are not rounded out in all aspects of the game. Every once in awhile we get a kid that has all the skills, but that's one out of ten at best.
I would love to get players at the level of blue blood programs, but there is nothing here in Minnesota that naturally invites them or makes a person want to spend 12 months here. Heck, most Minnesotans look up plane tickets and trips to leave Minnesota in winter. What would naturally draw a kid here above other places? It's a tough sell. 6-10 in the B1G is a realistic expectation.
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There are many talented HS players right in the shadow of the Barn. We need a coach who can get more of these kids to stay home rather than going to Duke, Wisconsin, Xavier, Stanford, Colorado, Marquette, etc.

Said that, my expectation is for the Gophers to be in the upper third of the BIG, make the NCAA and win a BIG title once every five years.

Good luck! I know.
 

Bayfield Gopher said:
There are many talented HS players right in the shadow of the Barn. We need a coach who can get more of these kids to stay home rather than going to Duke, Wisconsin, Xavier, Stanford, Colorado, Marquette, etc.

Said that, my expectation is for the Gophers to be in the upper third of the BIG, make the NCAA and win a BIG title once every five years.

Good luck! I know.
Click to expand...
Win a B1G title once every five years. That's a goal to try reach. I don't expect it will happen, but it is a goal to shoot for.
 

Some guy said:
No matter the history, if your expectation isn’t to win at the highest levels then you’ve guaranteed you won’t.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you mean by "your" expectation. Those indefinite pronouns can cause problems. If you mean "us," our expectations don't matter that much. It's the expectations of the university's decision makers and athletic fundraisers that matter.

But this thread is about "our" expectations. We can want to win at the highest levels but if we expect to win at the highest levels right now, disappointment is inevitable.
 

What's a realistic expectation for Iowa or Iowa State (as I sit and watch the #17 Cyclones lead Oklahoma)?
 



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